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He hoped it was just the nerves, the adrenaline of his whole situation that was making him sick. More probably, it was the fact that they were all crammed into an old ship with failing ventilation, with twice as many people as it was supposed to carry, the air circulating endlessly through the rooms. Or maybe a combination of both - the stress was frying his immune system, making him susceptible to whatever mutated virus someone had brought aboard.
There was, of course, still the possibility that it wasn't an illness at all. Maybe he was poisoned. He had his enemies, he had to admit, even before this whole mishap, people who were jealous of his success, and for some of them, something like the end of the world wouldn't be enough to let them forget. Of course, he'd made new ones, someone who'd somehow found out what he'd done - what he was tricked to do - and wanted him to suffer. Or maybe the Cylons themselves decided he’s more trouble than he’s worth and were trying to get rid of them.
Maybe he'd got sick long ago, even before he'd escaped Aerilion. He’d read about it one night while procrastinating from something important, about little things so primitive they couldn't even be called viruses, just malicious pieces of protein. The easiest way to get infected, the article had said, was to eat meat contaminated with brain matter. They would latch onto your nerves and sit there, sleeping, until they would suddenly wake up years later and start eating holes into your brain, and by the time you would notice the symptoms, shaking hands, hallucinations, memory issues, it would be too late. He remembered sitting in his room, paralyzed with fear, recalling every slopilly butchered animal he'd eaten as a kid, and every relative who'd died shaking and out of their mind. Of course, those were also the same ones who he'd never seen sober in his life, but he could never know for sure.
He put his head down on the blissfully cool surface of the table. That would be just his luck, to survive a nuclear apocalypse, only to die a slow and painful death from something he’d brought from his godsforsaken home planet.
“Sir?”
He sat up, trying to make himself look as presentable and sane as possible. Lieutenant Gaeta was standing at the door of his lab, clipboard held against his chest, looking at with a badly masked confusion.
“Mister Gaeta! I was just…” His voice cracked and broke, far from his usual smoothness he'd worked so hard for. “I was trying…”
He stammered. Luckily, his invisible friend was away, it would be even harder to keep his dignity with her sitting in his lap, laughing at how pathetic he was. Lieutenant Gaeta's obvious concern was mortifying enough on its own.
“You don't have to worry, Felix. I'm just a little under the weather, but nothing to stop me from working.” He desperately wanted to shut up - his throat was burning with every word, and really, he wasn't convincing anyone, not even himself. But his mouth was just moving on its own and he could only hope his voice would give up soon.
“I can get you something, if you want,” Gaeta looked almost as nervous and awkward as he felt, fingers clicking endlessly against the clipboard. The sound grated on his nerves, but he bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed any complaints. “I can ask doctor Cottle, or bring you a cup of tea from the mess hall.”
He shook his head at the first option - no matter how much his body wanted it, not even he was so selfish to take medicine from others when there was already so little to go around, let alone so cruel to let the Gaeta be the messenger and bear Cottle's anger. But…
“Tea would be nice, thank you,” he rasped. Gaeta smiled, and turned to leave.
His family never had money for anything, so even a cold medicine was a luxury sometimes. Instead, his mother used to make him tea, with honey and lemon masking the bitter taste of the herbs. It would always soothed his sore throat and made breathing easier. When he'd moved to Caprica, he'd exchanged it for something more scientific, where he could actually point out why it worked. He'd started to see the old ways of his childhood as primitive at best and make believe at worst. But nostalgia always tends to pop up in such unstable times, and he found himself repeating the recipe in detail, while Gaeta nodded along with every ingredient.
“I'll try my best,” he finally said before walking out of the door.
“He was trying to run away before you came up with more ridiculous demands.”
He winced. His hallucination, in her absurd red dress, was sitting on the edge of his desk, watching him like he was a child or particularly amusing animal. “Tea. Your whole species is on the brink of extinction, and you would ask for tea. How very sophisticated of you.”
He knew there was no use arguing with her, but he couldn't help himself.
“He offered to get me some! It would be rude to say no.”
“And you asked for an exact blend, and for two spoons of honey, and for fresh lemon, when everything is rationed, because that's not rude, even a little.” He wasn't sure if he really said that, he never was when speaking to her, but she had no reason to lie. “And the best thing is, he will actually go and ask for it and people would laugh at him, but he would do it because you are a brilliant scientist who will save them all, and you deserve something extra.” She smiled. “And because he has a crush on you.”
“That's low, even from you,” he said. A crush. Lieutenant Gaeta was a professional, not a highschool student.
But when he finally returned, almost an half an hour later, with a cracked old mug full of tea, he let his fingers touch his for a second, and watched his eyes turn just a little brighter.