Title: Hidden Currents

Author: Karen

Fandom: Battlestar Galactica

Paring: Boomer/Giles

Rating: R

Status: New, complete

Archive: Yes.

Series/Sequel: No

Disclaimers: No copyright infringement intended; this is purely for entertainment.

Summary: When Giles falls in love with Boomer, his long-buried past begins to re-emerge

Notes: Includes Giles/Boomer first time

Warning: Oblique refs to non-con sex

Hidden Currents

by Karen

Boomer was sprawled on his stomach, blankets up to his shoulderblades and his arms outstretched, one of them over the ribs of his bedmate. Giles wasn't sure, but he thought his lover was in that twilight between dreams and waking, just lying and drifting in a delicious and easy haze; Boomer was the kind of lucky son-of-a-dagget who could stay there a long time. And the aud was playing one of his favorites: rain coming down in a soothing arrhythmic patter that reminded him of his lost home. Boomer had always loved rainy days, from gentle mists to the full-fledged thunderstorms that raged through Leontyne-on-the-Sea every summer. With his eyes closed, he could pretend he was back there...

Giles slid out from under his arm, carefully and quietly, hoping not to wake him if he was asleep, or disturb him if he wasn't. Padding into the turbowash, he dressed quickly. When he came back out, he found that Boomer wasn't asleep after all; as he picked up his blaster the dark man asked, "Where are you going?"

"Back to the barracks," Giles said. "Go back to sleep."

Boomer turned over. "Don't," he said.

"Come on, Boom," he said impatiently. "You know non-coms can't be trusted out all night like you young gentlemen."

Boomer sat up. "Gi—" he started.

But Giles was already regretting the words. He reached out and touched Boomer's cheek briefly, saying, "Look, sorry. Nothing personal, you know that. I wouldn't have a commission for all the tea in lost Kitai; I just don't want to leave. But you got the room till morning; use it. Go back to sleep." He picked his jacket up off the chair. "I'll see you later."

The door shut softly behind him, leaving Boomer to listen to the sound of rain on a long-lost roof. With any luck, he'd sleep again.

*I should be so lucky,* Giles thought moodily, as he headed for the shuttle bay, hating like all the hells having to leave. Wishing he could stay all night whenever he wanted to, not just on break. And pissed off about it all.

By the time shuttle docked on the Galactica Giles could feel the anger in him running like one of those undersea currents Boomer had told him about, strong and waiting to snatch him off course. It was a familiar feeling by now, of course, one that had been with him nearly his entire life; he knew how to stay on top and not get carried away. What he didn't always know was how to want to do that.

He did wish he hadn't snapped at Boomer. Also a familiar feeling; he seemed to have spent a lot of his life wishing he hadn't said something. Usually too late. But it came with the territory, he'd always understood that. When you spent your life looking for trouble so it couldn't sneak up on you, that was the kind of thing that happened. And there hadn't been that many people around him who he didn't want to hurt, either.

Not if you didn't count just not wanting them to hurt him back.

Boomer didn't fall into that category. Hell, Boomer was his own category. He'd never known anyone like Boomer before. Though he'd come to realize he hadn't exactly known a prize collection of people in his life. But Boomer had figured that out, too; Boomer wouldn't let being snapped at bother him.

In fact, Boomer didn't seem to let much bother him. Sometimes Giles envied him that. He spent most of his own life bothered, it seemed. Well, he probably wouldn't know how to live otherwise. Besides, it wasn't like things weren't bothersome.

When he turned into the pilot's quarters, Brie, who was Officer of the Day, looked up from her novel and then at the chrono on the wall. "You're late," she said.

*Case in frackin' point.* "Ten centons," he said. "Holdup in the shuttle bay."

"You should leave early," she said pointedly. "Give yourself plenty of time to cover these contingencies."

"Sagan," he said. Just what he needed, a lecture from Lieutenant Little-Miss-Schoolgirl.

"Look, sergeant," she read his tone accurately enough, he'd have to give her that. And so had Greenbean, her NCOD, who rolled his eyes but kept quiet. "You're late."

"Then put me on report, ma'am," he said. "Skip the lecture."

"You've got it, sergeant," she said.

"Thank you, ma'am." He headed into the barracks, seething. He was half-undressed when Greenbean came in. "I don't need to hear it, Bean," he said and pulled his rank pin off his tunic before tossing that into the laundry chute.

"Yes, you do. Brie's not bad, but you push her."

"I've been a Warrior a dozen yahrens. She wasn't out of primary school when I signed up," he said. "I don't need a lecture from her."

Greenbean bit his lower lip. "She's an officer, Giles. It's kind of what they do."

"Oh, felgarcarb. Look, you know as well as I, she's about as much an officer as Apollo's kid. At least those damned ensigns spent four yahrens learning stuff. What'd she spend? And she's telling me how to be a Warrior? Treating me like some teenager who overstayed his curfew?" Which reminded him of his original grievance. "And while we're on the subject, what the frack is this damned double policy, anyway?"

"Now, come on, Giles. That's not her; that's everywhere."

"Yeah? Maybe so. But at least grunt officers know the value of a good NCO. Starfighter command want things both ways: we're as good as officers when we're flying, but we go back to second-class citizens, other ranks that need to be baby-sat the rest of the time... I've about had it."

The older sergeant shook his blond head. "You need to learn to relax."

"Lay back and enjoy it?" Giles shook his own head and shut his locker. "Not my style. You better get back before the *lieutenant* needs you."

Greenbean sighed, shrugged, and left. Giles stood in front of his locker for a minute, then, as the chill air shivered his bare skin, he climbed into his bunk where, having learned to take the chance for sleep when it arrived, he dropped off almost at once.

But he dreamed...

"If you don't learn to contain yourself, boy, you're going to end up—"

"Yah, I know: fifth hell."

"I don't give a damn if you end up in Hades, boy. It's the graveyard I'm thinking of. Or jail."

Giles laughed. The Lippy sounded so sincere; he ought to go into vids. Catch anyone in the Colonies really caring what happened to throwaways: why'd they exist if people thought it was so bad. He cocked his his head and said, as insolently as he knew how (which was very much indeed), "You endin' up in graveyard yourself, y'know. An' jail's not so bad."

"You haven't been in jail yet," the Libran Planetary Peace Enforcer said patiently. This one was different. Giles hadn't seen anybody able to provoke him yet. "A detention center's not the same, not by a long league."

Giles shrugged. He couldn't imagine much worse than the streets of Argo. At least they fed you in prison, and it was warm in the winter. Not that prison was his goal, but it wasn't something he worried about overly. Besides, he wasn't sixteen yet, as far as anyone knew; if he screwed up, lost his temper at the wrong time, got lost and wandered into something he couldn't handle... even if he was actually arrested, not just hauled in for being handy, the best the LPPE could manage was detention. Maybe in a center a little harder to get loose from than the one he'd been in and out of most of his life. But, well and so what? He didn't say anything, just looked sideways at the Lippy and waited.

The Lippy looked down at his file and then said, "You're in a lot of trouble right now, boy."

Giles shrugged. If it was true, it wasn't news. He really didn't know anything about the body they'd found under the Moskovoy bridge. He'd never even been across it, on the Moskva side of the river; he'd been sleeping up in the pilings on the eastern side. But somebody might have sold him to the LPPE, or they might just be looking for someone to hang something on; they did that a lot when the corpse wasn't a rico. He'd already said he didn't know anything and there wasn't much point in wasting his breath repeating it. If there was one place he needed to watch his temper, it was in a Lippy interrogation room. Detention was a lot more pleasant when you weren't beaten up first.

Most things were, he figured.

He must have grinned, because the Lippy slapped his hand down on the table between them and said, "Something funny here, boy? What part of 'you're in trouble' don't you understand?"

"Never been out," Giles said. "Take my humor where I find it."

The Lippy looked at him, but whatever the man might have said, he never got the chance. Another Lippy, the one that had laid his nightstick across Rupi's head when they were picked up, came in without knocking. Giles froze, every nerve on edge, ready to run or fight if he had to, but the man ignored him and beckoned to the other one. They left the room, closing the door behind them, locking him in.

Since he knew the mirror on the door wall was really a one-way window, he didn't do anything but sit there. He was much too old for making faces and much too smart to go for the files. He lounged back in the straight-backed chair and looked at himself in the mirror. His shirt had been torn in the pick-up; he tugged at it and wondered how to get a new one. The nights were a bit chilly still for ripped clothing to be comfortable. One blessing to being scrawny: pretty much anything you got hold of would go on, even if it didn't fit exactly.

The door opened; Giles looked up as if lazily, though his muscles were so tight they hurt. "Okay, boy," the Lippy said, "come on."

"Where to?" He didn't expect an answer but didn't fancy just tamely trotting along to wherever.

"Detention Center Seven," the man said. "I believe you're familiar with it?"

He certainly was, not that he wanted to improve his acquaintanceship. He might end up there for the moment, but he'd be leaving as soon as he could get out. In fact, if he could make a break before they got there, he meant to.

"You know," the man said suddenly, "you give them half a chance there, maybe they can do you some good."

*Do me good? Do me well, you mean*, Giles thought, looking out the tinted window of the LPPE hovermobile and remembering Lightfoot drilling him on grammar in the late white nights of Argo's high summer... He pushed that away so habitually it barely registered and said, "Do me, anyway."

"You have a complaint?"

*Like you care.* Though maybe this one did, in some weird way, because that hadn't sounded rote. But Giles hadn't lived this long without learning better than to answer a question like that. If what he was in now was trouble, then there wasn't a word to describe what he'd be in if he started down that road, stirring up a pack of sleeping attack daggets. He shook his head and kept quiet for the rest of the ride.

The Lippy didn't say anything either, not until the DC warder put his big hand between Giles's shoulderblades and pushed him in the direction of the inner door. Then he spoke, sounding almost reluctant. "Wait a minute." He crossed the anteroom and handed Giles a small white card. "You hang onto this. If you ever need..." That trailed off.

Giles glanced at the card. Yaroslav, Lt., LPPE Argo, Juvenile Division and a commnet number. He figured he'd keep it about three centons inside. He also figured calling this Lippy was about the last thing he'd ever want to do, though he knew his memory would hold the number whether he wanted it to or not. He didn't say anything.

"You watch yourself, boy," the Lippy said, like anybody else would watch him. "Watch that temper."

The DC warder laughed. "This one? No chance, lieutenant." And then they disappeared into DC7.

And five sectares later Giles was picked up again, in a sweep of the Riga district.

At the Riga district station, the Lippies performed a rough triage, separating the detainees into groups. Giles, his head aching from the blows that had loosened a tooth and closed an eye, realized he was about to be shoved into a holding cell with three Knights and two Lionets, giving the gang members something to be pissed off at besides each other. "Hey," he said to the man pushing him down the corridor. "I need to tell you something."

"Yeah, sure."

"A centon," Giles said desperately. "I'm serious."

The man hesitated, weighing the possibility of missing something, then said, "If you're wasting my time, punk, you're gonna wish you'd never been born." He hauled Giles back down the hall into an interrogation room. "What?"

"You need to get in touch with Lieutenant Yaroslav," Giles said. He had no idea what this would accomplish, besides buying him time. But time was always good.

"Who?" The Lippy's skepticism was palpable.

"Yaroslav," Giles repeated. "Juvie... I've got his commnet number."

The Lippy hesitated a minute, then thought he understood. "You a snitch of his?" He grinned, a bit unpleasantly. "You better pray he thinks you're good value, kid. What name?"

He left Giles locked in the interrogation room. The boy sat down carefully in one of the chairs and took inventory of his aches and pains, hoping the dull agony in his side wasn't anything more serious than a broken rib, hoping he wouldn't lose his tooth, hoping he could run on his bad ankle without damaging himself. He didn't hope Yaroslav would remember him, because he'd learned not to hope for the unattainable. The main thing he was hoping for was that the Knights and Lionets would cripple each other.

As the centons stretched out and nobody came and dragged him out, he began to relax simply because he couldn't stay tensed up any longer. When the door finally opened, he jerked upright. Yope, he thought as he realized he'd actually fallen asleep. But the man who came in was Yaroslav, and he stopped a metron or more away until Giles was on his feet. Then he spoke.

"Sweet Sagan, boy, what happened to you?"

"Your buddies out there," Giles jerked his head at the door and immediately wished he hadn't. His head spun and he had to grab the back of the chair, which was a display of weakness but metrons better than falling down would have been.

"You haven't gotten any smarter," Yaroslav sighed. "What's your goal, exactly? To earn getting beat up?" He didn't wait for an answer. "My buddies out there reluctantly agree that you probably just happened to be in the wrong place. They also seem to think you work for me..."

"I didn't tell them that."

"Now, why don't I believe that? Never mind. Come on."

Giles had no idea where they were going, but it beat staying where he was. And once he got onto the street, well who knew what might happen? He limped after the tall man through the station under the gaze of the other Lippies. Outside Yaroslav took hold of his arm and headed toward a parked hovermobile.

"Okay, boy. Here's your choice: in the back, locked in, or in the front like a person if you promise not to run on me."

Giles looked at him appraisingly. Was he serious? He seemed to be. He actually thought Giles would keep his promise. *Idiot.* "Where we goin'?"

"Ruheh Life Center."

A life center? Not a grudged room in the DC, or a drunken, struck-off trembler under an expressway, but an actual life center? His first reaction was *figure the odds he's telling the truth* but so far the man had been so out of the usual run of Giles's acquaintanceship that, well, who knew? Maybe he meant it. Give him a chance... "Okay."

At Ruheh a bored medtech ran the bonesetter over his ribs and his cheek and resettled his tooth. She also wrapped up his ankle and told him to be careful.

Again Yaroslav kept a hand on him, this time tighter. "Same choice," he said. "My place. Food, a bath, a bed..." he ran his eyes over him. "Something to wear."

A bed. Well, that wasn't much of a surprise. Made Yaroslav a lot more understandable. But for food, plus getting him out of stir and into the life center—plus a possible chance to nick something salable—well and why not?

A second appraising look outside the local Garnet's (Affordable All Day Every Day) and Yaroslav told him to wait in the hovermobile, adding, "Run and I'll find you. Hotwire this and I'll throw you in jail myself."

If they'd already eaten he might have run anyway, but as it was he just leaned back into the seat and waited. The Lippy dropped a bag in his lap when he came back and he involuntarily closed his fingers around it; it was the first thing he'd had new out of a store probably ever. Certainly since he could remember.

Yaroslav lived in a high-rise, on the third level of the pyramid. They rode up in the turbolift along with someone who'd punched for twelve and who looked askance at Giles. It was water off an anaseran's back to him but he was interested and amused at the way the Lippy's jaw clenched. *Should've let me change in the hovermobile,* he thought, grinning. And grinned even wider when Yaroslav's gaze fell on him and those blue eyes flashed with unspoken anger.

The apartment was small, probably, though as far as Giles was concerned it was palatial. But there were only three rooms—front, service, and sleeping—so he guessed it counted as small. And it was in the center of the building, no windows, so he supposed Yaroslav wasn't on the take in any big way. He stood in the middle of the front room after they came in, waiting to be told what to do first. Yaroslav put the latch on and looked at him. "Why don't you wash up and then we'll eat," he said. "It's late, but I expect you're hungrier than you are tired."

That was true, if irrelevant. Giles carried the bag into the turbowash and shut the door. He wanted to stay in a lot longer than he dared to, but when he came out he was clean, even his hair, though it was still tangled. He found a comb and dragged it ruthlessly through his russet mane until all the tangles were gone, even though his eyes teared up; at least he could wash his face again after. Then he opened the bag and pulled on the new clothes; Yaroslav hadn't gone overboard with it but everything fit, and the relief of not having to put the dirty things back onto his clean skin was tremendous. But thriftily he stuck them into the bag and carried that out with him, to be handy when he left, which would, he figured, probably be in a hurry when it happened.

Yaroslav called to him from the service room. He went in there and found warmed-over sliced meat, primaries, and bread waiting on the table. The man was standing by the fooder with a mildly perplexed look on his face. "I ought to give you milk, but I knew I don't have any, so I thought of juice. But it turns out I don't have that, either. If I give you ale, will I be corrupting you?"

"Is this a trick question?" The man's eyes looked confused so Giles let it go and said, "No. I've been drinking for yahrens." He wished it was ambrosa; the drunker you were the easier things were. But ale was good.

"I was afraid of that." He sighed but poured two glasses of ale and sat down. "Help yourself," he added.

Giles took him at his word and piled the plate high. He emptied the glass and got a refill, but surprisingly the man wouldn't give him a third. He shrugged and finished eating. He looked at Yaroslav, who was apparently startled at the amount of food Giles had put away, and waited. He'd been appraising the man while he ate. Tall, but not big, and he hadn't yet shown a mean streak; maybe it wouldn't be too bad. He'd stolen a couple of looks at the knife on the platter of meat, but had left it there finally. The man had spent a lot of money on him, after all... and he was a Lippy. He ended up dead, and those guys at Riga District knew.

Still, he wished he'd had more to drink. It had been a long time. Lightfoot had kept people off him until—automatically he killed that thought. But by then he'd been quick enough, smart enough, mean enough to take care of himself. Mostly, anyhow. And when he couldn't get out of it, it was pretty much on his terms, as much as it could be anyhow... Any how, that's how you lived after all, any how you could. Three yahrens now on his own. Nothing lasts forever. Most things don't last at all. And who knew? Maybe he could get out of the apartment while the man was washing dishes or showering or something.

"These can wait," Yaroslav said, dumping them in the sink.

Giles got to his feet. "Okay. What do you want?"

"What?"

"What do you want? Suck, frack, both..." His voice trailed off as he saw enough anger in the man's face to shut him up fast.

Yaroslav took a couple of deep breaths and pointed at the front room. Giles went. The man followed and pointed at the couch. Giles sat down. Yaroslav didn't. Instead he paced the floor, taking a couple of deep breaths, and then turned to glare at Giles. "You hook, too?"

"No." A short answer seemed his best bet.

The Lippy stared at him. Then, "Why?"

"I thought you..." Not finishing that was probably safest.

Those blue eyes flashed again, then they closed while he shook his head. He sat down on the couch, as far away as he could get, and said, "I don't. I don't intend to, I don't want to, and, Hades, boy, you're not even legal."

"Yes, I am," Giles corrected him.

"The hells."

"Well and probably," Giles said. "Not that that stops most—" He broke off, even though he'd about figured Yaroslav wasn't going to clip him.

"It would stop me. This whole situation would stop me."

"Then—" He stopped again before he went over the line, which, since he had no idea where it was, he might at any moment.

"Let me guess," Yaroslav sighed. "Why are you here? Because I gave you my card and you took me up on it. I'm obligated."

"Why'd you give me the card?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "You're a brat at best. It was an impulse... If I let you sleep on this couch," he jabbed a finger down into it, "are you going to rob me blind and take off in the middle of the night?"

"Depends on what's going to happen in the morning."

Yaroslav blew out a breath and shook his head. "I'll feed you again. After that, who knows?"

"No," Giles said. "I mean, no, I won't steal anything and leave," he elaborated.

"You going to leave without stealing?" The Lippy had a sense of humor, anyway.

Giles shook his head.

"All right. Because I think I need a full night's sleep to deal with you." He stood up. "Let me get you a sheet, blanket, pillow."

When he was alone in the front room, Giles stripped out of all of his new clothes and folded them carefully, then wrapped himself in the sheet and blanket and lay awake for several centons, staring into the darkness and wondering what in the seven hells he'd gotten himself into. *But*, he thought, rolling over, *whatever it is, it beats Riga District station. Especially with Knights and Lionets thrown in. Maybe you finally got lucky.*

Smiling to himself, he closed his eyes and slept.

*Lightfoot was ahead of him. The double moon breaking through the ragged clouds turned his hair to silver. Before them the dark wall rose, sheer and high. But Lightfoot leapt easily, catching the top and pulling himself up without effort. Giles stared upwards, knowing he'd never make it, and then Lightfoot lay down on the wall, hooking his foot over the far edge, and reached down. Giles jumped and their hands met, and Lightfoot pulled him up as though he weighed nothing. They sat on the wall, looking out over the lights of Argo...*

Giles woke himself. His face was wet; he scrubbed it clean of the tears that never came when he was awake and quietly got off the couch. He paused a minute, pulled on his new trousers before padding quietly into the service room and finding a bottle of ale. He wasn't leaving so this wasn't covered by his promise—he blinked in startlement at himself. What was this? Worrying about promises? *You'd better get the hells out of here in the morning, Giles, before you get sucked into something that...* He shook his head, unwilling to pursue the thought. Even less willing to think about what had prompted it. The dream was something to forget as soon as he could, not dwell on. He drained the bottle in several long swallows and went back to the couch.

This time Lightfoot stayed out of his dreams.

Giles sat up, the tatters of the dream still in his mind. Yope, he thought and then shook his head to clear it and rephrased into Standard. *Frack.* He'd gone nearly a decade without waking himself up like this and now it was back, screwing up his nights if nothing else. The recurring dream—nightmare—had faded like it always did; he barely remembered it. Moonlight, Argo... sounded like that old song. Somebody else in the darkness. And something that scared him so badly... He shook his head again and wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging them to his chest.

He'd had the dream pretty often as a kid. It had stopped soon after he'd signed up, and he'd thought it was gone for good. Even the Destruction hadn't triggered it again. But shortly after the first time he and Boomer had slept together he'd woken up in the middle of the night, sweating and trembling and not knowing why. Gods knew there was enough stuff buried in his memory to keep him awake every night, not just a couple of times a secton.

He so much didn't want it to be because of Boomer... It wasn't new, it couldn't be. He couldn't give Boomer up even if it was; Sagan, it was just messed up sleep... His heartbeat was returning to normal and he lay down again, missing his lover's warm embrace. The first time he'd woken them both up Boomer had refused to talk about it, just used the opportunity to make love again. But the second time he'd held Giles while he calmed down and listened to his apology, his offer to leave from now on. "Forget that, Gi," he'd said softly. "This way I get to fall asleep beside you twice in a night."

Giles closed his eyes and wished he had Boomer to snuggle up to tonight. This whole thing was really getting on his nerves. All of it: fraternization rules and curfews and those fracking jumped-up new lieutenants... Probably that was the cause of the nightmare's recurrence. He was angry all the time again. He hadn't been, in the infantry. There he'd had structure and belonging and value.

As he dropped back into sleep, the decision made itself.

Chain of command. The guys at the top could skip links going down but going up you'd better not miss one. So first thing in the morning Giles went to Lieutenant Bojay. He would sort of hate to leave Red Squadron, and one reason was the new squadron leader. He had a lot in common with the ex-Pegasus pilot: they both liked a solid structure, they both disliked a lot of policies in the Wing, and they both had a lot of anger. More than that, Bojay valued his non-coms' experience. But it wasn't Bojay who had the final word around the Wing.

"Sir?"

Bojay looked up from the desk. "Flight sergeant," he acknowledged; he was punctilious about using rank with his enlisted pilots. "What do you need?"

"I'd like to speak with Colonel Tigh, sir," he said. The phrasing was a formality; no one could prevent him, though the colonel would slaughter him ritually if he was bothered for a triviality, or something that could have been settled at a lower echelon. He didn't even have to say why, but Bojay would most likely ask; it was part of his job.

"Are you having a problem in the squadron, sergeant?"

"No, sir." Giles paused. "In the Wing, maybe. But the thing is, sir... I'm coming up on my re-up date. I want to transfer back to the infantry."

Bojay looked startled. "Are you sure, sergeant? You're an excellent pilot, and it'll be hard to replace you."

"Thank you, sir, but, yes. I'm certain. I've given it a lot of thought. I think I'm better suited to the infantry, I was six yahrens there, and they can always use someone who can fly ILVs."

The lieutenant looked a bit skeptical, but all he said was, "That will be the colonel's decision. I'll miss you in the squadron, but if it's what you want—good luck with it, sergeant. Go on up today, if you want; just stop by the captain first."

"Yes, sir." Giles saluted and left, heading for Apollo's office. In the corridor he ran into Boomer, coming down from the morning meeting.

"Hey," Boomer said with his quick smile. "Morning."

Giles smiled back at him. Just hearing that voice did funny things to his insides. "And good morning to you," he said.

Boomer took a quick look around and, seeing no one, leaned in for a quick kiss. Then he said, "So, you feeling better today?"

"Uh-oh," Giles said. "You heard about last night?"

"It came up." Another quick look around. "Gi, what possessed you?"

"I was angry," he said, shrugging.

Boomer shook his head. "We have to talk."

"I have to see the captain." He preferred to burn his bridges.

"That's true. But—did Bojay say anything to you?"

Giles shook his head. "Nope."

"Then he hasn't read the night logs yet. Look," he paused. "We have to talk. After shift? I got the room again."

"You're gonna go broke."

Boomer grinned and shrugged. "What else have I got to spend my money on but contributing to Starbuck's retirement fund? What do you say?"

"Yes, of course," he grinned. "Unless Apollo has me on extra duty."

Boomer shook his head. "Why'd I have to fall for a troublemaker?"

"Looking to put a little spice in your humdrum existence?"

"That must be it." Boomer looked at him and sighed. "You'd better go before I think of some excuse to get a little spice right now..."

"Later."

Giles walked down the corridor toward Apollo's office thinking about that night. The conversation might not be fun, but afterwards... And anyway, there wasn't much in this decision for Boomer to get annoyed about. It wasn't as if he were putting himself in danger of transfer off the battlestar, after all. And Boomer wouldn't be anywhere near his chain of command, which would help with the fraternization thing. Plus, despite what Bean had said last night, the Galactica's infantry sergeants had their own rooms.

Apollo saw him immediately. And the first thing he said after the door shut behind Giles was, "What the hell happened last night, Giles? Brie has you on report for being late and insolent."

"That's about right," Giles said. Apollo's personal style led to a lot fewer 'sirs' than some other officers drew. "Not very of either, in my opinion, but I was both."

Apollo leaned back in his chair. "And what am I supposed to do about it, you think?"

Giles caught himself before he shrugged. "Whatever you think best, I suppose. It doesn't much matter to me. I wanted to tell you I'm going to talk to Colonel Tigh today."

"About this?" Apollo said sharply.

"No, sir." It was time for one. "Whatever you decide about this is fine. I was ten centons late and I resented her lecturing me on it, so I *was* insolent. I want to talk to the colonel about something different."

Apollo relaxed a little, but not much. He wouldn't like the thought of the Iron Colonel mixing into the wing. "Are you having problems with Bojay?"

Giles shook his head. "Lieutenant Bojay is a fine squadron leader. I don't have any problems with him." He probably should warn Apollo, but being reminded of Brie had put him out of the mood. The anger was running in him again, and he needed to be as quiet as possible.

"All right," Apollo said. "If you don't want to tell me, you don't." He looked down at his desk and then back up. "You can expect to be pulling extra NCOD this secton."

"Tonight?"

"No. Tomorrow and fifthday."

"Yes, sir. Is that all?"

Apollo nodded. Those green eyes were a bit troubled still, but Giles figured he'd get over it on his own. He nodded back, almost saluted even though he knew Apollo didn't like it inside but didn't, and left.

Extra NCOD. No big thing, even if he didn't get the transfer right off. As long as he didn't have to pull it with Brie, which would be Apollo's idea of punishment fitting the crime. She wouldn't be scheduled for it again so soon, but Apollo let the officers swap it around. He'd check the roster.

But he could deal with her if he had to. Dismissing the problem from his mind, he headed for the turbolift. Unfortunately, the colonel wasn't on the bridge and Giles ended up waiting for nearly a centare in his outer office until he could get in.

At least he'd had plenty of time to refine his request down to the bare bones: just the way Tigh liked things. Once he was in front of the colonel, and had been invited to "tell me what it is you want, Sergeant Giles," he said,

"In two sectons I'll have been in for twelve yahrens, sir. I'm coming up on my third term—"

"You're intending to re-enlist, then?"

It was an interesting question. Giles wasn't sure what the new, post-Destruction policy on that topic was. New recruits had the same two-, four-, and six-yahren-term options, he knew, but it so happened that since Cimtar no one had tried for an end-of-term discharge. Tigh's question might have meant you could get one, but it might equally have been a lead-in to a firm description of just why that wasn't, at the moment, possible and an involuntary extension. It was academic, as far as Giles was concerned: he hadn't the faintest idea what would happen to him if he was turned loose in the Fleet and he had even less desire to find out.

"Yes, sir," he said; Tigh merited a 'sir' every utterance, at least. "I do. But I started in the infantry, sir, on the Ares. As a six-yahren man I got training to pilot the ILV, and then my career counselor recommended I transfer to Starfighter Command, especially since it came with an immediate promotion. So, I've been in fighters six yahrens now, sir, and I've decided I'd be better off back in the infantry."

Tigh looked at him, his dark face giving no clues as to what he was thinking. Giles found himself looking at the colonel's hair. It was nearly twice as long as Boomer's close crop. It looked soft; he wondered how hard it would be to talk Boomer into letting his grow some. Tigh's voice interrupted that train of thought, probably for the best. "A change of service option was probably in your last re-enlistment contract, wasn't it, sergeant?"

*Wasn't it. Doesn't sound good.* "Yes, sir, I was guaranteed the right to reversion."

"But the thing is, sergeant, the only infantry around at the moment is our half-company."

"It's a little understrength, isn't it, sir?"

"Yes. And will probably stay that way. We don't need infantry at the moment, sergeant. We're not planning on fighting any ground actions. Even sixty men is more than we need, let alone a full complement; I'm trying to get volunteers to change service out of the infantry now. We can certainly give you a first-call for when that changes, if it changes, but at present," Tigh shrugged, "what we need are experienced Viper pilots."

"I understand, sir."

"But you're not happy."

"Service never guaranteed me happiness, sir," he answered the tone.

Tigh laughed shortly. "I'm certainly glad to hear that. Are you having any specific problems in your squadron? We can certainly transfer you out of that."

Giles was hardly tempted. Letting sleeping daggets lie was too much a way of life. "No, sir. I'd just rather be infantry again."

"The time may come, sergeant," Tigh said. "But it's not here now. You'll be re-enlisting for Starfighter Command, not Ground Forces."

"Yes, sir," Giles agreed.

He had the turbolift to himself, and he leaned against the wall and cracked his head against it a couple of times. He'd actually started thinking about what he'd do after the transfer; he really ought to know better than that. At least he hadn't told Apollo; the captain probably knew the new policy, but seeing as how he wasn't leaving he was just as glad Apollo didn't know he'd wanted to. Bojay almost certainly didn't know it: 'That will be the colonel's decision' might have been a way to dodge answering, but that wasn't the Pegasan's style. There were those who said he enjoyed breaking bad news; maybe so, but at least he'd never lied to Giles. And he wouldn't gossip, either.

Nor would the colonel, though he might decide a generic memo was appropriate.

So that was okay. Nobody would know but Bojay and he wouldn't give Giles any grief over it.

*What about Boomer*? That thought came out of nowhere. His first impulse was, why tell him now? But, gods knew, his first impulses weren't always the best. See how the talk goes tonight. Find out how pissed off he already is.

Giles hesitated as the doors slid open. Regardless of who knew what, he wasn't in the mood to go to the ready room. Blue was flying picket today; Red had the onboard chores. If Bojay wanted him and he wasn't around, he'd call. As long as he wasn't obviously sloping off... range practice. And it would do wonders for his mood, too, shooting at things. Get rid of some of this anger he was carrying around. If he went to the ready room he might punch somebody, which would relieve the anger all right, but would just get him in more trouble...

Shaking his head, Yaroslav put two more eggs on the plate in front of Giles. "Help yourself to the biscuits," he said.

Giles did. *Never skip a chance to eat, or sleep* was one of Lightfoot's maxims. He pushed that memory away by asking, "Is there any more of that sweet stuff?"

"Marmalade?" Yaroslav asked. "I'm sure there's something." He looked in the fooder and pulled out a jar of something so dark it was almost black.

Giles would rather have had the orange stuff, but he shrugged and spread this on the biscuit and tried it. It was pretty good, too. He stuffed the rest of the biscuit in his mouth and started cutting the eggs up.

"Do you always eat like this?"

He looked up briefly. "Is this a trick question?"

The man grunted in wry amusement. "I suppose it is. Never mind..." He sat down at the table and watch Giles demolish the rest of the biscuits. "What did you get picked up for? Yesterday."

Giles shrugged. "Being there."

"You were pretty knocked around for just being there."

"It happens like that," he said, "sometimes."

Yaroslav looked at him. "I can't decide if it doesn't bother you, or if you're bothered all the time."

That didn't seem to require an answer. Giles picked up the jar of black stuff and slid his fork into it. At the cough he looked up.

"Use a spoon," Yaroslav said, pushing one at him.

He licked the fork clean and dug in with the spoon. Maybe this blackberry stuff was actually better than the marmalade.

"You said you're sixteen?"

"Far's I know, yah," he nodded. "Close to it, anyhow. Autumn kid."

"Yahrology? You're basing your birthday on *yahrology*?"

"It's better than nothing," Giles shrugged. "So it's not always right. It's a place to start. Narrows it down to three sectares."

"And if I had a cubit for every red-head I knew who wasn't born in the autumn, I could... I could afford to feed you for a yahren."

Giles shrugged and looked into the jar. It was as empty as it was going to get unless he stuck his finger in, and he decided not to do that. He put the jar down on the table, licked the spoon clean and dropped it on his plate. Then he shook his hair out of his eyes and looked at Yaroslav, waiting to find out what was going to happen next.

"Go out and wait in the front room," Yaroslav said. "Amuse yourself. I'm going to take care of the dishes and then we'll talk."

Talk? Giles curled up into the corner of the couch and thought about that. Talk about what? After a few centons he decided the Lippy back at Riga had been close, after all: Yaroslav wanted him to be an informer. He could probably tell him a lot; he wasn't on the prowl or the grab anymore than he was on the game, but you didn't live in the streets without picking up this or that. And half Riga would probably think it was true anyway, the way the man had pulled him out of the station. Still, he could tell people he'd traded his astrum for that, and they'd believe it... he hoped. Being an informer was a short-lived career.

Which meant he was going to do it. He thought about that. Well and why not? There wasn't a single person in Riga district who'd ever done a thing for him, and a lot who'd done against and to... He shrugged. He could take care of himself, and he... owed Yaroslav. That was the word, he thought. Owed... Odd word. He hadn't owed anybody in, well, a long time.

Contemplating that was uncomfortable, so he picked up a magazine lying on the little table beside the couch and started leafing through it. He was puzzling his way through an article about some islands ricos went to for vacations when Yaroslav came out into the front room.

"You're reading!"

Giles immediately dropped the magazine back on the table. "I didn't hurt it—"

"No, no. Read it. I just thought—" he stopped abruptly.

"I can read," Giles said.

"That's good."

"Not stupid," Giles said shortly. "Just 'cause I live in the streets I'm not stupid." He glared at Yaroslav, wondering even as he did how stupid he was, antagonizing the man like this.

"I didn't think you were," the Lippy said, sounding as if he meant it. "Just the opposite, in fact. But reading's not a mark of intelligence, just education... How long did you go to school?"

That question was so ludicrous Giles couldn't help but laugh. "Every now and then, in a DC, before I got out. Never if you mean a real school."

"Well... Somebody must have taught you."

Somebody had... but Giles was *not* going to talk about him. Or think about him, for that matter. He shrugged and didn't answer, looking not at the man standing over him but down at the beige carpet, withdrawing as much as he could. The silence stretched out, charged with an intense, growing anger. He clenched his fingers in the nearest cushion for lack anything else to use...

"Did I call you a brat last night? That was being kind," Yaroslav said. "You're a provocative little twerp."

Giles looked up sharply. The man's tone had been wary, puzzled, a little irritated, but... not angry. Not really angry.

Yaroslav sat down in the chair cater-cornered from the end of the couch where Giles was. "Do you have any clue how much that makes people want to smack you into tomorrow? Do you practice it? Or does it come naturally?"

Giles blinked, relaxing almost against his will. He didn't say anything, just looked at Yaroslav through his lashes and the fall of his dark red hair, and felt the atmosphere in the room change slowly back to safe.

"I seem to have hit a sore spot. Sorry..." He sounded like he might mean that, too. "I'm just trying to find out how much you know, figure out what to do with you."

"Do with me?"

"Yes. *With* you, not to you. Or just you. Can't let you just keep on running wild, not now. But gods help me if I have any ideas."

He couldn't figure this man out. He didn't want to frack him, didn't want to shove him back into the streets after picking his brains, almost certainly didn't even want him to steal for him. He was confusing, like something out of a fantasy.

Yaroslav leaned back in the chair. "I ought to get you a job, I suppose, assuming you really are sixteen. I don't suppose you have any papers at all."

Giles had to laugh again. The gangs could get papers of a sort, some of them, but he'd never been in one. For all the place, the backup, they offered, all the safety—your life expectancy wasn't great, maybe, but whose was?—he hated them with every nerve in his body. And without that kind of structure, papers were out of the question.

Yaroslav sighed. "Every now and then Libran civil liberties are a bit of a nuisance."

"Lippy party line, that," Giles observed. "Heard on Sagitta everybody gets printed at birth; makes arrestin' someone a helluva lot easier than it already is."

"You do ask to get smacked, don't you?" he said wearily.

Giles subsided.

This silence wasn't so charged as the last one. After a few centons, Giles ventured, "I can read, not so well maybe, but I can. Numbers, and money. And I can drive." He thought about adding 'hotwire' but decided not to. "And I can fight."

"Fight?" Yaroslav's look pointed out that Giles was only just over one and a half metrons tall, and scrawny with it.

The boy made an effort and reminded himself that if being short made him look like a target, it also let him be underestimated. With another effort, he shrugged and said, with only a tiny edge in his voice, "I'm sixteen and been in the streets for more'n a dozen yahrens. I can fight."

The expression that crossed the man's face was so unfamiliar that it took Giles a centon to place it. And when he had, he bristled up. "Look," he said, "I can take care of myself. I don't need anything from anybody."

"Everybody needs something," Yaroslav contradicted him. "But let that go. Fighting's not a skill much in demand in the job market."

Giles shrugged.

"Okay, brat," he said, his lips quirking in a reluctant smile. "Not the legitimate job market." His chrono beeped at him; he shot his cuff to look at it. "I've got to go to work now. Stay here. Inside the apartment," he clarified. "Read anything you want... eat anything that's left. We'll talk tonight about the future."

Giles nodded, not promising anything and wondering why he felt like that. Yaroslav went into his sleeping room and emerged with his jacket in his hand and a small, PPE-issue blaster on his belt. Giles went still and small as the man passed him and didn't relax again until he'd said, "I'll call if I'm held up," and left.

Then he picked up the magazine again and leafed through it, looking at the pictures, lingering on the beaches. The man would be gone for centares, nine or maybe ten. He had plenty of time to decide if he was going to be here when he got back. A job... Quite frankly, he couldn't imagine who'd hire him but it was a nice thought. He might even be able to afford a place like this some day—

He shook his head sharply. He knew better than that. Living on maybe was a short trip to Hades. But while it was never going to happen, that didn't mean he needed to leave just yet. As long as Yaroslav was willing to feed him and give him this couch to sleep on, he not only might as well stay, he'd better.

He lay down on his stomach, knees bent and ankles crossed in the air above him, and spread the magazine out on the cushion and began working his way through it, not even trying to guess at the way the foreign places should sound.

And trying not to wonder what it would be like to go there.

After an centare on the range Giles was ready to go back to the Wing area. Nobody had called him; maybe Bojay figured he was still waiting in the colonel's office. He supposed he should let the squadron leader know what the colonel had said.

He knocked on the squadron leaders' office. "Lieutenant Bojay?"

"Come."

Boomer was there, as he generally was; he was Blue's exec, but he took a lot of the daily load off Apollo's shoulders. Bojay glanced at him, then stood up. "Walk with me, sergeant," he said.

Boomer said, "I can take a hike," with a questioning intonation.

Bojay offered him his half-smile. "If you don't mind," he said. "Thanks."

"Not a problem," the dark man said, giving Giles an unreadable look before saving his file.

And maybe they shouldn't have any secrets, but it was Bojay Giles was thinking of, so he just waited in front of his squadron leader's desk until Boomer left.

Bojay glanced down at his desk and then back up. "Why don't you have a seat, sergeant? We have a few things to discuss, I think."

"Yes, sir, thank you." Giles pulled one of the spare chairs up and sat down. "Did the colonel call you, then?"

"Yes, he did... First, I see the captain's put you on extra NCOD this secton. I've spoken to him; you'll pull it tomorrow and then next secton, Firstday: we've got a long patrol scheduled on sixthday and you'll need to sleep the night before."

"Yes, sir." He'd forgotten that patrol himself.

"Right. Since the captain's dealt with it, there's nothing for me to say. So. Colonel Tigh said he'd refused your transfer request. So you'll be staying in Red Squadron?"

Giles nodded again.

"I'm sorry about that, but not very," Bojay said. "I'd rather not have to replace you, especially since Lieutenant Deianara just told me yesterday that she's pregnant." He rubbed his jaw. "That means no flying Vipers for seven sectares; she's being detailed to shuttles for the near future."

Deianara was Bojay's wingmate: an ex-Pegasan like him, the only other in the squadron, and not Sealed. Giles was immediately enormously curious who the father was. Someone from Silver Spar? Or had she succumbed to the charms of someone from Red or Blue? He hadn't seen any signs of that happening. Maybe it wasn't a pilot... Maybe she'd gotten Bojay to forget about Sheba, probably when the anniversary of Molecay had rolled around a couple of sectares ago... But probably not; that look on his face was exasperation, not responsibility.

"However," Bojay was continuing, "ill winds and so on... If you wanted out of the squadron I assume you aren't irretrievably attached to Flight Officer Cree."

That was a safe assumption. Cree was better than GMA Class of This Yahren; at least he'd actually put in most of a whole academy tour, having been on his senior yahren field rotation on the Columbia at Cimtar. But he wasn't one of Giles's favorite people, if only because he hadn't been around long enough to learn that an academy education only made him an educated man, not a superior being. "No, sir," he said.

"Good. The captain hasn't decided who he's giving us, but I spent most of this morning going over the roster and, well, I'd like to have you on my wing."

Not Cree? Giles blinked. Then he realized that Bojay was probably as uncomfortable with most of the Galacticans as they were with him. His background, his detachment, his ill-concealed anger, his way of using the rules to hold people at a distance succeeded in isolating him from the rest of the squadron. And that isolation was one of the reasons Giles got along with him. In no sense of the word were they friends, but Giles had no problem flying his wing. And there was a selfish element in the mix: he was the best pilot in Red, too. "That would be fine with me, sir," he said.

"Excellent. I should probably give you to one of the new pilots, but RHIP after all." Bojay's voice was creamily satisfied.

Giles didn't even want to know what wheels in wheels were involved in his squadron leader's mind. That there was at least one ulterior motive here he had no doubt, but what went on among the senior officers on the ship wasn't his problem, and he didn't intend to let it become his. Instead, he'd just interpret that as purely a compliment to his abilities. "Thank you, sir."

"All right then." Bojay picked up a notepad from the desk and tossed it at Giles. "Here. Take the rest of the day and verify this inventory."

Giles caught the pad and stood up. "Yes, sir," he said, glancing at it. Ordnance. Nice and quiet.

Boomer was waiting in the hallway. "I don't see any scorch marks," he said.

Giles shrugged; his lover *hated* Bojay. "He made me his new wingman."

"That snitrat."

"Why, thanks." Giles grinned.

"I don't mean—" Boomer broke off and shook his head. "You know what I mean."

"Yes. Wing politics. Just don't expect me to turn him down because of it."

"I don't. If I had to be in Red..." He shook his head again. "Are we good for tonight?"

Giles smiled. "We are. I've got to go do inventory in the ordnance bays, but I'll be done by shift change, no worries."

"Good. I was thinking about room service."

"You are gonna go broke."

"I don't want to stay here till the EM Mess starts serving dinner," Boomer said. "We eat on the Star we can have three more centares."

"I'm not saying no," Giles grinned, "just making an observation. I'll meet you in the shuttle bay, then, for the 2:40?"

Boomer nodded.

Giles finished up the inventory as quickly as he could and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the ordnance lockers convincing himself that he hadn't really wanted the transfer after all. If nothing else, this way he wouldn't have to sit by while Boomer went into combat. And they were on the same duty schedule.

It almost worked.

At twenty till two he headed back to the Wing and dropped the inventory off in the squadron leaders' office and slid out five centons early. Back in the barracks he stripped out of his uniform and pulled out the mahogany and jade outfit Boomer liked so much, the one he'd been wearing the night Boomer had first made a move on him. They were probably going to argue some tonight, but he didn't want their ranks getting in the way.

Boomer got there just as the shuttle began taking on passengers. He was still in uniform and breathing hard. He leaned up against Giles at the back of the line and gasped, "Man, I thought I wasn't going to make it."

"Apollo is going to have to get used to you having a private life," Giles said, half teasingly and half not.

"Maybe we should think about the 2:80 from now on."

"Probably," he acknowledged. After all, Apollo couldn't get used to what he didn't know about, and Boomer couldn't tell him he was infringing regulations by sleeping with a non-com and wouldn't push it in case Apollo started asking questions.

They boarded and Boomer collapsed into the seat at the back of the shuttle. Giles sat next to him and grinned. "You're getting out of shape."

"Get stuffed."

"With luck."

Boomer snickered. "Dressed like that," he said, "you don't need luck." Someone sat in the seat in front of them and he stopped talking. But after a few centons he leaned over and said, "We're still going to talk."

Giles gave him a sideways glance through his lashes.

"Just maybe not so long," Boomer added softly, slipping his hand over Giles's on his thigh.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, holding hands. It was something new. Giles liked it.

On the Star they made their way to the room ("our room" Boomer had said) without running into anyone they knew. Inside, Giles remarked on that. "Coming over this early has more than one thing going for it," he added.

Boomer nodded; he was taking off his blaster. "I thought I'd never get away from Starbuck yesterday," he said.

Giles grinned. Starbuck wasn't his kind of officer but somehow that didn't matter much in his case. He liked the man, liked him a lot. He'd been glad to see Starbuck was going to be his OD tomorrow. "He must be running short on cash."

"Very funny."

"I thought so."

Boomer threw his jacket onto the table and said, "Well, we both know you're weird. And speaking of that, what the hell happened last night?"

Giles shrugged. "Nothing much. There was some kind of frack-up in the shuttle bay here, we left behind schedule so I was late. And then Brie starts to give me that, 'you really ought to leave earlier'—" he pitched his voice higher, imitating Brie's. "So I told her I'd rather be on report than listen to her, and she obliged."

"Just like that?"

He shrugged again. "More or less. I was already pissed off."

"I could tell."

Giles leaned against the wall, looking up at Boomer out of lowered eyes. "It's no big deal."

Boomer's jaw clenched. Giles remembered Yaroslav asking him, often, if he knew how much his attitude made people want to smack him. He waited to see what was going to happen next, feeling his shoulders tense.

Then Boomer heaved a mighty sigh. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "Gi, for God's sake, don't be mad at me."

He straightened. "I'm not," he protested, and he wanted it to be true.

"I wonder," Boomer said.

"I'm not, Boom," he insisted. "Not at you."

"But you're angry."

"But not at you." That was the important thing.

Boomer blew out a breath. "Gi, please, you've got to learn to control that. It's going to get you into major trouble some day. And it can't be making you happy."

"I can handle it."

"Like last night?" Before Giles could answer he went on. "When you get there just say, 'Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry.' Listen to her fracking lecture." He took a step and touched Giles's shoulder. "Don't ask to be put on report."

He wanted to say he would, but he couldn't. "Two extra NCODs? I could pull that in my sleep."

"Better not." Boomer half-smiled, then sobered. "You can't keep pulling stunts like this. Apollo can't ignore it forever. You'll end up in trouble."

"Trouble is my home town," he said flippantly.

"Gi, please—"

"I can take care of myself."

"I know that." He took gentle hold of both of Giles's shoulders. "But I wish you knew you don't have to. I'm here. Remember me? The one who loves you? I want to help."

"I don't need any help," he said. Boomer's eyes darkened slightly, and Giles caught hold of his wrists. "I do need you."

"Oh, gods. I need that to be true," Boomer said huskily.

"It is."

He seemed to have said that right; Boomer leaned in and kissed him. Like all Boomer's first kisses it started gentle but this one got hungry in a hurry. Giles let go of his lover's wrists, wanting arms around him. They clung to each other, kissing, and then Boomer pulled away enough to start unbuttoning Giles's shirt, his mouth following his fingers from throat to chest. When he began suckling at a nipple, Giles moaned, his fingers clenching in Boomer's sleeves, feeling the Galactica's patch hard against them. His cock was throbbing already; Boomer's first kiss had been enough this time, proof he hadn't driven him away. He pushed forward but their height difference meant their bodies weren't close enough and he moaned again. "Boom, please—"

Boomer's hand left his hair and stroked his cock through his trousers, giving him something to push against. Then it was gone again, but before he could complain he felt both of his lover's hands on his waist, undoing his trousers, pulling them down and out of the way. And then Boomer went down on his knees, his hands tightening on Giles's hips. Giles's hands caught at his head, that thick, springy, soft hair. Boomer sighed against his belly and began teasing him with little kisses and licks along the length of his cock. Giles fisted his right hand and hit the wall a couple of times in frustration.

Boomer chuckled. "Now?"

"Gods, yes, now!"

And then Boomer took his cock into his mouth and began working him, a hard, fast rhythm, the way he liked it... He clenched his fingers on those strong shoulders and stopped thinking entirely, giving in to the sensation and letting it take away reality and replace it, just for now, with a fantasy like nothing he'd ever known until this, like every time with Boomer. When he came, his head thrown back in the almost-agony of climax, he couldn't tell if he was drowning in flame, blood, or moonlight.

He came back to reality with reluctance, taking deep breaths and feeling his hands empty. He opened his eyes to see Boomer unbuckling his boots, his tunic already off. He wouldn't have minded being taken where he stood, but afterwards, he knew, he'd see that inexplicable regret in Boomer's dark eyes. So he kicked off his own shoes and shook his trousers off his ankles. Then he took the two steps between them and slid his hands under Boomer's. The dark man raised his head and Giles lifted his face for a kiss. Boomer buried his hands in Giles's hair—he loved both of those, could spend long centons kissing and stroking that thick, straight, russet mane so unlike his own, wondering what a summer sun would do to it. Giles held him close, wishing the words his lover wanted to hear would come more easily, would come at all. But even through the pressure suit he could feel Boomer's readiness, and his own need blended with the dark man's until he couldn't bear to wait another centon.

Drawing away a little he began stripping the pressure suit off, kissing the strong muscular body he was revealing centimetron by centimetron. When he'd finished he pulled Boomer's hand and fell onto the bed, Boomer on top. "In me," he said softly. "Please, Boomer—"

"Whatever you want, you know that," Boomer kissed the words off his lips. Then he found the lube he'd left in the drawer of the bedside table.

When the first finger entered him it was always a moment's struggle, his mind having to remind his body who it was, *Boomer*, and then he could relax, push into the feeling, wanting to be wanted so much. It was something he held close in his memory in the darkness of nights alone, this moment, when Boomer entered him and their hands were clasped tight and his knees were against Boomer's arms and those dark eyes, glazed with desire, were looking down on him...

And afterwards, when Boomer rolled over on his back and pulled Giles up against him, holding him close, stroking him and murmuring, Giles sighed, feeling, despite the warmth and the tangible love, somehow sad. Words drifted into his mind: *nothing touches you. You're still that feral little beast I brought in off the street. Self-contained, feeling nothing but anger and fear... And you won't even understand why I wish that you could cry.*

"I would," he said.

"Would what?" Boomer asked, puzzled by the vehemence.

"I would cry for you."

He felt Boomer raise his head. "That's nice," he said after a moment. "I'm glad to know it. But I don't plan to make you."

"I know," he kissed the dark chest under his cheek. "I know you don't."

"Gods," Boomer said, relaxing under his weight. "You're such a strange man. And I love you so much."

"I know," he said again and closed his eyes. "I know."

Giles got his drink and turned to look around the bar. The O Club wasn't really big enough for dancing, especially since they'd closed the infantry's EM/NCO Club and handled the overcrowding in the others by telling Starfighter NCO pilots to come here. Another little instance of the double standards: he'd rather be treated like a glorified private than keep hitting those glass walls of *oh, wait, you're not an officer really...* He shook his head. This was a party, frackit, free drinks and all you could eat. *Try to stay in a party mood, Giles, okay? *

He returned to his previous thought—the O Club wasn't really big enough for dancing. Although they'd taken up two-thirds of the tables to clear space, there was only room enough for two dozen or so couples to sway to the music, holding each other and moving hardly any distance at all. Of course, it looked like most of them liked the excuse. Those who wanted to really dance, as opposed to engage in fairly public displays of what could be called affection only by stretching the term, weren't much in evidence.

If this had been an NCO Club, people would have been yelling, "Get a room!" Giles snickered; if this had been the Daggets' NCO Club, people would have been clearing off the bar for a couple of those clinging pairs. Amazing how hets thought the worlds loved looking at them.

Not the captain, of course. He and his new fiancée were dancing together as decorously as they could under the circumstances. His idea, not hers: the look in her dark eyes as well as the way she held his shoulders said she'd staked a claim that she dared anyone to try and jump. He was publicly claimed, all right. Still, you could see what she saw in him...

If not the other way around.

Giles finished his drink and turned to get a refill. Starbuck was down the bar from him, also drinking. That surprised Giles a bit, he'd have thought the blond lieutenant would have been taking full advantage of the license—though, come to think of it, Starbuck really wasn't much for PDA with any of his girlfriends. Nor, he supposed, would the captain's sister be much more inclined, and wasn't that who Starbuck was going with these days? Was she even here? It was her brother's party, after all. If she was, she wasn't with Starbuck.

The blond was watching somebody, though, watching covertly and... What was that expression, more in the body than the face? Giles wasn't sure. With the ease of long practice at following lines-of-sight he turned to see who Starbuck's attention was on, and was startled. Serina? Surely not Apollo... though, Giles conceded to himself, he wouldn't have had to want Apollo to realize that their friendship was changing radically. Maybe even ending, given Serina's possessive displays.

He realized he was looking at Starbuck again. He shook his head and gestured at the barkeeper. He liked Starbuck, but he didn't *like* him. Didn't, what was that Tauran term, *fancy* him. Which was odd, when he came to think of it, because the lieutenant was definitely fanciable. It wasn't his rank, either; a felix could look at a councilor and Giles could look at anybody... Hades, he'd just been looking at the captain. But ever since he'd transferred to the Galactica after flight training school, he'd had this feeling he couldn't pin down, this impression that he'd met Starbuck before, though he knew he hadn't. And half the time he wanted to avoid the man for no discernable reason.

The other half he wanted to follow him around like... He shook his head. There was no reason for that either.

He picked up his drink. All things considered, maybe he should go someplace else. Though as crowded as the O Club was, there might not be anyplace else to go. He looked around. A table in the corner was surrounded by other enlisted pilots; Greenbean's high-altitude tow-head was easily spotted. That would work.

Halfway around the periphery of the dancing floor he heard, "Looking for a chair?"

He turned. Lieutenant Boomer, alone at a table for two. That wasn't as surprising as Starbuck's being alone; when Boomer wasn't with Starbuck, or Apollo, he generally was alone. It was a bit surprising that he wasn't at the bar keeping the blond company, or holding this chair for him, but maybe Starbuck was in one of his moods. Or waiting for a woman. Or Boomer was... though why he'd be offering the chair to Giles if he was.

He should answer, he realized. He didn't usually socialize with officers, but there was something in Boomer's tone that sounded sincere. "Yeah, I am," he said.

"Got one here," Boomer said, "though it has to stay here."

Giles grinned and sat down. In keeping with his earlier thoughts he checked the lieutenant out as he did and found himself wondering why he'd never noticed him before. *Must be the company he keeps*, he thought. Next to Apollo's green-eyed, brooding good looks and Starbuck's spectacular beauty anybody else would sort of fade. But here and now, on his own and dressed in a peacock-blue jacket over a silvery shirt, he was definitely worth noticing.

"Nice party, huh?" Boomer asked.

Giles shrugged. "Free ambrosa has a way of upgrading most experiences."

Boomer laughed, throwing his head back. Giles appreciated the line of his throat, generally covered by the high-necked uniform. Then, as the laughter died, he found his eyes meeting the lieutenant's. He barely had time to wonder why he wasn't being more careful before he realized that Boomer was checking him out just as he was doing. *Well, and who knew?* he thought, leaning back a little. *I must have noticed something.*

He'd never had it off with an officer before, but then again, he'd never been allowed to relax in an O Club with them, get drunk on more or less equal terms with them, either. And that was saying nothing about card games after shift, taking their money, well, some of them anyway. This casual, deceptive informality ran counter to everything he'd ever learned about the military, especially in the 23d, but then again the Galactica's Strike Wing had been very different from the infantry even before the Destruction. He wondered what the etiquette was, whether it was even smart. Some people took sex way too seriously; breaking up with an officer like that could be problematic. You could find yourself in deep trouble.

Of course, trouble was where he flourished.

He adjusted the dark green cuff of his shirt over his chrono, looking up at Boomer through his lashes, waiting to see what was going to happen next.

He wasn't ready for it.

Boomer asked him to dinner.

Officer style, he supposed, and said yes. And dinner was what he got. A nice, in fact a very good, dinner in the O Club dining room, but unless you counted the conversation that was it. Except for an invitation to repeat, which Giles accepted while wondering why.

They never had that meal. Before the secton was out they were both in the Life Center, coming as close to death as Giles had been in long damned time. And when they, and virtually every other pilot on the battlestar, recovered, things were completely different. Again.

Giles didn't think he had a constitutional objection to women pilots. He'd never known one before, but he'd known plenty of women officers, but on the Galactica and in the 23d, and they'd never, as a class, given him the grip. And most of these new girls could fly well enough; Sagan, some of them, like Lieutenant Dietra, could fly damned well. It was that 'lieutenant' business that got to him. Especially for people who hadn't even been combat support shuttle pilots before. People who'd been, say, vid personalities...

Starbuck's being gone—dead—distracted everyone; Boomer had to shore up Apollo as much as Serina—sorry, *Lieutenant* Serina—would let him, and that wasn't counting how he felt about it, Starbuck being one of his best friends as well. Giles himself was considerably more upset about Starbuck than he could understand, so he threw himself harder into his work, barely finding time for a quick conversation with Boomer, an officer in a different squadron. And things kept happening, at an ever-increasing pace: Kobol, the wedding, Starbuck's return, Serina's death, one more overture by Cylons—the Galactica was on perpetual alert for sectons.

But through it all, Giles would look up to find dark eyes watching him and his breath would catch.

But all crises end eventually, even if only by becoming the new normality. And one day Red and Blue came back to the welcome news that the alert was lifted. The pilots had to share decontamination chambers; fortunately not all wing-pairs got in together, so it wasn't remarkable that Boomer ended up with Giles.

"We're all off the next three days," Boomer said after a few moments. "Both squadrons."

Giles leaned against the wall and looked up at the dark man. "That's good. I feel about five-sixths dead."

"I know what you mean... I was thinking, though. You've a rain-ducat for a dinner. Maybe a relaxing evening over on the Star would pick you up a bit?"

Giles considered it. He'd halfway thought of hitting the Star looking to get laid, but he was so tired dinner with Boomer was actually more inviting. "Sure," he accepted.

"Great," said Boomer. He looked at his chrono. "I'll call over for a reservation once we get out of here. We can go after debriefing."

"I need to clean up," Giles demurred. "Something about being in a pressure suit for nine hours."

Boomer grinned. "You have a point. The 6:80?"

Giles looked at his own chrono. "That sounds good."

The door opened and they rejoined their respective squadrons. When the debriefing was over and they were dismissed, Giles headed for the barracks. He noticed that Boomer was staying back to talk to Apollo, but figured either he'd show at the shuttle bay or he wouldn't. He wasn't holding his breath, he wasn't going to worry about dinner. Besides, second in command of the Wing might be late a time or two.

*Living on maybe is a short trip to Hades.*

He shook his head and grabbed a towel. A good turbowash might clear his mind. He stood under the hot water for a few minutes and then lathered up his hair.

Greenbean came in and leaned on the partition between the stalls, sighing deeply.

"You know, Bean, these things work better if you turn on the water," Giles pointed out.

"Yeah." Greenbean didn't move. "Gods, I'm beat," he said. "I was going to hit the sack, but I couldn't stand myself."

Giles snickered.

Greenbean didn't even react to that, just said, "I don't have enough energy to turn on the water."

Giles laughed and rinsed his hair. "Here," he offered. "Already warmed up and everything."

"Thanks..." The tall sergeant pushed past him to stand under the hot water. "Gods this feels good."

Giles grinned. "You're welcome." He toweled off and started to leave.

"Gi," Greenbean called, "if I drown make sure they know it wasn't suicide."

"I'll tell 'em you should get a priest, don't worry."

But Greenbean came out before Giles had gone. "My gods," he said, "are you going *out*?"

"Dinner."

"Gods, to be your age again." Greenbean dropped heavily onto his bunk. "Me, I need to sleep for a couple of days. You? You're going on a date."

"Dinner," he repeated, pulling on his mahogany jacket, new from his last furlon before Cimtar. "Just dinner."

But on his way to the bay he realized that that was probably exactly what this was: a date. Boomer was the kind of guy who dated... He stopped halfway down the corridor. A date? He was on a date? What the frack did you do on a date?

How dangerous was it breaking up with an officer who wanted to date?

How many dates did you go on before you finally got laid?

When that thought crossed his mind he knew he was going to go. And as for the others, well, he must have done okay the last time or Boomer wouldn't have wanted to do it again. And it was as bad for an officer to be fraternizing, maybe worse.

That thought stopped him momentarily again. Was he thinking about something long-term? Dates meant that, he guessed, but was he thinking about it? How stupid was that?

But then again, who'd ever sat at a table with him and actually cared what he had to say? Yaroslav... and those hadn't been dates. Boomer might the kind of guy who dated, but he wasn't. *Trouble ahead,* he told himself. *A nice middle-class officer who fracking dates...* and then he laughed. *Hades. As long as he fracks dates.*

So he didn't back out, but went on to the shuttle bay, getting there at 6:75. Boomer was there, dressed almost casually in black and old-gold and looking nervously at his chrono. When Giles came up to him he grinned and then the grin changed to something a little more appreciative. "You made it," he said.

Giles wasn't sure what to say. "We'd better board."

"Yes, we had," Boomer agreed. He didn't say much on the way, just kept glancing over at Giles with a disturbing look in his dark eyes.

Disturbing in a very good way.

By the time they got to the restaurant, the lieutenant had regained his composure. After they'd ordered, Boomer leaned back and said, "So. Where are you from? I mean, I know you're Libran, right? Liberis?"

Giles shook his head. "No. Argo. At least that's where I grew up."

"Argo," Boomer said. "I'm not sure where that was."

"It's in the far north," said Giles, producing the bits about his home town that people liked to hear about. "We have white nights in the summer, even a secton or so of midnight sun."

"That means days in the winter with no sun at all. Like Allerat." He grinned. "On Leonis. Was Argo on the water?"

"A river," he said. "No ocean. Though when I was kid I always wanted to see the ocean."

"Leontyne was on the ocean. Leontyne-on-the-Sea was its real name, in fact."

"There's another Leontyne?" Giles asked, turning the conversation away from Argo and, with luck, his past.

Boomer seemed willing to talk about Leontyne. He mentioned his family, shadows crossing his dark eyes momentarily, but mostly he talked about the town he'd grown up in, the coast and the cliffs, the ocean and the storms... his childhood sounded, no surprise, a lot happier than Giles's.

Then, over dessert, Boomer realized he was the only one talking. "What about Argo? Was it a big place?"

"Yeah, it was big." Giles said baldly.

Boomer blinked, looking slightly surprised. Then he grinned a bit wryly and said, "And you couldn't wait to leave home?"

"In a manner of speaking," Giles nodded. "I signed up at sixteen."

Boomer laughed. "And my mother cried and called me her poor baby when I went off to CMA at seventeen. That was basically just university; I shudder to think what she'd have said if I had been really joining up."

This topic Giles didn't mind. "Yes, I was in my first combat at before I was eighteen."

Boomer shook his head. "Infantry, right?"

Giles grinned. "Right. In the mud. If you don't take the ground, you can't control it."

"So I've heard."

Their waiter drifted by, again, and Boomer sighed. "I think they want the table." He picked up the check and reached for his wallet.

"How much?" Giles reached for his.

"No—"

"You got it last time," Giles said. "How much?" He didn't mind dating, but he was damned if he'd be paid for.

Boomer looked at him and then smiled. "Here." He handed it over.

In the lounge they stood for a moment in a slightly awkward silence. Giles glanced at his chrono and said, "We could get in a game, I bet."

"Well," Boomer said.

Giles waited. The lieutenant played, he knew it. Sagan, he'd played with him.

"I was thinking..." Boomer licked his lips, then bit the lower one. "You would look like that..."

*How many dates? Two, it looks like.* Giles took a step closer so he had to lift his chin to look at the other man. "Yes?"

"We could get a room," Boomer said.

"We could? Then let's."

So they did.

Once they got inside Giles stripped his jacket off and hung it on the back of a chair, then turned to Boomer. The other man was standing near the bed, but he hadn't made a move to get undressed yet and he was looking at Giles with an odd expression. Giles paused. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Boomer said. He swallowed. "Nothing... It's just..."

*Sagan.* Was this his first time?

"I don't usually..." Boomer stopped and started again. "I didn't mean to ask you tonight. I don't know you very well yet. I intended to wait."

"But?"

"But, the past few sectons—it's like death is everywhere. It's close, it's right here. But you, too. You're here, and you're so... alive. Vibrant. All I can think about is touching you, having you hold me... It's just so soon."

Giles gestured at his jacket, feeling compelled to offer. "Do you want to change your mind?"

Boomer smiled suddenly. "No. No, I don't. But I don't like one-night stands."

Giles smiled back, wondering at himself. "I don't usually leave while there's still something there."

"I hope not," Boomer said and took the two steps that separated them.

Boomer's mouth was warm and gentle on his, his hands strong and knowing. Giles slid his arms under the gold jacket and held on, feeling as though he were walking into unfamiliar and possibly hostile territory. And yet—*alea jacta est* as the old battalion motto had it, the die was cast and he couldn't have, didn't want to turn back.

For all his professed eagerness, all the desire Giles could feel in him, the other man was starting slow, taking his time, learning Giles' body as no one else had. He shivered. This was about more than getting laid, and he wasn't at all sure he knew what was happening. All he knew, as patience ran out for them both and Boomer crouched before him on the bed, raising his hips, and their bodies joined as if they'd been created just for that—all he really knew was he didn't want it to end.

And then afterwards, as he snuggled up against Boomer's dark body, under his arm, languorous with satisfaction, he wondered how long the other man would keep him around. He already knew he didn't want to go.

Starbuck was sitting on the edge of the desk flirting mildly with Lieutenant Dietra when Giles arrived. Barton was ready to go, his notebooks—he was a prolific and pretty good poet—stacked up and his duty log filled out. "Man," he yawned, standing up. "I need about a laxon of kava. These dagged shifts get longer every time I have to pull one."

Giles grinned. "Must be relativity kicking in. The further the Fleet goes, the longer a centon gets."

Barton shuddered theatrically. "A more terrifying notion I have never heard... Have a good one." He handed over the identifying armband and picked up his notebooks. "Ma'am, sir," he said, and left.

Giles sat down and logged his arrival. Starbuck was telling Dietra, "Look, it's only in vids people pine for yahrens for someone who ignores them. Hang in there."

"You're sweet," she said. "But somehow I doubt even you believe that."

He shrugged. "It was worth a shot..."

She laughed at him and stood up. "Keep trying, ace," she said. "But I'm out of here. Hope it stays quiet."

"Of course it will," he said, sitting down. "It's always quiet. Am I right?" He looked at Giles.

"You are." Starbuck got fewer 'sirs' than anybody else. Paradoxically, Giles still liked him better than most officers; even when he was a jerk, which he was occasionally, he was an equal-opportunity jerk.

"How's it going?" Starbuck said. "Too bad for you you got on Brie's bad side, but I'm happy. I'd rather it was you tonight than Elin; last thing I need is someone spending all night coughing pointedly when I light up and muttering dire bits of Word when I pull out a deck of cards."

Giles snickered. Flight Corporal Elin was a very devout young man, and a real pain in the astrum. "You're too kind."

Starbuck grinned and lit a fumarello. Giles let him get it going and then started coughing, loudly, and waving his hand. The blond mock-glared at him and blew smoke in his direction.

"Starbuck, Bojay will slaughter you if you make his wingmate sick," Boomer said, pausing in the doorway.

Starbuck pointed his fumarello at the dark man. "With friends like you," he said.

"Yeah, yeah, Bucko, you're breaking my heart. Is Apollo around?"

Starbuck shrugged. "I think he went to dinner at the commander's. With Sheba. Athena's gonna be there, too, I think."

Boomer shrugged. Giles watched the rise and fall of those shoulders in that blue jacket and kept quiet. Boomer said, "Well, I guess I'm eating alone then. See you."

Starbuck watched him leave and shook his head. "I'll figure you out yet, Boom-Boom." Then he cocked his head and looked at Giles. "Speaking of which, you're in Red... any ideas who Deianara's been slipping around with?"

"Not a clue," Giles said honestly. "You running a book on it?" *Already? *

"Thinking about it," Starbuck nodded. "But it gets hard when you don't know what the right answer is. Just like Boomer... I think I've got an idea, and then he's gone all evening and she's in the O Club. I'll get him, though. I don't quit."

Giles contemplated that over the next half-centare while he answered the comm and made the first round of the admin area. It was unusually empty; with Apollo gone this early, nobody else had stayed either. Starbuck and Boomer were close friends, but the blond had a tendency toward selfishness. Giles could recognize it easily; what did they say? Takes one to know one? And though he did like Starbuck, there was always an edge there, something that said *be careful.*

"All quiet," he reported ritually as he came back into the office.

Starbuck grunted. "Of course it is." He was playing sol-hand, a complicated layout of cards spread across his desk. He was frowning at it. "This is such a pointless duty... I'll take the next two walk-throughs," he added, "so you can eat before they run out of anything palatable."

Which was one of the reasons he liked Starbuck, he was considerate of little things like that. Of course, he'd take advantage of the cot in the back as the night went on, but the officers were allowed to; Giles didn't resent him taking the opportunity when it was there. You'd have to be a fool to miss a night's sleep if you didn't have to.

Starbuck swore at his cards and swept them up. He began shuffling absently, bored already. Giles watched the cards flashing in his fingers and then, after a while, asked casually, "What you said earlier?"

"Hmm?"

"What if they've got a good reason?"

"Who? Oh—Boomer?" He shrugged and began dealing hands across the desk as if he were playing Pyramid. "Depends. If he's headed for trouble I'd have to tell Apollo; can't let Boom-Boom get himself cashiered or something 'cause he thinks he's in love. But if it's just him being his usual obsessively private self, I won't pay off till he's ready." He looked up. "You have an idea about him?"

"If I did, I'd be betting on it," Giles said.

Starbuck shrugged again and returned his attention to his cards. Giles opened the novel he'd borrowed from Lieutenant Bojay's desk on the walk-through. Something he hadn't read before was always a treat. The two settled into the silence of waiting.

Five centares later, Starbuck dropped his cards on the desk and stretched. "I'm turning in," he said. "Wake me at 4:50 and you can grab a turbowash before you eat."

"Sure thing," Giles nodded.

"Keep it quiet," Starbuck said and headed into the back office.

Giles stretched and returned to the novel. It was pretty good; he'd have to raid the squadron leader's library more often. When the alarm beeped to tell him it was one, he was surprised. He stood up and stretched. By his count more officers were still out than were in, but that wasn't surprising. Two corporals hadn't come in yet, either; he'd left himself enough space to put their names down if they never showed up but hadn't reported them yet. He yawned and pushed open the inner door. Starbuck turned over when the light hit his face. "Going on a walk-through," he said; Starbuck muttered something and, reluctantly, sat up.

Everything was quiet, as always. Giles wandered through the offices and halls, trying as much to wake up as look for anything out of the ordinary. There never was anything, and this shift had been typical of one with a congenial OD instead of a boray. Right up until he walked back up to the office and heard the low, angry voice.

"Calm down," Starbuck answered. "You don't want to do this."

"Frackin' hell I don't. Get him out here or I'll find him—and you won't be in any shape to stop me."

Giles froze. That was Lieutenant Nestor, of Silver Spar. And he sounded drunk and determined as well as angry. Not a good combination.

"Put down the blaster and you can chat with anybody you want—"

"No Galactican is telling me what to do. That's been the problem all along. And now you borays can't even keep your hands off our women—"

Giles drew his own blaster, having figured out that Starbuck had probably left his in by the cot. The blond might just be finding out what he'd been wondering about, but it didn't sound like a good situation. He should probably go into another office and call Security but he hadn't been trained to leave someone behind, especially unarmed.

Unfortunately, pilot's uniform boots weren't made for sneaking around in, especially on deck plating. Two shots greeted his arrival at the door, even though he was being as quiet as he could, and he dove inside, ducking. But it wasn't necessary because the shots hadn't been at him. Not those.

A blond man sprawled in blood. Dim light—moonlight. An enemy. Pain. Fear.

Six yahrens' training and experience changed his reaction this time. But the end was the same. Death. Bereavement. Pain.

By the time the shots had brought pilots out of the barracks Giles had left Nestor's body where it lay and was holding Starbuck to him, rocking back and forth with unseeing eyes. He didn't react to anyone, not Greenbean, not Bojay, not Boomer, and he didn't speak. When the medical team got there, they had to sedate him to get him to let go.

"When I was your age I was trouble, too. Not as much trouble, but then again, I don't think I had as good an excuse. My father didn't know what to do with me."

Giles was curious. "He kick you out?"

"No. He put me in the army." He added into the silence, "It's where I learned to be a cop, in military security."

"I ain't gonna be a cop," he said, the bad grammar underscoring his insistence.

"The mind boggles," Yaroslav agreed. "But you could do a lot worse than a term in the service. They'd feed and clothe you, house you, teach you a trade... pay you," he added. "Make you hirable."

"Army..." Giles had never seriously thought about it. He knew all about the war, of course, though no Cylon attack had hit Libris; he could recite the big battles like the Cosmora Archipelago, though his knowledge of them was generally gleaned from public vids and old newsmags. He hated the Cylons with a proper patriotic fervor, since it wasn't possible to think of them as anything but implacable enemies of the whole human race, but the notion of fighting them was brand new. He turned it over in his mind and kind of liked it. "You think they'd take me?"

"Well, not now. You have to be sixteen and you only might be. More importantly, you'd never pass the entrance exams."

"Why bring it up then?"

"Settle down. You could learn enough to pass them: you're more than intelligent enough. But you'd have to work at it."

Giles bristled again. "I can work."

Yaroslav grinned. "I hope so."

So he'd stayed six sectares in Yaroslav's apartment, sleeping on the couch and eating enough to grow another ten centimetrons. Yaroslav brought home books and study-guides and went over the work. He'd needed coaching in maths, and he'd hated it. Someone sitting beside him, telling him how things worked, showing him how to do something: it brought out his worst attitudes. But Yaroslav rode out the insolence and backed away from the anger. More importantly, when Giles would get over it and walk up and drop the maths workbook on the table beside Yaroslav's ale, he accepted that as all the apology needed.

Fortunately it was only maths where he needed anything but pointing in the right direction. He was a slow reader, but he could get through anything he needed to, and as the sectons passed he improved. And what he read he didn't forget. Mostly though, he was powerfully motivated. He didn't need to be told that if he blew this chance he'd be in the streets again; that was the only thing that made any sense. None of the man's friends were comfortable when he was around; he'd heard several of them tell Yaroslav he was asking to get murdered in his sleep. The man didn't seem worried about that, but it was only reasonable that there was a limit on his... whatever it was that had made him take Giles in in the first place. If he wanted Giles in the service and he failed to get in, that would be it.

He passed the entrance exams with a good solid score, not enough to have anybody recommend him for officers' training, but high enough that the recruiting sergeant put a six-yahren term to him as a possibility. "It's two yahrens more, sure," he said, "but you'll be on a higher pay-scale the whole term. Plus, you'll qualify for an advanced Occupational Specialty."

"Like what?"

"Well, a tech school, maybe, like comms repair. Or flight."

"Flight?" Giles sat up straighter.

"Sure. Infantry Landing Vehicle. We like to have several back-up pilots, you know, just in case. You interested?"

He signed for it without a second thought.

The thought of flight school kept him quiet and mostly tractable during boot camp, though he didn't make a single friend—not surprising since he tended to take out his anger at the DIs on his fellow trainees. When the second mail call in a row brought him a letter from Yaroslav he answered, short impersonal letters that slowly got longer as he discovered the cathartic value of words on paper. And then he finished all the training, nearly a yahren after he'd enlisted, and was deployed to his battalion.

They were on the Ares, a troopship in the First Fleet. For the first time he found himself part of a community that expected participation from him. It hadn't been true in the tech school, where studying had been enough of an excuse for standing-off, and it hadn't been true in boot camp, where it was understood that the short term only required obedience and physical effort. It hadn't really been true with Yaroslav, who had, Giles now realized, walked carefully around him as if afraid to make him bolt. But 2d Platoon Gamma Company 4th Battalion of the 23d "Black Dagget" Division was different. You couldn't go into combat with someone you couldn't trust, and it was hard to trust someone who kept himself to himself. It wasn't even all that possible to live with him in a bay of forty. And it was all too easy to take care of that someone in a permanent fashion in a firefight.

So Giles learned to get along with his peers. It wasn't easy, and it didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't without getting—and giving—more than one or two bruises. But slowly he bonded, at least on the surface, with the members of his fire team, and his letters to Yaroslav began to refer to other people by name.

Sports helped. Giles wasn't a Triad player. He'd never played it and certainly never followed it. Joining the service didn't change that; Triad was still something he barely noticed except when the platoon leader, Lieutenant Barr, gave it his not-very-good shot. But where the division's officers had a Triad league, the enlisted had treyball. And he was good at treyball, the poor man's Triad: after all, all you needed for that was the intersection of two buildings and a ball, and even in Riga district there was something about a summer afternoon that encouraged pick-up treyball.

Giles quickly slammed his way to the top of the platoon's league, and then the company's. He was consistently in the quarterfinals or better for the battalion and three times got to the divisional finals, winning once, mostly on nerve and fearlessness. Treyball, after all, true to its working class origins, was played in regular clothes—shorts and a waist-length short sleeved shirt. No uniforms. No helmet. No shinguards. No pads for your elbows, knees, shoulders, arms... if you hit the wall you sucked it up, and if you ran into the other player you both went down. Giles's nature was made for treyball, and his success helped establish him with the company.

It also caught the attention of Gun-Corporal Orion, a lanky dark-haired Caprican who was not a bad player himself. Although his proposal that they play treyball doubles was doomed from the beginning, they hit the EM bar to kill the pain and several centares later Orion leaned in across the table and said, "'No' will be enough, but... You ever make it with another guy? 'Cause you're hot."

Giles froze, staring at Orion. Then he finished his drink, trying to decide what to say. The fact was, girls didn't move him. Fifteen sectares of being in communal turbowashes and locker rooms and living bays proved that men did. But he'd never willingly gone with a man, and the times he'd done it coerced he hadn't enjoyed it. *That was a long time ago, you were a kid,* he told himself. *Guys make it with each other every day... it can't be good for just one of them.* "Not really," he said finally.

"Not really? What does that mean? I mean, you want to?"

The certainty that he could cripple Orion gave him the courage to act on his desire. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

It was good. He enjoyed sex, enjoyed it considerably. It wasn't particularly transcendental, but it was fun, more fun than anything else he'd ever done. Orion taught him a lot, overcoming his reluctance to frack after a couple of sectons. A finger inside him while Orion sucked him off convinced him that there was something in it for the bottom guy and after he'd done the other man a couple of times—there was no mistaking how much Orion liked being done—he got fairly drunk and let Orion do him. And enjoyed it, though he did generally need a couple of drinks first.

Then the 23d got into the Shellafy campaign and Giles discovered an even better pleasure: combat. Slaughtering Cylons wasn't like killing people, or even like killing rodents, for that matter. The officers told them Cylons weren't really even alive, some kind of cyborg-lizard thing. And the adrenaline high was better than sex. Really.

After the Colonials had secured Shellafy, he wrote Yaroslav a long letter about the whole thing, from the first drop to the last mop-up. Buried in the middle was Orion's death when his fire-team's position was overrun by Cylon grunts.

Yaroslav's answering letter put far more emphasis on that the Giles had. He read it over a couple of times and decided that the man had misread him. "Thanks for the thoughts," he wrote back, "but Orion was just a buddy. We had fun, but we weren't even in the same platoon."

In his next letter Yaroslav didn't refer to Orion again. Three sectares after that an official communication arrived from the LPPE, telling him that Lieutenant Yaroslav had been killed when he'd answered a call on a domestic dispute, and another from Yaroslav's advocate, who told him when the funeral was and that he was the sole heir.

Giles felt numb. He ought, he thought, to have been sad, but sorrow wouldn't come. Anger did, of course, but mostly he felt... nothing. The battalion commander, who had seen the official notice, assumed that the address, which Giles had perforce given as his own, meant that Yaroslav was a relative, and he found himself with bereavement leave. It was easier to take it than explain why he didn't want to.

He got to Libris in time to attend the funeral. He stood bareheaded in the clichéd but appropriate rain and ignored the stares from Yaroslav's friends and the other Lippies. He hadn't been expected, so the eulogy was delivered by Yaroslav's divisional commander, but they asked him to say a few words. By now he understood why, but that didn't help him know what to say. At least he wasn't expected to quote Word; there was a priest here for that. In the end he'd fallen back on the simple truth: "He took me in out of the streets. He taught me what I needed to know. He got me into the Warriors. He was good to me. I owe him."

People told him they were sorry for his loss. He thanked them, glad the rain on his face hid his lack of tears, and wondered if this emptiness was what loss felt like. After the interment the advocate rescued him from standing alone watching everyone else go off. In the office he explained about the modest bank account and the apartment, which turned out to have been bought several yahrens ago. Giles asked about Yaroslav's family, which made the advocate blink in surprise, but he said only, "The lieutenant's parents both passed on ten yahrens ago, and he had no siblings." Then he handed Giles a filing folder. "These are your letters to him, corporal. There's a half-finished one to you, as well, that I thought you'd want to have."

Giles didn't read that until he was back on the Ares. It was indeed half-finished, but it wasn't one Yaroslav had apparently ever meant to send. It was dated five sectares ago, just after Shellafy. There were several paragraphs of pleasantries about weather and his job, another about the promotion board Giles was going in front of (had gone in front of but never had the chance to tell him the results of), and then: *I'm glad, I suppose, that losing your friend hasn't caused you any pain. But on the other hand, I'm worried about you. Nothing touches you. You don't love anyone. I'm not even sure you're fond of anyone. I didn't succeed in domesticating you one bit. You sit on the couch and purr when you're warm and fed, but inside you're still that feral little beast I brought in off the street. Self-contained, feeling nothing but anger and a healthy, self-preserving fear... And you won't even understand why I wish that you could cry.*

And Giles didn't understand it. Any more than he understood why he tucked that letter away in his locker, even though he never read it again.

Now

Giles looked up when the door opened. Maybe it would be somebody who'd tell him why he was in the life center, in a locked room, when nothing much seemed to be wrong with him. He was guessing he'd come out the worse for his encounter with Nestor, which was depressing—a drunken pilot took him out?—but he didn't even have a headache, let alone a blaster wound. He probably had taken a clip on the head, since he couldn't remember the fight, but it didn't seem to have damaged him despite the tubes attached to him.

Of course, being locked in wasn't a good sign. Maybe he'd killed him. Minimum force or something like that, wasn't that what Security was supposed to use? *Frack it,* he thought, *I'm not Security.*

So when the door opened he looked around.

"Well, you noticed," said Dr. Paye. "That's an encouraging change."

Giles blinked at him.

"It's been five days, sergeant," Paye said.

"Five days?" Giles couldn't believe it.

"Actually, more like five and a half. Would you like to see Lieutenant Starbuck?"

"Starbuck?" Giles blinked again. "Did he get hurt?"

Paye cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips. After a moment he said, "Yes, he did. He was shot. But he'll be fine. He'll probably be released in a day or two." He paused, watching Giles closely. "If you want to see him, that can be arranged."

Giles shrugged. He didn't know why Paye thought he'd want to see Starbuck. He was glad the lieutenant wasn't dead, but—

*Starbuck was dead on the office floor, covered in blood. Lightfoot was dead at the foot of the wall, covered in blood.*

He stared at the images in his mind, vaguely aware that Paye was saying something. He could smell the blood. He could taste it. He shivered, leaning back against the wall and wrapping his arms around his knees, pulling them into his body.

"Sergeant?"

"He's dead."

"No. No, he's not," Paye said. "He'll be fine."

"Not him."

Paye fell silent.

Giles hugged his knees closer. *Moonlight and blood and pain...* When he finally looked around again, he was alone.

Again.

He sat unmoving on the bed, his memory playing for him everything he'd refused to think about it for yahrens. He'd never felt so cold in all his life.

The next time the door opened, it was for a medtech who brought him a tray and removed the tubes, though she left the IV needle in the back of his hand, capping if off. It didn't escape Giles's notice that a much larger, male tech stood in the doorway till she was done. Nor that he hadn't been given a knife.

He wasn't particularly hungry but he ate, anyway, having learned in the 23d's life centers that if you didn't eat they just kept you longer. He wondered if they'd come if he rang for a tech, but short of enough coda or something to knock him out he didn't want anything.

Nothing he could have, anyway.

The tech came back in half a centare and took his blood pressure and temperature. He didn't see the point, he wasn't sick, but he didn't put up any objection, and not just because her friend was back, too. It was just too much effort and wouldn't accomplish anything. Besides, they were already treating him like he was some dangerous lunatic (*not so dangerous*). The last thing he wanted was to find himself in restraints. He sat quietly and let her do what she wanted, and then watched her take the tray.

When she was gone he found the lights and put them out. A centon later he put them back on. The darkness was... too full. Too hard to deal with. Closing his eyes probably would be, too.

If he didn't sleep, maybe they'd give him something. Or lock him up and throw away the key. If they hadn't already, that was. He got up and started pacing, hoping to tire himself out. And tried not to think about Argo.

Like that worked now.

*Frack. I go fifteen yahrens not thinking about it *at all* and now I can't do it for a centon.*

He climbed onto the bed and, after a while, he wasn't sure how long, lay down and curled up, trying to forget and failing.

*Lightfoot was dead at the foot of the wall, covered in blood. Moonlight, fitfully showing through the clouds, silvered his hair and body and gleamed off the dark blood and then disappeared, drowning the whole scene in darkness that couldn't hide the picture from his memory.*

Sometime he did fall asleep. And this time when the nightmare woke him up, he remembered it all. Lying on the bed, pulling the covers around him and shivering, he missed the hell out of Boomer.

In the morning, after they brought him breakfast and left him alone again, the door opened and a tall woman in medical dove-gray came in. She had hair a much darker gray than her uniform and eyes of a brilliant green. "Sergeant," she greeted him in brisk tones. "My name is Sekhmet. I'm a counselor."

"They think I need counselling?" Giles asked with an effort.

She quirked the corner of her mouth as she dropped a file on the bedside table. "Sergeant," she said, "you were, to use a technical term, completely out of it for five days. And, to use another technical term, you lost it totally that night. You think you don't?"

Giles wondered if that was normal counselling style or if she'd been talking to his friends, finding out what he was like. The only counselors he'd dealt with before had been the ones giving him the pre-enlistment checkup, and they'd been, well, pro forma. He nodded reluctantly. "I see your point."

"Good. Because I understand you want to stay in the service, and we need to find out what's going on with you before they'll approve that."

Giles shrugged. "It's not going to interfere with my flying." He liked having someone to talk to, it helped to have someone to focus on. The memory wasn't so dominating. If they'd let him out of this room, give him something to do, he bet he could function. After a while, anyhow.

"Perhaps. But you can understand they want to be sure. Would you like to have a seat, or is the bed fine?"

"It's the closest thing to a couch in the room."

"As you wish," she said, settling herself in the chair next to the bed. "Dr. Paye is concerned that you said you didn't want to see Lieutenant Starbuck."

Giles sighed. He hated asking for help, but he'd learned that sometimes he had to. And that meant telling her the truth. "It's not Starbuck," he said.

She raised a dark eyebrow. "Oh? According to your records, you practically had to be pried off of him."

That was startling news, to say the least. "Pried off?" he repeated.

She nodded, speaking calmly. "You were hanging onto Starbuck and wouldn't let go. You didn't respond to anything anyone said to you. Several people tried. Dr. Paye is of the opinion that you're," she flicked her eyes to the file, "emotionally attached in some fashion and now denying it, possibly to yourself."

Anything anyone had said to him? Giles swallowed hard. Had Boomer tried to talk to him? Had he ignored Boomer, while hanging on to Starbuck and not letting go? He flinched from that. Oh, gods... now he was lost.

He leaned back against the head of the bed and looked at her through his lashes. "It's not Starbuck," he said. "I'm not in love with Starbuck."

She looked levelly at him. He looked back at her, uncertain if she was believing him or not. One thing he knew about counselling: if they didn't think you were telling the truth you were labelled as 'in denial' and never, ever got out... "Is this confidential?"

"Of course," she said. "I have to tell them whether you're cleared for duty, but that's all."

"I'm not in love with Starbuck. I've been with another officer for nearly a yahren now. It's fraternization, but it's real." *I hope.* "Lieutenant Boomer."

An expression crossed her face too quickly for him to be certain of it, but then she nodded. "I see. But—"

He shrugged, looking sideways at her. "He was just reminding me of something else. Someone else." Again she looked at him levelly and he realized what he was doing. He sat straighter and shrugged slightly. "Someone I'd forgotten."

Then

Lightfoot was in his memory from the beginning. Exactly how and when he'd attached himself to the older boy he couldn't remember, but as he got older he knew it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It had probably saved his life. It had certainly made it worth living.

At first, Lightfoot treated him almost like a pup or other pet. At five or six, some eight yahrens younger, Giles was a tag-along who learned to walk quietly and avoid drawing attention. Their natural environment was rooftops and alleys, and one of his earliest memories was of crawling across a narrow parapet with Lightfoot's arms on either side of him, protecting him from a fall down more storeys than he could count. And feeling completely safe.

He was maybe eight the first time the older boy boosted him through a broken window in a warehouse to find whatever he could steal. And it wasn't more that two sectares after that that Lightfoot brought a book to the abandoned, falling-down building they were living in at the time. "This is the ocean," he said, shaking his long blond hair out of his face. "Remember, we were talkin' about the ocean last secton?"

"Yah," Giles nodded. "Water as far's you can see, you said." He sounded a bit skeptical.

Lightfoot tousled his hair. "Well, look." He pointed at the picture.

Giles stared at it for a long time. "You ever seen it? Th'ocean?"

"Nah," he said. "But I knew someone who did, once. Not this ocean, though; this'n's on Caprica."

"How d'you know?" Giles was willing to believe Lightfoot knew everything, but he wanted assurance.

The blond shrugged. "Says so."

"Oh." Giles ran his finger along the line of printing under the picture and then turned the pages. "C'n you read all this?"

Lightfoot blinked at him. "Sure... Hey. You need to learn t'read. Life's too hard if you can't." He'd taken the book away and turned to the beginning. "Sit here," he pulled Giles up next to him. "Now, see here, how there's a little space between each group of letters? Each group's a word. Each letter's a sound, though it's not always the same sound... You follow, okay? After you learn some words, it'll make more sense. 'Each Colonial World has its great oceans,'" he read, touching each word with his finger, and Giles obediently followed along, trusting the method and learning quickly. It was a long time before either of them realized that the younger boy's memory, which caught each word and held it for ever, was the only reason he learned to read. He was sixteen before he got a method for learning new words quickly; what he was doing now was learning them as if they were ideographs.

But Lightfoot was trying. Remembering his own childhood he relentlessly corrected Giles's grammar, though pronunciation he didn't notice. And if he found a book someplace, he stole it. The boys spent many a long summer's evening trying to make sense of books over both their heads; Giles, years later, could see pages of text before his eyes and finally make sense of it.

Lightfoot remembered his mother, who'd disappeared one day after telling him to stay put and wait for her. She'd never returned, and the Lippies had picked the boy up and taken him to a care center. He'd stayed there for a few days and then run away, back to the park where his mother would be returning to find him. She never came back; eventually he had had to accept that. Giles's parents, on the other hand, were a complete unknown. Where he came from, why he was out in the streets, he didn't know; all he knew was his name. Lightfoot guessed the little red-headed boy, too, had been in the way, but he didn't know for sure. "It doesn't matter, though," he said. "You got me. I'm your family now."

"My really family?"

"All the family you'll ever need," the blond boy said fiercely. "I'll look after you, Giles. Don't you worry. I'll look after you."

The summer of his tenth year had proven that to him. The Knights had moved into Riga, expanding their territory. Lightfoot hated the gangs and kept clear of them as much as he could, warning Giles that they'd swallow him up in their eternal warfare and eat him alive. But one evening he'd gotten careless, and the Knights had found him, on their territory, with a sack full of stolen food.

Lightfoot had kept him safe enough. Most of the loners who haunted Riga and the neighboring districts assumed that he was Lightfoot's tail and left him alone, because the blond had a reputation of crazy fearlessness. He'd gotten knocked around some, even, possibly especially, the two times he'd been too slow to avoid the Lippies and ended up in a DC while they tried to find his family; both times Lightfoot had helped spring him, showing him the ways out. But he'd never been more than that.

The Knights didn't care about Lightfoot's rep. All they cared about was that they'd caught a punk stealing in their streets, and he wasn't affiliated.

He wasn't ignorant. He knew how they meant to mark him, bring him in and make him their property. He fought as hard as he could, but one ten-yahren-old against seven late teeners was no match. And then one, and a second, Knight had gone down hard, knocked off their feet by stones slung with deadly accuracy. "Run!" Lightfoot had yelled and Giles had.

Much later Lightfoot had crawled into the hole they were sleeping in that sectare, bruised and bloody. Giles had been scared and tearful. "Shh," Lightfoot had said, pulling him close and hugging him, wincing when he did but not letting go. "It's all right. You're safe."

"You're hurt," Giles said, tears starting. "They hurt you."

"But they didn't hurt you," the blond had said with satisfaction, pushing Giles's dark red hair back out of his face and smiling at him. "That's what counts. They didn't hurt you... I'll never let anyone hurt you."

Giles had fetched water and helped him clean up, and fallen asleep snuggled up to him. The next morning Lightfoot had been feverish, and Giles had spent four worried days watching over him, but not once had the older boy said anything that blamed him. "We're family," he said. "We watch out for each other. You belong to me, right? I'll keep you safe."

And Giles felt safe no matter what was going on in the streets around them: gangs, Lippies, drunks fighting, crazies...

And then...

Lightfoot was ahead of him. The double moons breaking through the ragged clouds turned his hair to silver. Before them the dark wall rose, sheer and high. But Lightfoot leapt easily, catching the top and pulling himself up without effort. Giles stared upwards, knowing he'd never make it, and then Lightfoot lay down on the wall, hooking his foot over the far edge, and reached down. Giles jumped and their hands met, and Lightfoot pulled him up as though he weighed nothing. They sat on the wall, looking out over the lights of Argo; Giles leaned into Lightfoot and sighed happily.

Lightfoot laughed softly and hugged him one-handedly. "Pretty, isn't it? Despite what you know, it's pretty."

Giles nodded. It was a moment of pure happiness.

And then the shot, and Lightfoot fell.

Giles jumped down. The wrong way, he knew when he was doing it; Lightfoot would have wanted him to run away. But he couldn't leave him, even though he knew it was dangerous. He couldn't... He hit the ground hard, falling down. He scrambled to his feet. Lightfoot was dead at the foot of the wall, covered in blood. Giles dropped to his knees beside him, pulling at his body, begging him to be alive. Moonlight, fitfully showing through the clouds, silvered his hair and body and gleamed off the dark blood and then disappeared, but not before Giles saw the three men approaching, the pale light illuminating the Knights' insignia on their jackets...

When the Lippies finally got there, they had to pull the bruised and abused boy off the corpse. He was covered in blood, not all of it his, and he fought them to stay where he was. They took him to the nearest DC, where he was treated and locked up.

Two days later he was gone, back into the streets. This time, on his own, he wasn't safe. But he had to be there.

He never even found out where Lightfoot was buried.

Dr. Sekhmet had seen him twice a day for the first secton after their initial conversation, and once a day for a secton after that. When he left the life center, back on duty, he was scheduled to see her once a secton for "a while. Because you must admit it's not precisely normal to forget something so completely. We have to make sure you're as okay as you seem to be."

He'd already done something he'd never thought he would: accepted the commission that Adama had decided to grant to all the enlisted pilots. Seemed like some of the Wing's officers, like Apollo and Boomer, had registered their dissatisfaction and, more importantly, understood and agreed with it. As a class, they were gone: corporals were now flight officers and sergeants were lieutenants. Giles had always sworn he didn't want a commission, but Sekhmet had helped him realize that his rejecton of responsibility was part of his past: if he didn't take responsibility for anyone he'd never fail them. What he liked about her was she didn't care one way or the other if he took the commission, only that he understood why he did whichever he did.

She'd helped him put himself back together. Now when he thought of Lightfoot, it hurt, but he could do it. And in a way he wouldn't have believed, even the pain was good. Lightfoot had loved him.

*Yaroslav*, he thought, *I've learned how to cry.*

Their last conversation hadn't been about the past at all.

"So," Giles said pensively, "when I finally fell in love—despite Yaroslav's predictions I did manage to—I chose to fall for someone who is as close to a complete opposite to Lightfoot as I could find."

He hadn't meant it as a question, but it got an acknowledgement anyway. "So it seems."

Seems? Giles laid it out. "He's a man, 'cause I'm flit, but otherwise... I mean, he's dark, his eyes are brown and his hair's black, he's middling in height; Lightfoot was a tall, fair, blue-eyed blond. And Boomer's steady and quiet and low-key and... you know. Lightfoot was, well, manic almost. High-strung and volatile."

"Sounds like someone I know."

"Maybe..." Giles had figured that out, too. Why Starbuck was so attractive and yet so, well, scary at the same time. But that wasn't the thing. "But what now?"

"What now? What do you mean, what now?"

"I mean, now that I've remembered or stopped forgetting or whatever... now that I know about Lightfoot and why I fell for Boomer, does it end? What kind of basis is that for a relationship? Is it even a real relationship?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"Of course I do. What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything. You're looking at the surface. You have to look deeper to find the truth. Boomer and Lightfoot may appear to be polar opposites, but underneath the surface they have one very strong thing in common: you. Loving you. That's the important thing."

"Huh," he said, realizing after he did that he'd gotten that from Boomer.

"So don't get hung up on the outside. Why we're first attracted to someone is not half as important as why we fall in love, why we stay. If Boomer loves you and you love him, it's as real as a relationship can get."

So now he sat in the ready room, new lieutenant's pins on his jacket and a really bad set of cards in his hand. Starbuck had slapped him on the shoulder when he came in and dragooned him into the game.

Beneath the surface... That was where the truth lay, sure enough. For him, and for Boomer, too. Those deeply hidden currents that swirled under the surface, whether that was apparently still and placid or roiled and breaking—they ran in a different direction and at their own pace, and they could grab you and carry you far from where you'd started. But the surface altered with every passing wind. The deep currents ran true.

Boomer had welcomed him back that morning calmly, but his eyes had been anything but. Joyful, concerned, patient... loving. Above all else, loving. Now he was sitting next to Giles, to all appearances concentrating on his cards, but Giles had spent too long in a life where he had to be aware of every nuance not to know that Boomer was actually focussed almost exclusively on him. Waiting to see what happened next.

And that was another thing Giles had spent too long a time doing. He looked at his hand, then collapsed the cards and transferred them to his left hand so he could reach for his chips with his right. He tossed in his first bet and then laid his hand on Boomer's wrist. Boomer turned sharply and looked at him. Then he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his teeth showing white in his brown, beloved face. In those eyes, as dark as a mystery and as bright as life, Giles saw the current moving, catching him and pulling him in, carrying him off, away from where he was and towards where he wanted to be. He tightened his hold momentarily and smiled back.