Gravity Attraction [Adama/Roslin.]
Aug. 22nd, 2008 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misscamGravity Attraction
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: Fall, and gravity can kill you. Bill, Laura, a depressed mechanic, Saul, Lee, Kara, a raptor on collision course and special guest star Earth's gravity. [Adama/Roslin.]
Rating: Teen. Non-explicit adult activities.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Set after "Revelations" and assumes they've dealt with the most immidiate reactions to their discovery. Written on request for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
falena84, who wanted a mechanical crisis on a raptor, 'hell yes' sex on Earth and Lee angsting on Galactica. Here you go, babe - see you in a week! I also snuck in a particular bit for lotus79's enjoyment. Many thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.
II
It takes Laura a startling long time to realise something is wrong.
Burning, she thinks. Earth smells like burning, and earth, mingling to strange effect in her nose. Her body feels like pain - not unusual in itself, with Diloxin tearing at her from inside, but this is a different kind. Sharp, insistent, no dull ache about it. Something is hard against her cheek and warm and heavy against her back and her breathing sounds all wrong. It shouldn't be this ragged and pitched and she shouldn't taste blood every time she exhales.
This isn't right.
Her eyelids are heavy as she tries to open her eyes, and she has to blink against something stinging too. It's faint smoke and the first thing she sees is a cut wire hissing softly, on and off as if it's indecisive. There's the floor too, the floor of the raptor below her and Bill above her and debris and smoke and oh Gods, they crashed.
They crashed, she remembers. Falling. Such a terrible sense of falling. Bill cursing, and trying to land them, almost throwing himself on her as a shield at impact. They crashed, and she remembers her last thought too.
Sabotage. Death by sabotage.
She's not dead, she realises, which shouldn't really be a surprise since she's around to realise it. But Bill, oh Bill, and for a painful half eternity she thinks maybe he is. Then she turns her head slightly and feels his breath against her cheek. He's breathing, and she fumbles for one of his hands to feel the pulse in his wrist too.
Life. Life, and she has to kiss it, pressing her lips against the outline of his veins.
Right. Something smells like it burns, Bill is unconscious on top of her with injuries unknown, they've crashed on Earth and her body has been fairly zapped of strength by the Diloxin, also with injuries unknown. As situations go, she's been in better. Then again, she's been in worse too. The end of the world rings a bell.
"Bill!" she tries urgently, but he doesn't even grunt, nor does he stir when she shoves her hand hard against his shoulder. He has always been a hard man to move in some ways, she thinks, and tries not to giggle at how weird and inappropriate the thought is now.
Shifting, she manages to get her hand on something metal and hard, and yanking hard she inches a bit forward. Her right foot aches when she tries to kick off something with it (her seat? Her seatbelt seems to have been torn, and she vaguely remembers Bill removing his before bracing them both), but she bites it in and with enough leverage she manages to flip Bill slightly and free herself.
He's bleeding at the back of his neck, she sees at once. It doesn't look too deep, but the blood looks very red on her fingers when she gently touches it.
There's blood on the raptor floor as well - she hopes it's from this injury and not one she hasn't seen yet. They've landed at an angle, she notes, and several instruments are making noises that sound very unhappy. It smells faintly of electric fire too, and she thinks it's a very good idea to get out.
(She takes a moment to adjust her wig first though, not out of vanity but because the impact has knocked it half off and makes it hard to see.)
The effort of pulling herself and Bill out makes pain feel like fire; every inhale is stoking it. When she closes her eyes, she can see white, but she doesn't let go of him even to pause for breath. Half-pulling, half lifting, she finally manages to stumble them both out and fall rather ungracefully to the ground.
She can see the smoke now, coming from the underside of the raptor and hanging low, as it doesn't have the energy to get up either. They seem to have gone down on a slight hill, and she uses gravity to help her roll herself and Bill a bit further away in case something blows.
Her body is definitely not impressed with her, she can tell as she puts her hand on Bill's neck, using the sleeve of her suit to press against the wound. Really not impressed and everything hurts quite a lot.
"Frak," she says to no one in particular and the universe in general, and passes out.
II
"How can you lose the Admiral and the President?"
"I'm sorry sir, we lost DRADIS contact..."
"Lost...!"
Tigh enraged really is a spectacular sight, Lee thinks, and let that thought distract him. Cylons seem to do it just as well as human, and some days Tigh seems all the more human for the Cylon he's been discovered to be. There is a lesson in there somewhere.
Lee is trying to find it; it keeps him from thinking he might just have lost the father he's still struggling to have.
II
She dreams of being carried like a child again, of soothing words and kisses against her forehead and silence, so much silence.
It doesn't go away when she wakes. There isn't any groan of Galactica, no hum of engines, just quiet and calm and for a moment she thinks this, this is Earth. This is the Earth they wanted, a blank slate and a start.
She sits up a little dizzily, noting the jacket tucked around her taking in the surroundings: trees above, a heavy sky, a rocky outcrop almost at her back, a clear stream nuzzled against it, the hill with the still smoking raptor a bit to the right of her and Bill standing a little in front, scanning the skies.
For a moment, it's enough to just watch him. He looks a bit battered (torn clothing, bruises and traces of blood and dirt, but then she imagines she looks no better), and his jaw is set; but when he catches her in the corner of his eyes and turns to her, he is smiling.
"Hi," she says simply, and he crouches down to put a hand on her cheek and look at her in that way he just does.
"It's good to see you," he says, and she laughs as he kisses her softly; not because it's funny, but because it's a way to let out her joy with her breath. They're alive. There is a strange amount of joy just in that.
Nothing like brush with death to remind her of that, she thinks distantly. So close, death, so many ways it can strike. Fall, and gravity can kill you.
With a little help, at least.
"Someone just tried to kill us," she whispers against his cheek, feeling him shake his head a little before he rests his forehead against her shoulder lightly.
"I don't know."
"You just suspect."
"Yes," he agrees, his exhale like a sigh.
"You think they were after me or you?"
"Both," he says, as if he refuses to consider them anything but a unit. "Saul was right. It was a bad idea to take you."
"I wanted to," she reminds him. "It shouldn't just be a military recon. The civilian government should be represented in all stages before the decision about settlement is made."
"I thought you just wanted to see me fly," he says lightly.
She laughs again, realising she was about to give him a speech he's already heard and they have already argued over. It isn't just the President's safety he considers now, and she knows that's not always a good thing.
(But it is, and always will be, also a comfort.)
"Crashing a girl on the first date," she says, matching his tone. "Not very impressive, Admiral."
She can feel his smile as he moves his lips to her ear, kissing lightly before pulling back. She can see the shadow in his eyes as he meets her gaze, and she knows what it is.
"If our raptor was sabotaged, it had to be someone on Galactica," she says, and he closes his eyes as she kisses his eyelids.
Bill's family. He's already lost so many of them, and Saul too, because she can see it's not the same between them after the four Cylons were revealed. A betrayal like this... Another loss, and he already feels so tired resting against her.
"Yes," he says, his exhale like pain.
II
"We'll find them," Helo says, managing to sound convincing. But then, Lee considers, that is Helo; conviction radiating and Sharon by his side, looking like she basks in it.
"Don't come back if you don't," Tigh says harshly, and Helo wisely doesn't protest. He just salutes, as if the order is completely normal. For Tigh, it rather is.
"I should go too," Lee says, and finds Tigh's gaze on him no less stronger for being one-eyed only.
"Don't even frakking think it, Apollo. If we got the President and the Admiral down, we're not adding you to the list."
"That's not the reason."
Tigh's gaze doesn't falter, but it does soften just for a second. "You're the Old Man's son. If I fail at protecting him, you're the next best thing."
Always has been, Lee thinks.
II
"We can see what's coming from here," Bill says, and she leans against his shoulder as he points to the hill where the raptor rests like a wounded bird. Sitting here, they can see anything that would land to inspect it closer while still having cover themselves, she reasons, and it must be why Bill moved them here.
"You don't think..."
"Tactical advantage," he simply says, sounding every inch the soldier he is. Then he puts a hand on her hip, easing her closer to him, and he's that too.
She watches the horizon with him in silence for a while, feeling her body slowly cataloguing and getting used to the various aches. She's pretty sure Bill has looked her over while she was unconscious, and if he detected anything serious, she thinks she would have sensed more urgency in him.
He is at once both spectacularly good and bad at hiding his emotions, and she's always been a good reader.
She knows a metaphor when she sees one too – one burning raptor on Earth's soil is rather symbolic of their whole discovery. Crash and burn. Just hope rather than raptors. Earth wasn't much of a gentle landing and the Fleet is still feeling the impact.
She is, and she shivers lightly as Bill squeezes her hip. It's affectionate, but careful, and she wonders how a man she was so at collision course with has slipped into her orbit so gently. Or perhaps she fell into his. After all, love tugs as well as gravity does.
"What?" he murmurs as she tilts her head up, rubbing her nose gently against the underside of his jaw.
"I'm not letting anyone kill you," she says, and he chuckles slightly until she silences it with a hard kiss, a touch of desperation, fear and passion all at once. (It's not really funny, he must know.) She tangles her fingers in his hair to lock him to her, careful not to touch the wound. He does taste of blood, and she can feel a cut on the inside of his lower lip with her tongue.
He's been hurt, and that hurts, like an echo she can feel. She wonders if this is how he feels about her cancer, and decides it must be; she felt it when it was her mother who was dying and she could only watch.
She won't watch him die. She won't, and he feels warm and alive under her fingers, but not enough. So she moves next to him, kneeling between his legs without breaking the kiss. He puts his hands on her back to support her, his thigh brushing lightly against her left side. She can feel herself humming as his tongue strokes the side of her mouth, and his lips curve a little as if smiling.
"What?" she whispers, feeling his hands slip beneath her jacket and shirt to be warm against her skin. She can feel the lines on his palm as she leans against it, and the slight cool of his wedding band.
"We haven't had much time together," he says softly, "after Earth."
"We have certain responsibilities. There's been so much…"
"I know."
"I'm beginning to suspect the raptor was crashed just to have some personal time with the President," she whispers and his smile is almost luminous.
"Would it have worked?"
"No," she says firmly, and holds it for a breath. "The President is already engaged with the Admiral and will be for some time."
Some time indeed, she thinks, and his kiss is breathtaking.
Rest of a life, probably.
II
"I ask you again, Specialist Terr…"
"… please…"
"Why did you sabotage the Admiral's raptor? Who recruited you? Those frakking Sons of Ares? A Cylon faction?"
The good thing about Colonel Tigh, Lee considers, is that he'll suspect both his people equally. That, perhaps, is also the bad thing and Specialist Tarr, last to sign off on the raptor used by the Admiral and the President, is looking so very small surrounded by so many marines and Tigh towering above.
"I didn't… I haven't… I would never!"
"I don't believe you," Tigh says, and it sounds strangely like a death sentence.
II
They never quite undress with the temperature not particularly inviting it, but it doesn't really matter. She feels close enough to him even with clothes between them, and she slips her hands all the way inside his tank tops to rest against his chest.
He spreads kisses across her face in what seems an Adama recon, and the sides of her neck seem to warrant closer inspection for all she's pretty sure he's well-acquainted there. Still, she doesn't protest, merely breathes and kisses every inch of his skin that comes close enough for it. Every few minutes, he lifts his head again and kisses her on the lips, as if returning to dock before going back out.
It makes her smile a little, and wince when his lips travel across a bruise on her collarbone she wasn't even aware she had. He freezes a second after, looking at her with so much concern it hurts.
"From the impact," she tells him. "Doesn't matter, it doesn't hurt."
He doesn't look convinced. "Maybe now is not…"
"Maybe now is," she says firmly, freeing her hands and taking one of his in them to lift to her lips. "We don't know what else we have. We could have died, I don't want to lose moments like this when I'm…"
He kisses the end of the sentence from her and it's nothing like the gentle caresses earlier, her lips feeling swollen and heavy when he pulls back again. His breath is a little ragged like hers and his eyelids are lowered as he looks at her.
He wants her, she knows, but he also loves her. The two don't always go together. Not with her cancer, not with his determination to see her through treatments and not put undue stress on her body.
Of course, if he doesn't frak her now very, very soon, he will actually be putting undue stress on her body from frustration.
"Bill," she simply says, spreading her jacket across the ground as he watches, and opening her arms to him. "I'm not going to die any slower if you stay away."
"I love you," he says, his voice sounding strangely young and tired at once.
When he sinks down on the ground with her, he's still careful, but he's also dipping a hand below her waistline and she tilts her head back to the sky; it's still empty and silent.
II
When Tigh offers him a drink, Lee just takes it and drowns it in one sip without checking what it is. It burns in his throat, but he manages to bite down coughing.
He takes the refill without looking too, swirling it slowly in the glass.
"Either Terr isn't guilty or he has nerves of titanium."
"Everyone is guilty of something," Tigh simply says, but some of the energy in his voice has gone. "We'll know what when we find the wreck."
"Or when dad tells us what happens. After we find them."
For a moment, Lee could swear Tigh is smiling. "Yeah. He's probably bored waiting for us already."
"Yeah."
Lee drains his second drink, but when making to get up, Tigh simply waves him off.
"Lee... You stay out on this round."
Lee is pretty sure he doesn't want to know why, but he still has a good idea; it makes him get another refill.
II
This is, Laura thinks faintly, a far more pleasurable way of spending time than just waiting. Waiting, scanning the skies, wondering whatever could be taking a rescue party so long, if they ever would get one... That could easily get boring.
Bill isn't bored. At least he doesn't sound it, breathing so carefully and looking at her so intently as she adjusts her position above him. He's holding back, she knows, even this hard inside her and she's a little glad for it. She can't pretend the cancer isn't there, that the Diloxin hasn't ravaged her and makes it a bit harder for anything else to, much as she might wish it (him) to.
She can forget a little, at least when his fingers are coaxing and gentle, and he lifts himself up a little to kiss her as she moves. His mouth is warm against her, just as it was warm against her flesh, and she clutches his shoulders as sharp jolts of heat seem to move to her head.
This is a difference than frakking on Galactica, she thinks distantly. No one suddenly knocking on the hatch, no persistent groan of metal, no limited space and slightly cramped bunks. Variety is good, variety can be very good (he's never done that with a finger before but by the Gods, he better do it again in the future). But still Bill, as it always will be now.
Her equal, her opposite, her companion through space; love as gravity and they're both in the force of it now.
He steadies her at the first thrust, she braids her fingers in his and holds at the second, on and on until she loses count and wonders if the shudder through her body she feels is her own or simply his echoing in hers.
"Love you," she gasps, and his eyes smile at her far more brightly than anything else she knows of. "Bill, please, now..."
She arches as he thrusts; he inhales as she exhales; she comes as he lets go.
Earth has a very good gravity indeed, she finds; it doesn't actually let go of her body when her mind does.
II
Lee really doesn't have Tigh's talent for drinking, painfully evident when Kara finds him and he can't even lift his head to greet her. She doesn't comment, just sits down next to him.
"Helo's still out," she says. "I'm going out again in an hour. Looks like they went down on land, at least."
He nods slowly, feeling her shoulder steady itself against his.
"The Cylons want to help looking. The Colonel would tell them to frak off," she goes on. "What are you going to tell them?"
He thinks for a moment, then looks at her. "I'd tell them we'd appreciate the help and have them look everywhere we're sure the Admiral and the President didn't go down."
She nods; when she turns and kisses him harshly, he can almost taste her fear.
"Hey," he whispers against her lips, watching her avert her eyes from him. "You came back from much worse. We all thought you were dead."
"You have no idea," she says, and her second kiss is no more gentle than the first.
II
She doesn't quite sleep, but nestled against Bill, she does drift off, the sky a different shade every time she opens her eyes again. Blue isn't just blue, and without a sky for so long, she had forgotten.
It reminds her of New Caprica, and with Bill this close one night particularly comes to mind. She rather did forget a lot of what she told him then; she's certainly not lived by it.
Cancer is a reminder every moment could be the last, it adds urgency to everything. Used to be political side she let that urgency govern, and is still, but there is more. So much more, and Bill kisses the side of her neck lazily.
She used to wonder how her mother had the strength to fight that long when she was so sure she would have given up long before. She used to, she doesn't now.
Life is a force, the attraction of it all the stronger when on a collision course with death.
Perhaps not so strange after all how much humans want to cling to life when death yanks at it, not so strange after all that after the end of the world they still seek survival. Not so strange that even the discovery of Earth as it is hasn't killed them all, for all the despair it brought.
Earth really has a pretty sky too, she observes, and watches it no longer be empty.
"Bill?" she whispers, feeling her leg be a little sore as she turns over to face him. "I think we're about to have company."
II
"Lee!"
That's not the voice he was expecting to wake to, Lee thinks, opening an eye to see Colonel Tigh lean over him and looking very unimpressed. Kara, Kara he could expect, but she's already standing to attention very impressively for being half-naked.
Okay, maybe the couch in his father's quarters wasn't the best place.
"Any word on dad?" he manages to croak out.
"Yes," his father's voice says, and Lee turns his head sharply to the right to see his father watching him with a carefully blank expression on his face. "I brought quite a few words with me."
Tigh holds the stern expression for five seconds, his father about ten; then both men are laughing and Lee wonders if he's still drunk.
II
Laura isn't sure how long she's been sleeping (faintly, she remembers Cottle's hands on her and a nurse bandaging her left ankle and Saul squeezing her shoulder, though that feels like it could almost be a dream) but when she wakes, Bill is watching her.
He looks patched up; crisp, new uniform, a few stiches by his left eyebrow and his hair washed. He's smiling too, and reaching into a pocket he pulls out her glasses. She takes the gratefully, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Found them in the wreckage," he says to her unasked question. "They weren't broken."
The oddest things survive the longest falls, she thinks, and puts them on.
"Have you found out why the raptor went down?"
"Yes," he says, his smiling falling a little. "It was due for maintenance a week ago, but the specialist just signed off on it without even inspecting it."
"Sabotage?"
"No," Bill says firmly. "He had been suffering depression since we found Earth and been doing spotty work ever since. The others covered for him, but this time..."
"Just a depressed mechanic," she says, and she has to laugh for how much it's not really funny. "Maybe we should stop assuming the worst all the time."
Bill doesn't smile at that, doesn't even change his expression, and she feels something cold and sharp in her stomach.
"Tigh cleared him." A breath, and Laura already knows whatever is coming is not good. "He killed himself anyway. Hung himself."
She nods, feeling a little numb. "We'll attend his funeral. Just tell me when it is, I'll make the time."
"Yes."
"I'd like to leave now."
He takes her hand and helps her to get off the bed, and she leans a little gratefully against him. "Cottle gave you a relatively clean bill of health. I can take you to Colonial One."
"No," she says, feeling his fingers between hers, not letting go even though she can walk on her own. "I'm staying at Galactica tonight. If you don't mind."
"You know I don't. But I should warn you, I'm having my couch cleaned. It might smell a little."
They walk off; she only looks back briefly to see the body covered in a white sheet Cottle is leaning over. For a moment, she feels almost angry – anger for almost getting killed, anger for the number she'll have to subtract from her total after all, anger for everything one depressed specialist made her suspect and start planning for – but it fades into something between pity and grief and curiosity and she halts.
She can't help but wonder if to finally escape the force of life is an escape after all and she is wrong, just another victim of gravity afraid to fall.
"Laura," Bill says softly, and she turns back to him as he tugs her hand gently. "Come on. You can't change it."
"You're right," she says, kissing him softly (anyone watching doesn't suddenly seem to matter, not when he looks like he knows what she's feeling) before walking with him.
They all fall out of life's orbit sooner or later; no need to hurry it.
She doesn't look back this time.
FIN
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: Fall, and gravity can kill you. Bill, Laura, a depressed mechanic, Saul, Lee, Kara, a raptor on collision course and special guest star Earth's gravity. [Adama/Roslin.]
Rating: Teen. Non-explicit adult activities.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Set after "Revelations" and assumes they've dealt with the most immidiate reactions to their discovery. Written on request for
falena84, who wanted a mechanical crisis on a raptor, 'hell yes' sex on Earth and Lee angsting on Galactica. Here you go, babe - see you in a week! I also snuck in a particular bit for lotus79's enjoyment. Many thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.II
It takes Laura a startling long time to realise something is wrong.
Burning, she thinks. Earth smells like burning, and earth, mingling to strange effect in her nose. Her body feels like pain - not unusual in itself, with Diloxin tearing at her from inside, but this is a different kind. Sharp, insistent, no dull ache about it. Something is hard against her cheek and warm and heavy against her back and her breathing sounds all wrong. It shouldn't be this ragged and pitched and she shouldn't taste blood every time she exhales.
This isn't right.
Her eyelids are heavy as she tries to open her eyes, and she has to blink against something stinging too. It's faint smoke and the first thing she sees is a cut wire hissing softly, on and off as if it's indecisive. There's the floor too, the floor of the raptor below her and Bill above her and debris and smoke and oh Gods, they crashed.
They crashed, she remembers. Falling. Such a terrible sense of falling. Bill cursing, and trying to land them, almost throwing himself on her as a shield at impact. They crashed, and she remembers her last thought too.
Sabotage. Death by sabotage.
She's not dead, she realises, which shouldn't really be a surprise since she's around to realise it. But Bill, oh Bill, and for a painful half eternity she thinks maybe he is. Then she turns her head slightly and feels his breath against her cheek. He's breathing, and she fumbles for one of his hands to feel the pulse in his wrist too.
Life. Life, and she has to kiss it, pressing her lips against the outline of his veins.
Right. Something smells like it burns, Bill is unconscious on top of her with injuries unknown, they've crashed on Earth and her body has been fairly zapped of strength by the Diloxin, also with injuries unknown. As situations go, she's been in better. Then again, she's been in worse too. The end of the world rings a bell.
"Bill!" she tries urgently, but he doesn't even grunt, nor does he stir when she shoves her hand hard against his shoulder. He has always been a hard man to move in some ways, she thinks, and tries not to giggle at how weird and inappropriate the thought is now.
Shifting, she manages to get her hand on something metal and hard, and yanking hard she inches a bit forward. Her right foot aches when she tries to kick off something with it (her seat? Her seatbelt seems to have been torn, and she vaguely remembers Bill removing his before bracing them both), but she bites it in and with enough leverage she manages to flip Bill slightly and free herself.
He's bleeding at the back of his neck, she sees at once. It doesn't look too deep, but the blood looks very red on her fingers when she gently touches it.
There's blood on the raptor floor as well - she hopes it's from this injury and not one she hasn't seen yet. They've landed at an angle, she notes, and several instruments are making noises that sound very unhappy. It smells faintly of electric fire too, and she thinks it's a very good idea to get out.
(She takes a moment to adjust her wig first though, not out of vanity but because the impact has knocked it half off and makes it hard to see.)
The effort of pulling herself and Bill out makes pain feel like fire; every inhale is stoking it. When she closes her eyes, she can see white, but she doesn't let go of him even to pause for breath. Half-pulling, half lifting, she finally manages to stumble them both out and fall rather ungracefully to the ground.
She can see the smoke now, coming from the underside of the raptor and hanging low, as it doesn't have the energy to get up either. They seem to have gone down on a slight hill, and she uses gravity to help her roll herself and Bill a bit further away in case something blows.
Her body is definitely not impressed with her, she can tell as she puts her hand on Bill's neck, using the sleeve of her suit to press against the wound. Really not impressed and everything hurts quite a lot.
"Frak," she says to no one in particular and the universe in general, and passes out.
II
"How can you lose the Admiral and the President?"
"I'm sorry sir, we lost DRADIS contact..."
"Lost...!"
Tigh enraged really is a spectacular sight, Lee thinks, and let that thought distract him. Cylons seem to do it just as well as human, and some days Tigh seems all the more human for the Cylon he's been discovered to be. There is a lesson in there somewhere.
Lee is trying to find it; it keeps him from thinking he might just have lost the father he's still struggling to have.
II
She dreams of being carried like a child again, of soothing words and kisses against her forehead and silence, so much silence.
It doesn't go away when she wakes. There isn't any groan of Galactica, no hum of engines, just quiet and calm and for a moment she thinks this, this is Earth. This is the Earth they wanted, a blank slate and a start.
She sits up a little dizzily, noting the jacket tucked around her taking in the surroundings: trees above, a heavy sky, a rocky outcrop almost at her back, a clear stream nuzzled against it, the hill with the still smoking raptor a bit to the right of her and Bill standing a little in front, scanning the skies.
For a moment, it's enough to just watch him. He looks a bit battered (torn clothing, bruises and traces of blood and dirt, but then she imagines she looks no better), and his jaw is set; but when he catches her in the corner of his eyes and turns to her, he is smiling.
"Hi," she says simply, and he crouches down to put a hand on her cheek and look at her in that way he just does.
"It's good to see you," he says, and she laughs as he kisses her softly; not because it's funny, but because it's a way to let out her joy with her breath. They're alive. There is a strange amount of joy just in that.
Nothing like brush with death to remind her of that, she thinks distantly. So close, death, so many ways it can strike. Fall, and gravity can kill you.
With a little help, at least.
"Someone just tried to kill us," she whispers against his cheek, feeling him shake his head a little before he rests his forehead against her shoulder lightly.
"I don't know."
"You just suspect."
"Yes," he agrees, his exhale like a sigh.
"You think they were after me or you?"
"Both," he says, as if he refuses to consider them anything but a unit. "Saul was right. It was a bad idea to take you."
"I wanted to," she reminds him. "It shouldn't just be a military recon. The civilian government should be represented in all stages before the decision about settlement is made."
"I thought you just wanted to see me fly," he says lightly.
She laughs again, realising she was about to give him a speech he's already heard and they have already argued over. It isn't just the President's safety he considers now, and she knows that's not always a good thing.
(But it is, and always will be, also a comfort.)
"Crashing a girl on the first date," she says, matching his tone. "Not very impressive, Admiral."
She can feel his smile as he moves his lips to her ear, kissing lightly before pulling back. She can see the shadow in his eyes as he meets her gaze, and she knows what it is.
"If our raptor was sabotaged, it had to be someone on Galactica," she says, and he closes his eyes as she kisses his eyelids.
Bill's family. He's already lost so many of them, and Saul too, because she can see it's not the same between them after the four Cylons were revealed. A betrayal like this... Another loss, and he already feels so tired resting against her.
"Yes," he says, his exhale like pain.
II
"We'll find them," Helo says, managing to sound convincing. But then, Lee considers, that is Helo; conviction radiating and Sharon by his side, looking like she basks in it.
"Don't come back if you don't," Tigh says harshly, and Helo wisely doesn't protest. He just salutes, as if the order is completely normal. For Tigh, it rather is.
"I should go too," Lee says, and finds Tigh's gaze on him no less stronger for being one-eyed only.
"Don't even frakking think it, Apollo. If we got the President and the Admiral down, we're not adding you to the list."
"That's not the reason."
Tigh's gaze doesn't falter, but it does soften just for a second. "You're the Old Man's son. If I fail at protecting him, you're the next best thing."
Always has been, Lee thinks.
II
"We can see what's coming from here," Bill says, and she leans against his shoulder as he points to the hill where the raptor rests like a wounded bird. Sitting here, they can see anything that would land to inspect it closer while still having cover themselves, she reasons, and it must be why Bill moved them here.
"You don't think..."
"Tactical advantage," he simply says, sounding every inch the soldier he is. Then he puts a hand on her hip, easing her closer to him, and he's that too.
She watches the horizon with him in silence for a while, feeling her body slowly cataloguing and getting used to the various aches. She's pretty sure Bill has looked her over while she was unconscious, and if he detected anything serious, she thinks she would have sensed more urgency in him.
He is at once both spectacularly good and bad at hiding his emotions, and she's always been a good reader.
She knows a metaphor when she sees one too – one burning raptor on Earth's soil is rather symbolic of their whole discovery. Crash and burn. Just hope rather than raptors. Earth wasn't much of a gentle landing and the Fleet is still feeling the impact.
She is, and she shivers lightly as Bill squeezes her hip. It's affectionate, but careful, and she wonders how a man she was so at collision course with has slipped into her orbit so gently. Or perhaps she fell into his. After all, love tugs as well as gravity does.
"What?" he murmurs as she tilts her head up, rubbing her nose gently against the underside of his jaw.
"I'm not letting anyone kill you," she says, and he chuckles slightly until she silences it with a hard kiss, a touch of desperation, fear and passion all at once. (It's not really funny, he must know.) She tangles her fingers in his hair to lock him to her, careful not to touch the wound. He does taste of blood, and she can feel a cut on the inside of his lower lip with her tongue.
He's been hurt, and that hurts, like an echo she can feel. She wonders if this is how he feels about her cancer, and decides it must be; she felt it when it was her mother who was dying and she could only watch.
She won't watch him die. She won't, and he feels warm and alive under her fingers, but not enough. So she moves next to him, kneeling between his legs without breaking the kiss. He puts his hands on her back to support her, his thigh brushing lightly against her left side. She can feel herself humming as his tongue strokes the side of her mouth, and his lips curve a little as if smiling.
"What?" she whispers, feeling his hands slip beneath her jacket and shirt to be warm against her skin. She can feel the lines on his palm as she leans against it, and the slight cool of his wedding band.
"We haven't had much time together," he says softly, "after Earth."
"We have certain responsibilities. There's been so much…"
"I know."
"I'm beginning to suspect the raptor was crashed just to have some personal time with the President," she whispers and his smile is almost luminous.
"Would it have worked?"
"No," she says firmly, and holds it for a breath. "The President is already engaged with the Admiral and will be for some time."
Some time indeed, she thinks, and his kiss is breathtaking.
Rest of a life, probably.
II
"I ask you again, Specialist Terr…"
"… please…"
"Why did you sabotage the Admiral's raptor? Who recruited you? Those frakking Sons of Ares? A Cylon faction?"
The good thing about Colonel Tigh, Lee considers, is that he'll suspect both his people equally. That, perhaps, is also the bad thing and Specialist Tarr, last to sign off on the raptor used by the Admiral and the President, is looking so very small surrounded by so many marines and Tigh towering above.
"I didn't… I haven't… I would never!"
"I don't believe you," Tigh says, and it sounds strangely like a death sentence.
II
They never quite undress with the temperature not particularly inviting it, but it doesn't really matter. She feels close enough to him even with clothes between them, and she slips her hands all the way inside his tank tops to rest against his chest.
He spreads kisses across her face in what seems an Adama recon, and the sides of her neck seem to warrant closer inspection for all she's pretty sure he's well-acquainted there. Still, she doesn't protest, merely breathes and kisses every inch of his skin that comes close enough for it. Every few minutes, he lifts his head again and kisses her on the lips, as if returning to dock before going back out.
It makes her smile a little, and wince when his lips travel across a bruise on her collarbone she wasn't even aware she had. He freezes a second after, looking at her with so much concern it hurts.
"From the impact," she tells him. "Doesn't matter, it doesn't hurt."
He doesn't look convinced. "Maybe now is not…"
"Maybe now is," she says firmly, freeing her hands and taking one of his in them to lift to her lips. "We don't know what else we have. We could have died, I don't want to lose moments like this when I'm…"
He kisses the end of the sentence from her and it's nothing like the gentle caresses earlier, her lips feeling swollen and heavy when he pulls back again. His breath is a little ragged like hers and his eyelids are lowered as he looks at her.
He wants her, she knows, but he also loves her. The two don't always go together. Not with her cancer, not with his determination to see her through treatments and not put undue stress on her body.
Of course, if he doesn't frak her now very, very soon, he will actually be putting undue stress on her body from frustration.
"Bill," she simply says, spreading her jacket across the ground as he watches, and opening her arms to him. "I'm not going to die any slower if you stay away."
"I love you," he says, his voice sounding strangely young and tired at once.
When he sinks down on the ground with her, he's still careful, but he's also dipping a hand below her waistline and she tilts her head back to the sky; it's still empty and silent.
II
When Tigh offers him a drink, Lee just takes it and drowns it in one sip without checking what it is. It burns in his throat, but he manages to bite down coughing.
He takes the refill without looking too, swirling it slowly in the glass.
"Either Terr isn't guilty or he has nerves of titanium."
"Everyone is guilty of something," Tigh simply says, but some of the energy in his voice has gone. "We'll know what when we find the wreck."
"Or when dad tells us what happens. After we find them."
For a moment, Lee could swear Tigh is smiling. "Yeah. He's probably bored waiting for us already."
"Yeah."
Lee drains his second drink, but when making to get up, Tigh simply waves him off.
"Lee... You stay out on this round."
Lee is pretty sure he doesn't want to know why, but he still has a good idea; it makes him get another refill.
II
This is, Laura thinks faintly, a far more pleasurable way of spending time than just waiting. Waiting, scanning the skies, wondering whatever could be taking a rescue party so long, if they ever would get one... That could easily get boring.
Bill isn't bored. At least he doesn't sound it, breathing so carefully and looking at her so intently as she adjusts her position above him. He's holding back, she knows, even this hard inside her and she's a little glad for it. She can't pretend the cancer isn't there, that the Diloxin hasn't ravaged her and makes it a bit harder for anything else to, much as she might wish it (him) to.
She can forget a little, at least when his fingers are coaxing and gentle, and he lifts himself up a little to kiss her as she moves. His mouth is warm against her, just as it was warm against her flesh, and she clutches his shoulders as sharp jolts of heat seem to move to her head.
This is a difference than frakking on Galactica, she thinks distantly. No one suddenly knocking on the hatch, no persistent groan of metal, no limited space and slightly cramped bunks. Variety is good, variety can be very good (he's never done that with a finger before but by the Gods, he better do it again in the future). But still Bill, as it always will be now.
Her equal, her opposite, her companion through space; love as gravity and they're both in the force of it now.
He steadies her at the first thrust, she braids her fingers in his and holds at the second, on and on until she loses count and wonders if the shudder through her body she feels is her own or simply his echoing in hers.
"Love you," she gasps, and his eyes smile at her far more brightly than anything else she knows of. "Bill, please, now..."
She arches as he thrusts; he inhales as she exhales; she comes as he lets go.
Earth has a very good gravity indeed, she finds; it doesn't actually let go of her body when her mind does.
II
Lee really doesn't have Tigh's talent for drinking, painfully evident when Kara finds him and he can't even lift his head to greet her. She doesn't comment, just sits down next to him.
"Helo's still out," she says. "I'm going out again in an hour. Looks like they went down on land, at least."
He nods slowly, feeling her shoulder steady itself against his.
"The Cylons want to help looking. The Colonel would tell them to frak off," she goes on. "What are you going to tell them?"
He thinks for a moment, then looks at her. "I'd tell them we'd appreciate the help and have them look everywhere we're sure the Admiral and the President didn't go down."
She nods; when she turns and kisses him harshly, he can almost taste her fear.
"Hey," he whispers against her lips, watching her avert her eyes from him. "You came back from much worse. We all thought you were dead."
"You have no idea," she says, and her second kiss is no more gentle than the first.
II
She doesn't quite sleep, but nestled against Bill, she does drift off, the sky a different shade every time she opens her eyes again. Blue isn't just blue, and without a sky for so long, she had forgotten.
It reminds her of New Caprica, and with Bill this close one night particularly comes to mind. She rather did forget a lot of what she told him then; she's certainly not lived by it.
Cancer is a reminder every moment could be the last, it adds urgency to everything. Used to be political side she let that urgency govern, and is still, but there is more. So much more, and Bill kisses the side of her neck lazily.
She used to wonder how her mother had the strength to fight that long when she was so sure she would have given up long before. She used to, she doesn't now.
Life is a force, the attraction of it all the stronger when on a collision course with death.
Perhaps not so strange after all how much humans want to cling to life when death yanks at it, not so strange after all that after the end of the world they still seek survival. Not so strange that even the discovery of Earth as it is hasn't killed them all, for all the despair it brought.
Earth really has a pretty sky too, she observes, and watches it no longer be empty.
"Bill?" she whispers, feeling her leg be a little sore as she turns over to face him. "I think we're about to have company."
II
"Lee!"
That's not the voice he was expecting to wake to, Lee thinks, opening an eye to see Colonel Tigh lean over him and looking very unimpressed. Kara, Kara he could expect, but she's already standing to attention very impressively for being half-naked.
Okay, maybe the couch in his father's quarters wasn't the best place.
"Any word on dad?" he manages to croak out.
"Yes," his father's voice says, and Lee turns his head sharply to the right to see his father watching him with a carefully blank expression on his face. "I brought quite a few words with me."
Tigh holds the stern expression for five seconds, his father about ten; then both men are laughing and Lee wonders if he's still drunk.
II
Laura isn't sure how long she's been sleeping (faintly, she remembers Cottle's hands on her and a nurse bandaging her left ankle and Saul squeezing her shoulder, though that feels like it could almost be a dream) but when she wakes, Bill is watching her.
He looks patched up; crisp, new uniform, a few stiches by his left eyebrow and his hair washed. He's smiling too, and reaching into a pocket he pulls out her glasses. She takes the gratefully, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Found them in the wreckage," he says to her unasked question. "They weren't broken."
The oddest things survive the longest falls, she thinks, and puts them on.
"Have you found out why the raptor went down?"
"Yes," he says, his smiling falling a little. "It was due for maintenance a week ago, but the specialist just signed off on it without even inspecting it."
"Sabotage?"
"No," Bill says firmly. "He had been suffering depression since we found Earth and been doing spotty work ever since. The others covered for him, but this time..."
"Just a depressed mechanic," she says, and she has to laugh for how much it's not really funny. "Maybe we should stop assuming the worst all the time."
Bill doesn't smile at that, doesn't even change his expression, and she feels something cold and sharp in her stomach.
"Tigh cleared him." A breath, and Laura already knows whatever is coming is not good. "He killed himself anyway. Hung himself."
She nods, feeling a little numb. "We'll attend his funeral. Just tell me when it is, I'll make the time."
"Yes."
"I'd like to leave now."
He takes her hand and helps her to get off the bed, and she leans a little gratefully against him. "Cottle gave you a relatively clean bill of health. I can take you to Colonial One."
"No," she says, feeling his fingers between hers, not letting go even though she can walk on her own. "I'm staying at Galactica tonight. If you don't mind."
"You know I don't. But I should warn you, I'm having my couch cleaned. It might smell a little."
They walk off; she only looks back briefly to see the body covered in a white sheet Cottle is leaning over. For a moment, she feels almost angry – anger for almost getting killed, anger for the number she'll have to subtract from her total after all, anger for everything one depressed specialist made her suspect and start planning for – but it fades into something between pity and grief and curiosity and she halts.
She can't help but wonder if to finally escape the force of life is an escape after all and she is wrong, just another victim of gravity afraid to fall.
"Laura," Bill says softly, and she turns back to him as he tugs her hand gently. "Come on. You can't change it."
"You're right," she says, kissing him softly (anyone watching doesn't suddenly seem to matter, not when he looks like he knows what she's feeling) before walking with him.
They all fall out of life's orbit sooner or later; no need to hurry it.
She doesn't look back this time.
FIN
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 07:18 pm (UTC)Terrific incipt. Draws you in like whoa. Everything about Laura's reaction felt extremely vivid and realistic and perfectly in character.
You write an exceptionally good Tigh, you should write him more. Loved the Kara/Lee bit and I could totally imagine Kara saying the 'You have no idea' line.
But then, Lee considers, that is Helo; conviction radiating and Sharon by his side, looking like she basks in it.
This line is so much love!
And I loved that it was just a depressed mechanic and the Maybe we should stop assuming the worst all the time. And of course you still had the mechanic die.*sniff*
If you were writing for the show, I wouldn't be feeling so gloomy about the fate of my lovely characters. You can do gritty and realistic without killing all hope.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:41 am (UTC)But anyway, thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 08:59 pm (UTC)This is one of the best things I've read in a while. Thank you. Amaaaaaazing job!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 10:49 pm (UTC)Loved it :)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-23 02:49 am (UTC)Anyway, great work (as usual)! :D I like the way you write Tigh, and also how you kind of had them bust a gut at the end...and then Bill's couch was (conveniently) getting cleaned. So they have to sleep together. If they weren't already going to.
ANYWAY. At this point I'm all rambles, so I'm just gonna say that I loved this all :D.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:44 am (UTC)(I do have another to post on Friday for my MOL.)
Thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 11:23 am (UTC)Most awesome-est words in the entire thing for me:
Tigh's gaze doesn't falter, but it does soften just for a second. "You're the Old Man's son. If I fail at protecting him, you're the next best thing."
Always has been, Lee thinks.
That blew me away. So much said with so little.
I'm hoping I read something more from you really soon!