Gold

Apollo hadn't said anything when they'd arrived for the briefing, a bit breathless but with a good centon to spare. He'd barely even glanced at them... barely, unless you were the recipient of that glance. If you were, as Starbuck was, and if you knew him, as Starbuck did, you knew better. For green eyes, they could be very cold.

Starbuck almost wished Apollo had said something.

But only almost. He had no particular desire to actually hear what Apollo was probably thinking; and although Apollo was wrong (this time), the truth about where they'd been was no better. He very much didn't want to discuss Chameleon with Apollo. Funny thing, he thought, letting the briefing wash over him trusting that Bojay would be getting all they needed; lately he was doing a lot of things he didn't want to talk about. Not that he didn't want to do them, but talking about them had, lately, been a big problem.

He was going to have to get over that.

Doing was important - maybe the most important thing - but, he'd realized, not talking about things just made them, as Bojay had said, unsaid. And what wasn't said couldn't be argued about, yes, but it couldn't be dealt with at all. Even in good ways. Unsaid things slipped away and were lost...

His mind focused on Apollo's voice saying his name. That was accompanied by two nudges, one from Bojay on his right and the other from Jolly on his left; a glance down showed him two hands both giving him the hand signal for, "Yes, sir. Absolutely." Which he said while he mind ran off on another tangent altogether.

Jolly.

Jolly had never said much about what he'd yesterday called "that stuff with the fuel." But he could have. Starbuck hadn't been there, but Jolly had. And yet, Jolly not only didn't talk much about it, yesterday he had basically said it wasn't very important. And he'd sat with Starbuck... Oh, sure; you could read too much into that. Jolly really wouldn't know a grudge if he was introduced to one, but still. Apollo and Boomer got all cold and talked about treason; Jolly just said "that stuff." "That stuff" hardly squared with "he would have killed us" or "mutinous dagget," did it?

Starbuck slid a sideways look at Jolly. The big man was focused on Apollo.

Jolly spun a chair around and sat down, resting his chin on his arms on the chair's back. "What's up?"

..

He shrugged. "It wasn't good," he admitted. "But nothing happened. I mean, the Cylons attacked and the Pegasus guys jumped right to it, even though Apollo was pretty much ready to shoot Bojay just before then."

"Don't you have that backwards?"

Jolly wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "No. Not saying Boj wasn't ready to deck the captain, not saying he wasn't mad as hell and all serious with it - but he's not the one who had his gun out."

"He's not?"

"No." Jolly shook his head. "Apollo drew on him - guess he saw something in Bojay's eyes. Wouldn't surprise me, really; he could get crazy in the old days."

"Apollo drew first?"

Jolly made a puzzled face. "That's what I said.