Blood Work [Open]

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Gaius Baltar is standing in the science labs of the third floor of the Prosperina, eye pressed against the eyepiece lens. This felt so familiar to Gaius; in a way, it was almost disconcerting. What was that phrase that Six liked to use? 'All this has happened before, and all this will happen again', was it? It certainly seemed to be the case now. Mostly, anyway. Instead of being surrounded by thousands of blood samples all in need of testing for Cylon pathogens, he was surrounded by four in need of just simple investigation.

One from him, one from Julien, one from someone he hadn't yet had the opportunity to meet, and one from the Commander.

Only one woman aboard the station had deigned to pay a visit to the science labs, and it had to be her of all people. What Gaius wanted was someone young and pretty like the girls he slept with on Caprica. Someone who would think he was all charm and intelligence. Someone who thought he was utterly irresistible.

And the Commander it seemed, had developed an immunity to his charms. In fact, she didn't seem to like him at all. And that alone Gaius couldn't stand; he didn't like the thought of anyone disliking him. Even Shepard.

"Cubit for your thoughts, Gaius." Gaius jerks up quite suddenly to find Six sitting there on the countertop next to him. She's quite lovely, in that red dress that he really loved. The one that seemed to hug every inch of her body, leaving very little to the imagination.

"When did you get here?" he asks her, though it comes out as more of a demand than a question.

"Just a second ago." Six smiles. "Are you going to answer my question?"

Gaius runs a hand over his sweatshirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. He'd feel more comfortable in a suit -- or if that weren't possible, a lab coat would probably do. But unfortunately, the ship had not seen it fit to outfit them appropriately.

Or at least not him. The rest of the space station's denizens could feel just at home in this kind of clothing, for all he knew.

"I was thinking about women," he says, finally. "The only one I've seen since I've cooped myself up in this lab is Shepard and frankly, she left a great deal to be desired." He peers through the eyepiece again and frowns down at a sample of her bloodwork. It sits on a microscope slide, bound to the stage with a set of stage clips.

Six pushes herself out the counter and steps towards him. She leans over him, breasts pressed against his back. Gaius briefly recalls the last time the two of them fooled around in a science lab, and remembers Kara Thrace walking in right in the middle of it.

Any desire he might have felt was killed with that very thought.

"Learn anything new about women by examining their blood?" she asks, her lips so close to his ear that she can feel the warmth of her breath there on his lobe.

"Abnormalities," he answers, somehow managing to squelch his newly-resurrected desire, however barely. "But I've seen a lot of abnormalities from the samples I've taken thusfar. I'll need more samples before I can draw any definitive conclusions."

He's both thankful and remorseful when Six decides to pull away a second later. "Well, then," she says. "I'll leave you to your work."

And in a blink of an eye, Six is gone again, leaving Gaius standing there, wishing very much that he was in some other place -- some private place, rather -- alone and with Six.

Comments

[wholeworldoutthere]

Klaus has lived a long and eventful life, but it's the first time he's received an e-mail from a President. He doesn't know the twelves colonies of Kobol, but it doesn't sound as if the man is president of a goodwill association or anything of the like, so he will consider it a first. Of course, he's curious about a President that is also a scientist, and much as he is not about to give anyone his blood (it is too precious, in more than one way, and can be used in entirely too many spells that could affect him), he is even more curious to know what they might have found in it, and whether it might not be possible to counter the effects of whatever they have been injected.

When he walks up to the lab doorway on Level Three, the man inside is just standing there looking somewhat wistful, and Klaus wonders if he might not be the other doctor. The one that is probably not a President. He looks a bit like an idiot right now, after all.

Klaus walks leisurely into the lab, heading towards the man. "Are you one of our new doctors, then?"

[nomoremrnicegaius]

The steady click-clack of shoe against floor pulls Gaius out of his daze just in time to assess the newcomer in the second before he opens his mouth to speak. Momentary disappointment tugs its way across his face ('Never a woman,' he thinks glumly), but is quickly pushed away in lieu of the charming smile he usually reserves for pretty women or reporters or dignitaries of some importance.

At just a glance, Klaus doesn't appear to be any of the three, but Gaius nevertheless maintains the smile.

"Dr. Gaius Baltar, actually," he says, extending a hand to what appears to be a younger man. "President of the Twelve Colonies. Is it safe to assume that you received my message, then?"

[wholeworldoutthere]

"I'm not here to give my blood," Klaus says by way of an answer. It's a yes to his question, anyway, even if not in so many words, and he shakes Gaius's hand. It is the President doctor. Well. And his accent sounds a lot like Klaus's, which would put him in England, if his world is anything like Earth.

"I was curious to meet you," he adds, with one of his charming smiles. Not overdone, and in fact entirely natural. Spend enough time calculating your smiles and they become second nature. He lets go of the President's hand and slides his back into his pocket, rocking slightly on his heels. He looks and sounds as if he truly is delighted to meet Gaius, and that too comes naturally. "I've never heard of your Twelve Colonies before, and I've certainly never shaken the hand of a President."

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Gaius is not quite sure what to think of the man's initial response. If he wasn't here to give a sample of blood, why was he here, then?

The answer comes quickly after that, and it's enough for Gaius to transform that perfectly-practiced smile into one that is truly genuine.

He was here for him.

"I'm not surprised," he remarks. "Putting aside the fact that we are likely both from two very divergent realities, the Twelve Colonies simply don't exist the way they did several years ago." He won't go into that further right now, not while they're having such a pleasant conversation.

"If you're not here for a sample, surely you must have some reason to visit the labs besides meeting me," Gaius says. He is hopeful that whatever the reason for his visit, Kraus will give him some small opportunity to flaunt his intellectual prowess.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"Aside from curiosity?" Klaus asks, rhetorically, because it would have been impossible not to notice the change in the man's demeanour the minute Klaus had started flattering him, and making it all about him. He's even wondering how long it will take for President Doctor Gaius Baltar to ask for Klaus's name in return. If he even ever asks. Still, he's not going to lay it on too thick, and he moves on.

"Actually, yes, I was also wondering whether you'd found anything yet," Klaus answered. "In our blood, from the injections."

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"We have discovered something. An abnormality. I worked quite a bit with blood samples back aboard the Battlestar Galactica, though the tests I was running back then were quite different from the ones I'm running now." Here, Gaius wasn't looking for Cylons. As much as he wanted to locate those Final Five (and determine if he himself was one of them), he did not have the technology on hand to perform such testing.

He did, however, plan to keep the blood samples he had on hand in case there was a time in the future when he could submit the samples to a new and improved version of his Amazing Cylon Detector.

Of course, he had no intention of letting the others know that.

"There is an abnormality," he says. "So far it's been present in all the samples I've collected, though further samples would need to be collected and further testing be done before I can provide a more definitive, concrete explanation."

He smiles charmingly. "Of course, analysis is taking longer than usual. While most of the samples I have on hand are most decidedly human, even those samples differ slightly, on a genetic scale. I suppose that much is to be expected, with us coming from divergent realities. Our cycle of evolution may have been different for each of us depending upon the time and space we come from."

Gaius still has neglected to ask Klaus for his name.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"I wouldn't expect any different," Klaus agrees, with a slight smile, although he is not exactly thrilled by what the doctor is saying. The scientific chit chat is all well and good, but to him it's just like listening to yet another witch go on about the balance of nature. For the same reason he tended not to let his irritation show when he wanted the witches to work for him willingly, he doesn't let it show now either. Best to keep the good doctor on his side, although the good doctor would very probably see it the other way around.

"How long do you expect the analyses to take?"

[somethingwithsomeslink]

Zoe has never so reluctantly walked someplace before. Well, not since the war, but that doesn't count, not really. She hadn't even responded right away to the message from the doctor, not wanting to entertain the idea of someone having her blood. She got antsy enough when Simon wanted so much as a swab, let alone a blood sample. But the more she thought about it, the more she figured that everyone's just looking for a way out. And who knows what the hell'd been done to them while they were unconscious anyway.

She makes a calculated decision and comes to rest on not telling her husband. Someone having her blood is enough for her to worry about, let alone him when his imagination could get the better of him. And for other, more personal reasons, just in case something really had been done to her. She doesn't want him finding out somehow before she can be the one who tells him.

Making her way to the lab on level three, Zoe takes a deep breath. She hates that she's in these stupid sweats, that she doesn't have her usual part time mercenary outfit of leather and holsters. She doesn't even have so much as a hair tie, so as a result, her wild curls are going in different directions, only a little tame when wet.

Stepping into the door, she clears her throat a little before standing with her arms crossed in front of her. "Doctor Baltar?"

She'd read in his signature tag that he was a President. Not hers. So 'doctor' it is.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Gaius Baltar has less-than-honorable reasons for gathering blood samples. Yes, he certainly wants to see if they had undergone any biological changes during their tenure in quarantine and possibly before it. But he (and Six by proxy) are doing so for his own benefit.

Then there was, of course, the hopes of keeping those blood samples on hand in the very rare chance he was able to get the technology necessary to recreate the Cylon Detector he had built aboard the Galactica. The last thing he wanted was to discover that one of his compatriots aboard the Prosperina was secretly one of the illusive Final Five and had who-knows-what-kind of nefarious plan to continue making his life a living hell.

Gaius is peering through the lens of his microscope when someone steps inside. He is fully prepared to ignore it until he's had a moment to cobble together his thoughts on the sample in front of him when Six opens her mouth to speak.

"You have a visitor, Gaius."

There's something about that tone of hers (perhaps it's the sultry way she says 'visitor') that causes Gaius' head to jerk up from his work in the most peculiar way. The moment his eyes meet those of the very attractive woman in front of him, he knows exactly why Six used that tone of voice.

"A pleasure," he says, extending an hand for her to shake. "And you are...?"

From the corner of his eye he can see Six grinning, as if she's privvy to some secret joke he has no part of.

[somethingwithsomeslink]

Zoe's watching him, wishing there were some kind of way to know what she wants without having to get overly familiar with the man.

"Washburne, Zoe. Replied to your email today about the blood sample," she says as she shakes his hand. Her grasp is firm, not delicate. She's tall, and even in the gorram dumb sweats, she's still got plenty of attitude in her posture and tone.

"How long until we know anything?" Her eyes flick to the microscope, then back to him.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

It's clear to Gaius -- just from a look at her -- that Zoe is very much the tough girl. Charming those girls was always more difficult than charming the girls he usually seduced. This might be a bit of a challenge, but he is certainly up for it. Caprica hadn't exactly been kind to him since they left New Caprica and there weren't exactly women lining up aboard the Base Star -- or the Prosperina, for that matter -- looking for a date with the genius of the Twelve Colonies.

"I appreciate you volunteering," Gaius says, tapping off the light on his microscope. He makes his way to another table in the lab and opens up a small metal case. "Though to answer your question, there's really no telling at this point. The more samples we have on-hand, the easier it'll be for us to draw any definitive conclusions." Gaius tugs two plastic disposable gloves from a box and tugs them on with unexpected ease. He's clearly done this before -- many, many times over.

Unfortunately, the meager collection of test tubes filled with blood n display seems to indicate that he was well-versed in blood collection before he found himself aboard The Prosperina.

Six claps her hands together mirthfully, drawing Gaius' attention away from his work. "You're not seriously thinking of seducing her, are you?" Six says, amusement ringing in her voice. Gaius looks at her, brows furrowed, lips pulled into a small frown. Then, without a word to her, he carefully removes the collection device from the metal case.

"We've already detected an anomaly," he says instead, tugging a small square strip of gauze from another box adjacent to the gloves; he glances over his shoulder at Zoe and smiles charmingly. "What this necessarily means yet, we don't exactly know."

"Are you really that lonely, Gaius?" Six asks, padding beside him. There's nothing he wants more now than to snap at her because she's really testing the limits of his patience, but his desire to still appear to be a sane and rational human being supersedes that base desire.

Swallowing his anger, Gaius makes his way back over to Zoe and places the strip of gauze on the table behind her. He takes this opportunity to give her yet another angry look. The sort of look that tells her that the two of them will just have to discuss this later and that she should stop antagonizing him.

He turns around to face Zoe, forcing yet another charming smile. "Your arm, please," he says, extending his free hand for her to rest her arm in.

[somethingwithsomeslink]

Zoe hesitates, face carefully passive, arms still crossed over her chest.

"What kind of doctor are you, exactly?"

He may be in the lab, he may say the right words, but that doesn't mean a whole lot in her experience.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Before Zoe had reminded him a little of Starbuck. Less playful than her, maybe, but all that hard will and self-confidence and determination were present there, the same way they were in Kara Thrace. In her voice, in the way she carried herself, in the very words she chose to say. There's a shadow of that in Zoe, too and he was certain he could see it.

But it's difficult for him to acknowledge those similarities now now that she's opened her mouth and completely ruined the illusion. Now, she reminds him of Roslin. Always doubting him when all he wanted was her trust and understanding and sympathy and words of praise.

And maybe that's what has him so angry. Or maybe it was his anger at Six, whose eyes were twinkling with amusement at his suffering. Her arms were folded over her chest in the same way Zoe's were. Whatever the reason, he can't seem to stop the flow of words from pouring out of him, all anger and defense.

"I have doctorates in the Biological, Computer, and Astronomical sciences from the University of Caprica. Before the age of 30, I was awarded three Magnate Prizes for my work in the Field of Information Technology. "

He inhales here and there is a moment there where he could consciously choose to stop himself and not suffer a complete meltdown in front of this beautiful and perhaps at times completely charming lady, but he chooses not to seize that opportunity. He's too angry now, and he finds some measure of pleasure in allowing her to play body double to Laura Roslin and saying everything he wanted to say to her.

"Unfortunately, the Powers that Be did not see it fit that I be transported here with all three degrees or the three Magnate Prizes," he says, words thick with sarcasm. "I would not have any of those things, anyway as I fled the smoldering ashes of Caprica to Galactica with barely the clothes on my back." He spits the words out, one after another, all vitriol and anger.

"No one doubted what I was capable of when I found myself aboard the Battlestar Galactica, even though I lacked the appropriate documentation to prove it. I was made science advisor almost immediately and assigned to head a project where I took and studied blood samples in order to identify any cylon infiltrators in the fleet, which I did -- and did well, I might add. I single-handedly identified the containers holding the unrefined tylium precursor on an attack on a cylon-occupied base holding fuel we needed to escape their fleet. I cured the then-President's cancer, all while holding the position of Vice-President of the Colonies. And you have the audacity to question my ability to perform the duties I've selflessly volunteered to undertake while we're stranded here?"

Then silence. Gaius turns around, closes his eyes, and inhales -- all in an attempt to qualm whatever anger he still has simmering beneath the surface of his skin.

It's at that very moment -- at the worst possible moment for the both of them -- that Six begins to clap slowly. One clap, and then another, and another. And it's all Gaius can do not to completely snap at the both of them.

"I'm sorry. That was," he says in low tones. He presses a hand against his forehead and there's a moment of silence there, when he mentally fumbles for the appropriate words. "...very unkind of me," he finishes.

He swallows, then forces himself to turn around and face her again. "Maybe you should go."

[knightexemplar]

Well, now that Arturia had come to learn how to use the communicator she also found she had several unread messages. This one in particular hadn’t been addressed to her directly but it was from someone trying to help fix what was going on and they seemed to know Mister Bashir, who Arturia felt was generally trustworthy from their initial meeting and one of the may have found something useful.

Her shoes clicked softly on the metal floor as she stepped through the door. It opened with a soft metallic ‘woosh’. That was something the woman couldn’t grow accustomed to. Doors opening on their own volition was so foreign and uncomfortable to her.

“Hello?” her accent drew out the ‘o’ on the word. She couldn’t remember than man’s name, the one who had sent out the other message, but names held little meaning for her without a face to attach them to.

She wasn’t planning on giving either of them her blood, unless provided with an excellent reason. The woman had very bad experiences with others taking her blood and she wasn’t totally comfortable with the thought that someone would cut her to take her blood. She knew there was probably a better way to do things like that now but it still made her uncomfortable.

Arturia poked her head around one of the shelves in the lab, seeing the man whom she assumed had sent the message, “Oh, hello.”

[nomoremrnicegaius]

The whiir of the door alerts him to the woman's presence even before Six has the opportunity to do so. He looks up, forces a smile, then looks down at his notes, stacking them together in the neatest stack he can manage. He wishes that Gaeta were here to assist; he'd always been good at managing his written research when they worked on the Cylon Detector together.

But if Gaeta were here, he'd probably want to wring his neck along with the rest of them.

He places the stacked notes on the table in their neat pile, then looks up again. "Um," Gaius says, somewhat unsteadily. He glances in Six's direction, but she offers nothing more than a smile. "Hello." He forces a smile. "Are you here to donate, or just inquire about our findings?" So far, he had two visitors today, and neither one of them seemed particularly inclined to offer their blood to the cause.

He's not going to get his hopes up with this one.

[knightexemplar]

“I was here to inquire,” she wasn’t totally certain about the process they had for gathering blood. Her imagination tended to run a bit wild with things like that. After a moment studying him she decided that the research must not be going well, “I take it things are not going as planned?”

She closed the gap between the door and the table with a few swift movements. Her gaze moved from the scientist to the papers he was moving about the desk. So many notes, were all of them really relevant? She never favored science or alchemy, she understood it well enough and used what had been useful to her day to day but, in a general sense, she left the alchemy to the alchemists.

“What is the process for all of…” a quick motion about the table “… well, this?”

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"I can't think of a time in my recent life where things have gone smoothly," he says, straightening. He smooths out his sweatshirt, wishing all the while that he could exchange it for a more appropriate lab coat. He just couldn't make himself feel comfortable in this clothing. It reminded him too much of his own childhood.

"Feeling sorry for yourself, Gaius?" comes a sultry voice from behind him.

"I'm not," he says deliberately, so Six can be certain he's talking to her. "...sure how to explain this," he supplies. "Um, well. The hope is that eventually, I'll be able to build a mass spectrometer, which uses electrica charge and mass ratio to separate atoms. If a charged particle is moving within a magnetic field, it experiences a force perpendicular to its motion, and tends to follow a spiral pattern." The whole time Gaius is explaining this, he uses his hands to express ideas. His hands form a right angle when he utters the word 'perpenddicular'; a finger spins as he says the word 'spiral'.

"The radius of curvature -- of how tightly wound those spirals are -- of the trajectory is related directly to the charge-to-mass ratio of the particle."

"That's not what she's looking for. You need to pay attention to people when they speak to you."

Gaius stops and looks at her. Arthuria, not Six, who is now standing beside him. "Look," she repeats.

And he does. And realizes in that moment -- looking over at her -- that that was not the explanation she was looking for; she had no interest in his notes. She wanted to know about the blood-taking process.

"Oh," he breathes, half to Six, half to Arturia. "It's really quite simple, actually." He lifts the small collection device from a metal case. "Um, I take a sample of blood using this device. It's a prick in the arm, right about here." He presses two fingers against the inner side of his elbow. "It only takes a few seconds. Then once I've done that, I analyze the samples for any anomolies with the very moderate equipment we have on hand."

Which, judging from the tone of his voice and his mistaken explanation a few minutes before, was not up to par.

"You should introduce yourself," Six encourages, and Gaius complies.

"Dr. Gaius Baltar," he says, extending an arm out to shake hers. "Though I'm sure you knew that." He smiles.

[knightexemplar]

That was most certainly not what the woman was looking for. It was clear from the glossed over look on Arturia’s face that every word coming from this man’s mouth was going right over her head. Something about smashing particles and magnetic algorithms and building a spinning meter thing… The man may have well been speaking French for how well she was understanding this.

She actually wondered briefly if he was even using real words.

The pacing of his words was also strange, she felt like the words weren’t quite directed at her. It was the strange pauses, subtle but something she had definitely picked up on. Maybe he was a bit eccentric? Merlin tended to go off on tangents the girl rarely understood. Perhaps this man was his world’s Merlin?

“I do not fancy being stabbed or poked for my blood,” which wasn’t quite true. She didn’t trust anyone with her blood after what happened back in Camelot. Blood was a powerful catalyst and she didn’t want to give anyone that power over her again, regardless of if magic existed here or not and really, how could she be totally sure? Was magic not just science by another name?

“Arturia Pendragon,” she gave his hand a firm shake and a nod of her head. She then rested a hand on her hip, touching the back of her neck lightly. Actually, she hadn’t known that was his name. She’d glanced over the message sitting in her inbox but she hadn’t remembered the sender’s name.

Her eyes went to the various tools on the table, “Have you found anything as of yet?” There was a momentary pause before she added, “Ah, smaller words, please. I don’t think I understood two words of what you were saying” She made a small motion with her hands to indicate shorter word length. She wasn’t a stupid woman but when it came to modern science, she was definitely in the dark.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"These people don't know you," Six says, pressing a hand on his shoulder. Gaius rolls his shoulder back, trying to shrug her hand off, but with little success. "They have no reason to love you, though they have no reason to hate you, either."

Gaius inhales at this, trying his best not to look at her.

"They don't know Gaius Baltar the genius. You don't have your reputation here to prop you up. You'll have to earn their trust. You'll have to win their hearts and minds."

He swallows.

"Explain it to her," she urges. And Gaius opens his mouth to speak, but before he can press the words forward, Six interrupts him: "The way you'd talk to a student after a lecture."

He opens his mouth to speak a second time.

"A male student," Six emphasizes.

"I, um," Gaius stammers. "Well, essentially, comparing the samples we had on hand, we were able to note some curious anomalies that were present in every sample collected. What exactly this anomaly might have done to us or what it means, we're not entirely sure."

He shifts nervously where he stands. "And, well," he says, scratching at the elbow of one of his arms. "That'll probably take more time. More research. More sampling."

He turns around to face the counter. "If you're curious, I could show you," he says. "How the process works, I'd be happy to show you." He glances over his shoulder at her. "The blood collecting process, I mean."

[lastchanceforhonor]

Sansa hovered by the door of the lab, her arms hugging herself as she stared at the man - she'd heard someone talking while she'd walked by - there were too many people in the observation room, and her own bedroom felt claustrophobicly empty - but when she'd turned the doorway there'd been nothing there. She didn't know if he could have been talking to one of those holograms, or something else entirely, but she took a deep breath, forcing a small smile. "Excuse me," she said, her voice low and quiet. 'What are you doing?"

She forced herself to put down her arms, her hands first at her sides, then rubbing together, then brushing back a bit of hair that had come loose from her braid, as if she couldn't decide what she was doing with them. Her hesitant steps into the lab were accompanied by widening eyes - she had never seen these sorts of machines, and while she had to force herself not to touch them, her brows furrowed. "Do you - are these yours, m'lord?" Yes, m'lord. She was still Alayne Stone, would remain Alayne Stone until something - someone forced her hand, even though she knew it was chipping away more and more and more.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

What are you doing?

Gaius spins around, mind already frantically fumbling for some sort of excuse. What he finds there is much more pleasant than he could have possibly imagined.

A very beautiful girl -- no, woman -- with the loveliest red hair and most stunning blue eyes. She's nineteen or twenty, maybe, judging from the look of her. He's had girls that young, before on Caprica. Mostly young co-eds hoping to learn more about the scientist they idolized.

Gaius was committed to allowing each of those students the opportunity to know Gaius Baltar on a more intimate level.

Gaius puts on his most charming smile. "I talk to myself," he says, settling on his default answer to such queries. "It helps me to think, to put my thoughts together." He presses his lips together tentatively as he watches her move towards the various devices the powers that be deigned to leave to them for whatever research tickled their fancy.

"'M'lord' is not necessary," Gaius says, though he does find that he likes the sound of it. Too many people aboard the Galactica defaulted to calling him "Doc" -- a title he hated. M'lord was much nicer. That, he'd be willing to settle for.

He wonders briefly if she'd be willing to call him 'M'lord' in bed.

"They're not really mine, no," he admits, though he felt they were more his than anyone else's, since he was the only one using them most of the time. "I just use them for testing."

A beat, as Gaius realizes that he has yet to properly introduce himself.

"Gaius Baltar," he says, extending a hand out to her. "Please, call me Gaius. And you are...?"

[lastchanceforhonor]

She nodded slightly when he said he talked to himself, but her brows knit as if she didn't understand even as she agreed to it. "Of course," she said quietly, as she looked around her, at the large metal boxes and circles and things that she could not make sense of besides being a jumble of objects. He spoke again, and she glanced at him, her smile a bit wider - not because she was particularly pleased, but because she was well accustomed to this dance and all its' steps.

"Testing what?" She did not see how these boxes could test anything - you would try something, you would use it and then test it that way. "And how?"

She paused, and then shook her head slightly. "I'm sorry, that's very rude of me." He had introduced herself, and she just peppered him with questions. "Alayne Stone," she said, and she glanced at his hand for a moment, before she gently placed her hand on top of his and moved to curtsey even though she was wearing pants, because it was ingrained in her since she was old enough to walk. "I'm pleased to meet you, Giaus." She paused for a moment, looking at him, her brows high. "What- If you do not mind my questions, what do you... test?"

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"Alayne Stone," Gaius repeats, savoring the taste of it. "It's quite a pretty name." It's a half-truth; stone makes him think of the hard outdoors which he doesn't much care for, but Alayne is fairly nice, as far as girl's names go.

He lets his eyes wander over her for a second. "Unique," he adds. Apparently, neither of her names are commonplace in wherever it is he comes from.

Of course, even if Gaius disliked her name, he wouldn't tell her that. In fact, he'd probably pass on the same compliment. That was simply how these things worked.

He can't help but feel a little charmed when she curtsies at him; he lets his arm fall back down to his side. He wonders where exactly this girl came from. Was she from some fantasy world? He'd never been particularly interested in reading fantasy, though some of his classmates in school had been.

"Blood, actually," he says, wondering if any of this was really of any interest to her. Regardless, he continues to explain himself; if she looks disinterested, he'll simply segue the conversation elsewhere. She did ask, after all. "We're looking for anything unusual present in the samples we've collected. So far, we've found a number of anomalies present that are constant across all samples. Anomalies that couldn't possibly be present by coincidence, given our very different backgrounds and realities."

Gaius offers her another charming smile. "Might I ask what sort of reality you came from?" Women generally very much enjoyed talking about themselves -- something Gaius had picked up at an early age. He learned to tune whatever they said out soon afterwards.

[lastchanceforhonor]

"Not hardly unique." she admitted, her voice low. "Stone is the name given to those who cannot claim their father's name." She tipped her head to the side, her brows knitting. "Blood? How could there be something... in it?" She thought of something huge, something - the way leaves mixed with water. "It's blood."

She was genuinely confused, since nothing here made sense, and she was hardly one to just let things that did not understand just slide by unless she must.

She blinked at his question. "I am from Westeros," she said quietly. "But it seems like almost no one knows where that is." She realised that meant nothing, but him saying reality made her confused.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"'Stone'," Gaius begins to lie, "Reminds me of kimberlite and lamproite, somehow. The rocks that encase diamonds. Beneath the surface, there's something beautiful there, if someone dares to venture below the surface."

But Alayne has other questions -- questions he's happy to answer because it gives him the opportunity to showcase his massive intellect.

"There's lots to observe inside blood," he says, lifting a vial from the stand; it's a vial of his blood and he places it in her hands for her to hold and observe and examine, then cups his hands around hers. "You just need to know how to look for it. Inside your blood is the framework for life as we know it. Your hair color, why you're born with a certain stature, the color of your eyes... the DNA inside your blood can tell you -- or anyone else -- why you are what you are."

He finally relinquishes his grasp on her hands and smiles.

"Isn't she a little young for you, Gaius?"

Gaius immediately spins around to find Six sprawled across the countertop. "How long have you been here?" he blurts out at her and only after the words have left his lips does he realize what he's done. Immediately, he begins to sort through paperwork, trying to look as though he had spun around to work on filing -- not to talk to his invisible friend.

"Long enough to see you flirting with her. You didn't answer my question."

Gaius swallows, trying to think of some way to answer Six without coming across as a complete lunatic. "No," he emphasizes, looking at the blonde. "...doubt," he finishes, glancing quickly over his shoulder at Alayne, "this has all been very difficult for you to process."

Gaius frowns up at Six as he continues to straighten his papers.