Quid Pro Quo
Quid Pro Quo
Summary: Zaharis gives Reed a little advice on Rhea, and Reed gets curious enough to ask a few questions.
Date: 17 ACH (1 December 2008)
Related Logs: Man to Man, Mandatory Meeting
Players:
Reed..Zaharis..

Viewing Deck Support Station PAS - Deck 4
17 ACH 6735 Souls


As the rings on the station rotate slowly, it is never really felt, but the viewport allows a wonderful viewing of space. Here, the four, large panels give a showing that is worth just sitting and watching the stars float by. Seating is more of a lounge, than a theater type. All couches are bolted down, but extremely comfortable for sitting and relaxing. There is even a mini-refreshment bar along the back wall, which is self-serve.


Contents: Reed Zaharis Wireless 944

Exits: [O] Out
-=============================================================================-

A pair of boots is resting on the back of one of the couched, propped up. that's the first thing. Reed is in his off duties, laying on the couch, in front of him on the table in front of the couch is a bottle of scotch, unopened, and a small black tray holding four glasses on it. Reed's looking out at the viewport, lost in thought.

Zaharis usually just unbuttons his fatigues shirt to signal 'off-duty', but today he didn't even bother to bring it over. The tattoo and the scarring it partly covers is visible on his right arm, that he normally has covered up. He heads for the couch, spotting the bottles before he notices Reed, and reaches down for one of the glasses. "Expecting a party?" He nods to the four.

Reed shrugs, swinging his boots down to sit up. "Preperation, Doctor. Always be prepared. You might have brought half of Medical up here to go for the scotch." He takes the bottle, and grasps the lid. "Pause for the cause." He then cracks the seal open, and opens the bottle properly, holding it out to pour a few fingers into Zaharis' glass, "Tell me."

Zaharis sits down, keeping his glass held out for the pouring. He pulls his cigarette pack out and tosses it on the table before sitting back. "Rhea feels guilty. About what went on with you. I know better than to think anything actually happened, but it was some pretty bad timing."

Reed shakes his head, pouring three fingers for the Doctor. "Nothing did happen. Closest we've ever come was me pulling her up when she was drunk on picon rum, and she fell against me. I admitted my attraction to her, and she admitted the same to me." He pours himself two fingers. "Bad timing, yeah, bad timing that's the least thing bad about this."

"Well." Zaharis lifts the glass for a swallow. "She had it in her head that that made her a bad wife. Made it that much rougher to have it real that he's gone. Anyway, she's…she's raw, but now she's accepted what she had to accept."

Reed nods setting the bottle down and takes up the glass, frowning, "Bad wife. Lords." He takes a slug of the scotch, hissing slightly, and shaking his head. "Yeah, it got ripped out from under her, alright." He rubs his face, "so what now?

"Be there," Zaharis replies, simply. "Listen. Make sure she knows nothing's too small to go under the radar of a friend. It'll probably be a little hard for her to go to you, so you need to understand that and be as patient as she needs. She knows you're here for her, though. I told her that."

Reed nods, "I understand. it's dancing between being pushy and not being there." He looks at the bottle. then points at it. "Like now, I'm sure blotto would be a good thing for her, knowing she's safe in doing so."

"Maybe." Zaharis sips his own drink, already half done with what he was poured. "Can't say I'm a big fan of encouraging people to drink when they're down. The line between helping and hurting is pretty fine."

Reed nods, conceding the point, "Okay. He shakes his head, "Just.. knowing what she's going through, watching it." He shakes his head, "Hurts." He takes another slug of the scotch, hissing a little.

"Well. People know what people go through. Alcohol doesn't." Zaharis sits up and retrieves a cigarette from the pack. His tone on that point seems rather strong.

Reed nods, "Point. Far too easy to lose yourself in the bottom of that bottle." He sighs, "Okay, bad idea." He sits back, putting his feet up, glass on his stomach. He looks at Zaharis, "If Adele takes the comission, I'm planting her into research. Putting her under Reighner, far enough removed from you that there won't be a Frat problem."

Zaharis is silent a moment, just lighting his cigarette. Flick, flick. "Alright."

Reed smiles, "I'm really impressed by you, you know that? It's all one way with you. How long are you planning on keeping your own problems cordoned off from the table?"

Zaharis' right eye squints at Reed through the fog of smoke that rises. "What?"

Reed smirks, shaking his head, "Haven't quite worked it out, but nothing seems to touch you, not that it leaves you unaffected, but that you won't let the issues come to the surface. Classic 'Physician heal thyself' situation."

"Been taking lessons from the shrink?" Zaharis asks, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. You're not exactly the galaxy's most chatty about your problems either, you know."

Reed looks at the CMO mildly, "No. I've been counseling your shrink, Doctor." He shrugs. "You know my most pressing hangup in the present time and you have the background information on my most disastrous time of life. You know more than anyone, believe it or not."

Zaharis sits back, putting the ashtray on the arm of the chair. "My pressing hangups and the most disastrous time of my life aren't a thousandth as wholesome as yours. I guess I'm just reluctant to tempt judgment down onto my head."

Reed smirks, "Afraid I'll get the toga and lightning bolt and chase you into the chapel? wholesome, that's a horrible thing to say."

Zaharis smiles slightly. "Kinda, yeah." His tone's only half-kidding. "If you did, you wouldn't be the first. Minus the toga."

Reed lifts his brows, "I'm sorry, I think you have me confused for someone who makes moral judgments on other people. Afraid that's not me, sorry." He takes a drink from his glass.

Zaharis finishes off the rest of the scotch in his glass and sits up, refilling it from the bottle. As he settles back again, he pulls an ankle up over his knee and rests the glass down on his leg. "Alright. You say so." A small sip from the glass. "I guess I'm in some honesty debt with you, anyway. And you should know why…I don't want to see Rhea go down a bad road. Or Matt, or anyone else."

Reed nods, "Well, we're agreed on that. I don't want to see anyone going off a cliff either. So.. what is it? I'm still in the dark."

"Yeah. But it's easier to go off than it looks." Zaharis taps a long column of ash from his neglected cigarette and takes a short drag from it. He looks back at Reed and talks without anything grand in his voice. "When I was fifteen I tried to kill myself. I was addicted to opioids at the time…there wasn't anyone to talk to. Anyone. And so I used that to feel better, just more and more and my mind wanted to think that it was taking all the problems away when really all it was doing was masking things. Til one day it started buzzing in my head that I could get rid of every problem by just taking as much as I possibly could. So I did. Almost worked, came that close." He clears his throat and shrugs. "But that's how I know. It's why I can't watch someone do it."

Reed nods, "But you turned it around and got yourself straight, and got on the track leading you here." He considers, "I can see how that makes you into the person you are now. You're not a doctor, you're a healer."

"I'm a flawed person that's made a shitload of mistakes," Zaharis' head shakes slightly, and he smiles a little. "I understand other flawed people who've made a shitload of mistakes. That's all. Nothing special."

Reed nods, "And you use that to help others. That isn't something to be simply handwaved off as not important. There's a lot of frakups around here who could do what you do, but don't for whatever reason. You're past them, for a good reason. That's why you're a Major, for one.

"Yeah, don't induct me into sainthood just yet, there." Zaharis smirks, flicking the cigarette into the ashtray. "I became a doctor because the military told me to. I was just lucky all the trackmarks had healed or I'd have been in deep shit." He lifts his chin towards Reed. "So that's the most disastrous…well, one of them, anyway. Feel better with a card on the table now?"

Reed thinks, "Well, that shapes how you became you, to a point, and I bet that wasn't easy to say. Does any of that still bother you to this day? Any of this Cylon shit get under your skin?"

Zaharis' smile looks bittersweet, and he stubs out the dying cigarette. "If you think I don't have to conjure up the will of the frakking gods to walk past the pharmacy twenty times a day, and not take as much as my bloodstream would hold, you're off your nut."

Reed nods, "Yeah, but you've been doing that for years now, and have held together in this, the hardest of times imagineable. That gets you my faith." He scratches his cheek. "Who'd you leave behind on the Colony worlds?"

"You first," Zaharis leans over to pick up the scotch bottle. "I'm thirsty."

Reed smirks, "Then you should have some water." He grins, thinking, "Well, Mother, Father, brother, sister. Two twin nieces.. They were cute kids. Sisters kids. there was this girl on virgon, she worked in computer networking. was second in command of this company, work was really the focus of her life and she wasn't interested in joining me in the ass end of Colonial space out of her company."

Zaharis pffts at the water comment, pouring out another two fingers of scotch. Reed's glass gets a refill as well as he listens, and he nods a bit. "What were your folks like?"

Reed taks, "Desperate for grandkids. I think they wanted little kids to spoil more than they wanted us, their own kids. Of course, my not being married and implanting my wife with sproutlings was just unforgiveable. 'Why are you wasting your time in the military, the military's there to protect us so we can be happy, and have kids.'" He frowns, shaking his head."Just wouldn't let it go."

Zaharis nods slightly. "Not satisfied with the twin grandkids, then?"

Reed shakes his head, "Oh noo, my brothers wife, she was pregnant.. No, she should have delivered.. Frak." He rubs his forehead, "Anyway, I was unattached, unbred and going to a project of military top secret stuff. they were not happy, and were actually trying to talk me out of it. Like I could call up and say, "Sorry, mom and dad want me to knock someone up, so, no thanks on the CO spot for the PAS."

Zaharis smiles a little. "No, you couldn't. What were their names? Your family."

Reed looks at the viewport, "Ronald and Avis were my parents, and Dayne and Angie, were my brother and sister. The kids were Nancy and Gwen.

"Good names." Zaharis sits back with his glass, quiet for a moment. "Think about them a lot?"

Reed sighs, "No. Our falling outs had turned them into people I had a genetic bond with, not a real family."

Zaharis nods twice, slowly. "And all the fighting was about what you chose to do with yourself?"

Reed nods, "Yep. they didn't see the point. Saw no use in me doing this secret research.

Zaharis half-smiles. "Sorry to hear that. So it was pretty recent, all that. Were you close when you were younger?"

Reed nods, "Yeah, normal for family members you know." He sighs, "And now they're dead. hard to get a grasp of.

Zaharis nods. "Still surreal, isn't it. Left hand knows and the right hand don't. Pretty messed up feeling." He pauses a moment. "Are you still feeling guilty about it?"

Reed nods, "Aure last time I saw them we were all yelling and it made me head to virgon for the rest of my leave."

Zaharis replies simply. "It's not your fault."

Reed nods, "I know, but it still ended far uglier than it really needed to have."

"Yeah, I guess it did." Zaharis nods slightly. "But does a little while of bad negate twenty…thirty some years of good?"

Reed sighs, "No, of course not. They did okay raising us, there is that." He looks to Zaharis, "What about you?"

Zaharis shakes his head slightly. "Couple good friends," he replies, in a vague tone. "My daughter."

Reed looks at the viewport and blinks as things slam home, "Oh gods. your daughter?" He looks to the Doctor. "How old?"

"Six." Zaharis lifts his glass, taking a sip of the scotch.

Reed sighs, lowering his head, "Damnit. What was her name?"

"Diana Helen Koskinas." Zaharis clears his throat, fishing a new cigarette from his pack.

Reed nods, looking at him, "That's beautiful. Living with her mother?"

"Yup." Zaharis replies blandly, lighting the cigarette and then glancing at the stars outside. "Mother and mother's new husband."

Reed nods, slowly. "Sounds like they had a nice life there."

Zaharis gives a snort of a laugh. "Yeah. Until the nukes and everything. Shitty way to end dinnertime."

Reed nods, "Yeah." He shakes his head, "When Kelly died, you know what I couldn't believe most of all? The STUPID things people would say. 'I'm sorry' Big frakkin deal, be sorry out of my way. 'If there's anything I could do.' Oh yeah, there is, bring her back to life, that, I'd really appreciate.

Zaharis watches the viewport while Reed talks, then looks back at him. "People need to say something. Makes them feel better more than it does the person who's actually lost something, but…that's human." He takes a drag off the cigarette. "What would you have wanted them to say?"

Reed shakes his head, "Oh, I don't know really, in all honesty, there's not much they could do, or say and that realization is important. Keeps you from snapping at people

Zaharis nods once. "Sometimes. But you know you've got a friend when you can snap a hundred times and they'll still forgive you." He shifts on the chair and pulls his handheld off his belt, tapping a few buttons with his thumb. "I have a picture of her. If you want to see."

Reed nods, setting his glass on the table as he sits up, and moves down the couch for a better looks, "Absolutely."

Zaharis finds what he was looking for, looking down at it for a few moments himself before handing the little computer over to Reed. "That's her."

Reed takes the handheld, looking at the picture for a few moments, smiling, then hands it back. "Lovely. Looks like a real sweetheart."

"She was really beautiful." Zaharis takes the computer back, looking down at the screen. "She was the most…beautiful…thing I've ever seen." He inhales a slow, silent breath, and the corners of his eyes subtly tense. He blinks a few times, quickly, before he shuts off the computer and grinds the cigarette into the tray. "Frakking hell, it's late. I should get back to homebase before the kids blow it up."

Reed looks at him, lips in a tight, frowning line, "It's not your fault. I know nothing I can say will make it better, but if you need to talk or throw things, come to me, okay?"

Zaharis slides the handheld away, clearing his throat as he stands and gives a rather noncommittal nod. "I'll keep you up on how Rhea's doing. Appreciate if you'd do the same for me."

Reed nods, "Absolutely." He straightens, capping the scotch, "Thank you for everyything."

"No, thank you. You're the man with all the invites." Zaharis stretches out his back and grabs up his cigarettes, sliding the pack into the side pocket of his fatigue pants. Possessions gathered, he lifts a hand in a wave and heads for the exit. "Be good, Reed."

Reed gathers the glasses, "Often as I can be." He rises taking the bottle.

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