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He stood there in the hallway, right there, in front of Felix, and simply looked at him, with a patched uniform and a godsdamn lollipop hanging from his mouth. Felix breathed in and looked right back; it was like time had ground and crunched to a sudden halt, and the unexpectedness of it threw him off balance. The Galactica's tactical officer wasn't really accustomed to being thrown off balance. It was like the very air had taken a swipe at him and he actually had to reach out his free hand and catch his weight against the door-frame. Oh gods, he'd thought he'd moved on.
Helo grinned at him from around the lollipop in a disturbingly knowing kind of way.
'Where'd you nick that?' Felix asked, more to buy himself time than anything else, gesturing with his other hand – a hand full of paperwork that fluttered oddly as he waved it – in the direction of Helo's sweet. It was half-hanging from the Lieutenant's bottom lip now. Gods, how long since he'd seen Helo like this, just there, just being, and now he was, and sucking that sugary thing like a kid. Sucking it in a way that made the skin at the nape of Felix's neck flush with an almost-forgotten warmth.
Helo shrugged. 'Starbuck. She won it in a game of Triad.' He took hold of the lollipop's stick with a pair of fingers, and held it out as though to study it in detail. His voice had ceased but his face said, Starbuck and me, we go long back. She doesn't give stuff to just anyone.
Felix managed a grin. 'Lucky you.' He wanted to move away, hurry off with the paperwork. But there was something else in Helo's face, and it caught him fast. Helo's face also said, Hey, the thing with Starbuck is that she treats me like a human. Everyone else, they look at me and see some frakking cylon-lover, nothing more, nothing less. That was that made Felix unable to leave – the pain and inquiry on Helo's face. The pain of exclusion. Felix ran his hand along the door's edge and titled his head a little to one side. He could remember a time in the past when he'd run his hand along Helo's arched back – in the days before Sharon. Oh, Felix just been some kind of substitute, a temporary fix, and he'd known it. He'd known that it was Sharon Helo had wanted, though in those days he couldn't have her. And it was hard on Felix now, to know they were together. Harder, in a way, because he knew how impossible it was for them. Which meant that he couldn't even hate her for it, like he knew everyone else did, because he knew she made Helo happy. In a bitter-sweet, desperate kind of way.
He shut his eyes for a second, then looked across the space between them with darkened eyes. 'You know... I'm good with it, right, Karl?'
The ship moved around them, caught the pair of them there in-the-hall and not-in-the-hall, time passing fast around their slow motion. Gods, it was all just in his head and Felix knew it, but sometimes he could remember all too clearly what it had felt like, even if it had been just a fleeting―
Helo stepped towards him. 'Thank you,' he said in a soft voice. He passed Felix the lollipop. Felix took it with a wry smile, slipping between his lips, tasting the sweetness, and just a dash of Helo.
'I mean it.' And Felix realised abruptly he really did; it wasn't a lie. He'd been there when Sharon had sliced herself up in the CIC to infect the Cylon Raiders. He'd seen her save all their lives. It didn't mean he was comfortable with her, but – but he understood what it was like to love someone. He understood love could be hard.
'I know,' whispered Helo.
And Felix rather suspected that he did. A great deal more than either of them would ever admit...