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Love and Simplicity: A Murder on Galactica 2/2
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: It started like it always did. With a body. It wasn't Laura Roslin's. But it was clearly intended to be. [Adama/Roslin, Tigh, some Kara/Lee, tiny Helo/Athena, Baltar, Doc Cottle]
Rating: Teen. Some adult activities, nothing too explicit.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Set post-Blood on the Scales, pre-Deadlock. With BSG's timeline being a little confused, I'm just mushing this in there as if it belongs. Ahem. There is a reworked Babylon 5 line in here, you'll know it if you see it. I owe much thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
falena84 and lotus79, who both pushed, begged, mocked and helped me with this story. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.
Part One
II
A low hum in the bar seems to die a little as they walk in, but Bill's hand stays firmly in hers and he merely looks across the crowd until voices pick up again.
Laura's pretty sure a few conversations have changed topic, though. 'Did you know about the Admiral and the President? He's not even hiding it!'
He's not, she thinks. He's making it very clear going after her is going after him.
Hmm.
Going after him...
She doesn't quite listen as Bill strikes up a conversation with the bartender, merely thinks and considers and turns over what they do know in her head. The whole Fleet knows of her cancer, and most on Galactica would know of her earlier treatments and perhaps reason out the prognosis is not good.
Who bothers murdering a dying women?
A hush falls over the bar again, and she looks up to see Kara at the entrance, shadows and light across her face as if she's both and neither.
"Someone on this ship is a dead person walking," Kara says evenly. "Tell me what I want to know, and it won't be you."
II
Starbuck, Apollo thinks. Frakking Starbuck. Push and pull to drive anyone insane, and he can just never seem to escape her gravity and yet never be quite in orbit.
Frakking Starbuck, he hasn't done enough of. Not that it would solve anything, but it would at least make the puzzle more enjoyable.
"Apollo, stop looking like you're mooning," Tigh says sharply, and Lee looks up. "You're as bad as the Old Man."
"Right," Lee murmurs. "What are we looking at?"
"The mutiny," Tigh says, and for a moment, his voice carries steel. "If this is about the Old Man, it could be someone from Gaeta's side. We cleaned out those we found of his little group, but we may have missed some."
"And if you did?"
"Then it's time to pay them a visit and play good cop and bad cop. You're not the bad one."
II
A quiet corner, and Kara is telling them about the attempt on Lee's life, and making use of more than one colourful metaphor for what the attacker might expect coming.
Bill doesn't say anything, but Laura can feel his hand in her lap ball slightly, and she strokes her fingers across his knuckles reassuringly.
Lee, she thinks. Lee, and her, and there are two things she can think of that they have in common. One is 'president' in their title.
The other is sitting next to her, and she might not have a basestar this time, but she will keep him alive. She will, and meeting Kara's gaze, she knows she's not alone.
"The Colonel has men out looking," Kara says, shaking her head a little. "For you too."
"Do we know it's not a marine?" Laura asks, and both look at her. "Hiding in plain sight, armed already, instilling a sense of security... We've had to take in more people to cover for those lost in the mutiny, haven't we?"
"Yes," Bill says, and for a moment, grief seems etched on his face. "We're short."
Kara stands up abruptly. "I'll bring in the cat."
"Starbuck..."
"Sir, they're not going to tell you about a murder plot against the President. Especially not when she's with you. And Lee's your son."
"I know," Bill says, and the affection he looks at Kara with makes Laura smile a little. Bill's family. So very Bill's family. "Don't do anything stupid, Starbuck."
"You know me, sir. It's what I'm best at."
II
"You're telling me several marines have seen the Admiral and President frolic through the halls, and haven't told me?" Tigh asks, and it manages to sound remarkably like 'do they have a death wish?'
"Yes, sir," Hoshi says quietly. "Sir, they're apparently more scared of the Admiral than you, sir."
"That's a surprise," Lee remarks brightly, and Tigh gives him a scalding look.
"If it helps any, it's a close call, sir. I believe the President's presence was a deciding factor," Hoshi offers.
"Hoshi?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Get scarier."
"Yes, sir."
II
As they leave, one bar patron slides a piece of paper over to Bill, and he picks it up without comment.
Laura doesn't say anything either, but she does smile a little.
It's still Bill's ship, she thinks.
II
"Hey, Woodchuck!"
There are a few places a man could expect some privacy, Santo reflects. About to take a piss is one of them.
"Starbuck," he says evenly.
"Eaten more wood lately?"
Get drunk and nibble on just one chair, and you never hear the last of it, Santo thinks.
"No, just algea," he says brightly. "Frakked more Cylons lately?"
Starbuck tilts her head and looks down him, smiling a little. "Jealous, Chuck? As pleasant as it is watching you pee, I'm not here for that. What do you know about someone going after the President, the VP and maybe the Old Man?"
"Someone wants to kill our esteemed leaders? What do I care?"
"You care," Starbuck says, "because if you don't tell me what you know, I will ram this toilet so far up your frakking ass I'll be peeing through your mouth. You will care about that, trust me."
II
Bill does know his ship, and Laura finds herself wandering halls she has never seen, not even while running through. It is a big ship, and she's starting to feel a little breathless.
"What?" Bill asks softly when she touches his arm, and taking a look at her he immediately puts a supporting arm around her.
"Just catching my breath," she says, trying to smile. It doesn't change the look on his face, and he leads her a few steps to a hatch, and punching some numbers, opens it to guide her inside. It's some sort of storage, she notes, and he pulls out a box for her to sit at. He kneels down by her, a hand on her knee as he watches her steady her breath a little.
"Maybe you should get some rest," he offers.
"Not without you," she says firmly. "Besides, if we go back to your quarters, I think the Colonel might lock us both in."
Bill chuckles a little, even if she wasn't really joking and she loves the sound too much to correct him.
"Bill? What if this isn't about me?"
He looks at her, and she knows he has been considering the same possibility since they heard about Lee.
"It makes more sense if it's you," she says softly. "I'm dying. It would be rather pointless to kill me."
"No," he says. "Not pointless. Not dying. You're..."
He breathes, leaning his forehead against her and she watches his lips, but he doesn't say anything else. He doesn't need to, when she knows and he knows she knows.
She's this, she thinks, and kisses him because she loves him.
It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
II
If Tigh is a little surprised to get Baltar calling, he doesn't betray it in his voice. He merely listens, even making polite noises at the appropriate places and hanging up with an almost sincere, "Thank you, doctor".
"The Old Man and the President went to Baltar," he tells Lee, sounding torn between disgusted and impressed. "Apparently, he looked into the matter for them and have heard rumours some associates of Zarek have been in contact with Galactica."
"Zarek," Lee says, shaking his head a little.
"Even dead, he manages to be bad news," Tigh mutters. "Right. Astral Queen was Zarek's little happy place. Lets see if there's been any calls made from there to Galactica of late."
II
There's a time and place for everything. For frakking the Admiral, this is probably neither.
But time is a commodity and Laura will take as much of it as she can have and place, well, the place is still Galactica and it feels a little like her home too now.
Through him, she thinks.
He's hard inside her, but his kisses are soft and his hands are gentle, and the contrast of it sends a flush to her face. She is humming into his skin, the military blankets he's wrapped around them seeming to encase them in a cocoon and the only sounds here theirs.
He breathes, and groans when she clenches her muscles a little around him, and she thinks all the noises of him lovely, and most of all his voice.
"This isn't much resting," he whispers, stroking strands of her wig out of her face, kissing the heat in her cheeks and watching her writhe a little as he moves.
It's enough, she thinks, no breath to answer.
She does have breath to cry out a little later when he finally coaxes her over the edge; he takes the sound of it in a kiss.
II
Starbuck isn't that great at knocking, Helo thinks, but at least she doesn't seem particularly bothered to be walking in on him with a hand down Athena's flightsuit.
"Kara," he says, trying to look dignified and wondering why she has a bruise at her temple. It can't be good news.
"Agathons," Starbuck greets back. "I need some friends. You got five minutes to get done. I'll be outside. Try not to be loud."
She leaves, leaving both Helo and Athena to look after her.
"She's grumpy of late," Helo says, and Athena looks at him, age in her eyes.
"It hurts to die," Athena says quietly. "Even if it's not permanent. I'll excuse grumpy."
II
"What was on that note?" Laura asks, and Bill frees one of his hands from hers long enough to show her two scribbled words. A name.
"Rita Castial? But Bill, I know her. She was on New Caprica. She died during the occupation. What connection could she have to this?"
"I don't know," Bill says, his cheek brushing across hers as he shifts position a little. "But I wonder if she had a family."
II
"Joel Castial," Tigh says, turning to Lee as he hangs up. "He logged a call to the Astral Queen yesterday. Interesting thing, Apollo, is that he died in the mutiny."
"Dead man calling?"
"I've had enough returns from the dead," Tigh says, with a look on his face that Lee is convinced would raise the dead in a heartbeat from pure fear. "It's a waste of a funeral."
II
"Woodchuck spilled some interesting things while taking a leak," Starbuck says, Athena and Helo trailing her as she walks. "A few associates of Zarek's have been talking to those not so happy how Gaeta's little coup turned out. Word is, they're not getting too many ears, but they're frakking persistent."
"And we're going to...?"
"Find out which ears they did get," Starbucks says evenly. "And box them in."
II
"You're going to get Hoshi in trouble, making him not tell the Colonel you called," Laura says, but she can't quite keep a little amusement out of her voice. "You'll have to promote him to make up for it."
"Remind me," Bill says, and there's a little laughter in his eyes too.
"What did he say?"
"A Joel Castial served on this ship. He was killed in the mutiny. His next of kin is listed as Rita Castial mother, desceased, and Joesph Castial, only living relative. His father. He has quarters on this ship. He's helping the repairs."
"I see," Laura says quietly, and meets Bill's gaze. Son, she thinks. Lee. Wife. Her, after a fashion. Loss for loss. Revenge. Evening it out.
But that doesn't work, she knows now. Get enough blood on the scales, and it's never even. It's just a wound, and it never stops bleeding.
"I think we better get back," Bill says, and she nods as he takes her hand.
II
"Frak," Lee says as they steer down the halls, trying to match his reading speed with Tigh's walking speed. " Joel Castial was a marine. His father got the frakking uniform. His father! He's been walking around as a marine all along."
"Frak," Tigh echoes, and adds a few colourful phrases of his own. "I sent Bill's marine guards out to search. He can just wait at the Admiral's quarters, and if they come back..."
Frak indeed, Lee thinks.
II
There's a marine outside Bill's quarters, Laura notes. Just one, and her brain screams at her as everything in her head seems to click into place, like magnets meeting.
She yanks Bill back; three seconds later the shots come.
II
The great thing about people trying to kill you, Kara thinks, is how wonderfully alive it always feels when they don't succeed.
"I'm already dead, boys," she says, standing up from where she was taking cover from their gunfire and the two brutes look at her confused, not noticing Helo and Athena coming up behind them again with Very Big Guns. "Now, do you want to find out what it's like or do you want to tell me who you've talked into going after the Admiral?"
Surprisingly, they're not so keen on dead.
II
Bill's body feels strangely all around her, Laura observes, an embrace to keep her alive at the cost of even his life, and she's not all that keen on that possibility. She just doesn't have the breath to tell him, and he might not hear her over shots he's firing in the general direction of their attacker.
In the corner of her eye, she sees movement and wonders if it's friend or foe; she really would be happy to see even Baltar at this point.
II
"He's got dad and Laura pinned down," Lee whispers to Tigh, drawing his weapon carefully. "What do we do?"
"Something really stupid," Tigh says, and steps out. "Hey, Joesph! You want to kill something dear to the Admiral?"
II
"I'm going to kill Saul," Bill mutters, taking a deep breath and slipping something cold into her hands. "Laura? Don't frak your aim this time."
She doesn't have the time to ask him what he means before he stands up too, holding his gun out and dropping it with a clatter to the floor.
"Joesph? You want to kill the actual Admiral?"
II
"Not yet," Joesph Castial says, and Lee gets his first proper look at their killer, marine-clad and weapon pointed squarely at William Adama. "I want you to be dead first, nothing to live for. If you hadn't led us to this... You promised us Earth and a home and my wife is killed on New Caprica when you left us and my son is killed in a mutiny over you. Where's my home? Where's my wife and my son? Why should you have those when I don't?"
"I don't know," Bill says after a moment, very quietly. "But I've lost a son and a wife. We've all lost something. It doesn't ease the pain to inflict it on others."
"Yes, it will," Joesph says, tears in his eyes and for a brief moment Lee almost feels pity. "It has to."
"I'm sorry," Laura says quietly from the side where she's stood up without anyone noticing, (what must be) Bill's other gun pointed squarely at Joesph's chest. Lee takes aim with her, and for a moment, it's a frozen tableau of aimed guns.
It's Starbuck who actually shoots.
II
There are a lot of explanations, Laura notes. There always are.
She sits on the couch in Bill's (and hers) quarters and listen to some of them – Starbuck's story of Zarek's associates being in contact with Joesph Castial and more or less setting him up to be lone gunman, Lee about the attempt on him and what he and Tigh reasoned out, Bill's fairly short tale of their own adventures (abridged version) – and tries not to think of the tragedy of it all.
Whole family, she thinks. She knows what that feels like, and she tries not to cry. For Nia Catelony too, in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the wrong hair colour too.
Tigh doesn't do anything but glower until Starbuck, Lee, Athena and Helo have all left, then he just walks up to Bill and looks torn between wanting to hug and wanting to punch.
"Just kiss and make up," she says, and both of them look at her. "Or do I have to do it for both of you?"
"Maybe you should," Bill says, eyes bright and she feels his eyes on her all the way as she walks over and kisses Saul softly.
II
Lee Adama doesn't say much as the body is rolled into sick bay for autopsy, but Cottle is a doctor and knows bodies; their language too.
He even agrees.
Too often it ends with another dead body. There's never enough life.
Not even for those who dedicate a life to saving as many as possible.
II
Starbuck is waiting in the hall outside sickbay when Lee exits, and he leans against the wall next to her, feeling tired.
"Nicely timed appearance," he tells her, not having the energy to make it a joke.
"You look like hell," she says, but her smile is almost luminous.
"So do you," he throws back, because it's easy and expected and she smiles even more at it.
She doesn't really, he doesn't say. She looks like Kara, and she might have made him feel like hell sometimes, but she's never looked it. Not through his eyes.
"I wish the world was simple," Lee says, and Kara looks at him, her eyes in shadow.
"You don't know what complicated is," she says.
When he kisses her, she still tastes of it.
II
It's been a long day, Laura thinks, and her body is starting to tell her that very insistently, tallying the damage. Aches in her bones, soreness in her muscles, a few bruises here and there and even something as silly as a lovebite in an awkward place.
Laura Roslin's day of adventure, she thinks, and smiles at Bill as he closes the door behind Tigh.
"Is the Colonel going to forgive us?" she asks lightly, and Bill chuckles.
"In a decade or two."
"So soon?" she jokes, and smiles up at him as he puts an arm around her, nuzzling her against him carefully and intently at the same time. "We have to thank Baltar for his help."
"No, we don't," Bill says firmly. "I'm not thanking Gaius Baltar. I'll not kill him. That's a lot of thanks."
That's a sort of forgiveness too, she thinks, and remembers not killing Gaius Baltar so very well. She's glad she didn't, strange as it seems.
She's even a little glad it was Starbuck who killed Joesph Castial, saving her the choice. She would have, for Bill, but she didn't have to. Selflessly, she can be glad for that.
"You all right?" Bill asks, looking at her and she smiles at him before he has time to get worried.
"Just a little tired."
His eyes are warm as they hold her, and his voice is warmer still. "I think it's bedtime."
"Yes," she agrees, because falling asleep to the sound of him is the most at peace she ever feels and the best rest she can think of.
"We still had a chapter left of 'Murder At the Temple Grounds'," he reminds her, but she can tell from the tone of his voice he isn't much in the mood for that.
"I think," she says softly, leaning into him, "we'll read that tomorrow instead."
Enough murder mysteries for a day, she thinks.
II
She really doesn't know simple, Starbuck thinks. Simple was meant to be Sam, and now he's in sickbay and she wears his bullet around her neck and somewhere along the way, they lost that simple.
Lee, Lee is simple too, loving what he loves, doing what he thinks is right, staying so effortlessly Lee. Lee is simple. It's the sum of them that isn't.
This will be nothing but complications, she thinks, and then doesn't, because she is frakking Lee Adama and there are too many bodily sensations to process to think.
It's better like that.
II
In the morning, Lee untangles himself from Kara's sheets and leaves while she still sleeps. She has Sam's bedside to be at (whatever he shares with Kara doesn't change that, and Kara doesn't change that he still grieves Dee) and he, he goes to see his father.
It takes two knocks before his father opens, in a bathrobe only, looking peaceful and content and quite human. There's Laura too, in a shirt and wrapped in a blanket on the couch, and it is a little awkward.
It is also a little comforting, and he accepts an invitation to breakfast.
"I feel sorry for him," he tells them over algae coffee and scrambled algae and Laura smiles at him with something almost like understanding. "Joesph Castial, I mean."
"He tried to kill you and Laura," Bill says, and Lee can almost hear all the emotion underneath the controlled voice. Almost.
"I know," Lee says, feeling the stitches on his arm hurt a little, and remembering Kara licking them the night before. Best not to think of that. At all. "But he had a family. He lost so much, all taken away from him."
"'All that we are, or that we think we are, all that we are certain about, is taken away from us'," Bill quotes softly, and smiles faintly and a little distantly. "'Love and Bullets'. Good book."
"When you lose everything, it's easy to find something to die for," Laura says, and she looks down at her fingers without seeming to see them, at least until his father tugs at them gently and she looks up. "It's a lot harder to find something to live for."
"All good things are hard," Bill says, and Laura nods slowly.
"Like love?" Lee asks, thinking of Zak and Kara, him and Kara, Sam and Kara, him and Dee, and never quite getting the dance right.
"Love's simple, son," his father says, eyes never leaving Laura. "It doesn't mean life is."
Love, Lee thinks, and watches it in front of him.
Simple as that. Complicated as that.
Life as that.
II
FIN
ship_manifesto.)Love and Simplicity: A Murder on Galactica 2/2
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: It started like it always did. With a body. It wasn't Laura Roslin's. But it was clearly intended to be. [Adama/Roslin, Tigh, some Kara/Lee, tiny Helo/Athena, Baltar, Doc Cottle]
Rating: Teen. Some adult activities, nothing too explicit.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Set post-Blood on the Scales, pre-Deadlock. With BSG's timeline being a little confused, I'm just mushing this in there as if it belongs. Ahem. There is a reworked Babylon 5 line in here, you'll know it if you see it. I owe much thanks to
falena84 and lotus79, who both pushed, begged, mocked and helped me with this story. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.Part One
II
A low hum in the bar seems to die a little as they walk in, but Bill's hand stays firmly in hers and he merely looks across the crowd until voices pick up again.
Laura's pretty sure a few conversations have changed topic, though. 'Did you know about the Admiral and the President? He's not even hiding it!'
He's not, she thinks. He's making it very clear going after her is going after him.
Hmm.
Going after him...
She doesn't quite listen as Bill strikes up a conversation with the bartender, merely thinks and considers and turns over what they do know in her head. The whole Fleet knows of her cancer, and most on Galactica would know of her earlier treatments and perhaps reason out the prognosis is not good.
Who bothers murdering a dying women?
A hush falls over the bar again, and she looks up to see Kara at the entrance, shadows and light across her face as if she's both and neither.
"Someone on this ship is a dead person walking," Kara says evenly. "Tell me what I want to know, and it won't be you."
II
Starbuck, Apollo thinks. Frakking Starbuck. Push and pull to drive anyone insane, and he can just never seem to escape her gravity and yet never be quite in orbit.
Frakking Starbuck, he hasn't done enough of. Not that it would solve anything, but it would at least make the puzzle more enjoyable.
"Apollo, stop looking like you're mooning," Tigh says sharply, and Lee looks up. "You're as bad as the Old Man."
"Right," Lee murmurs. "What are we looking at?"
"The mutiny," Tigh says, and for a moment, his voice carries steel. "If this is about the Old Man, it could be someone from Gaeta's side. We cleaned out those we found of his little group, but we may have missed some."
"And if you did?"
"Then it's time to pay them a visit and play good cop and bad cop. You're not the bad one."
II
A quiet corner, and Kara is telling them about the attempt on Lee's life, and making use of more than one colourful metaphor for what the attacker might expect coming.
Bill doesn't say anything, but Laura can feel his hand in her lap ball slightly, and she strokes her fingers across his knuckles reassuringly.
Lee, she thinks. Lee, and her, and there are two things she can think of that they have in common. One is 'president' in their title.
The other is sitting next to her, and she might not have a basestar this time, but she will keep him alive. She will, and meeting Kara's gaze, she knows she's not alone.
"The Colonel has men out looking," Kara says, shaking her head a little. "For you too."
"Do we know it's not a marine?" Laura asks, and both look at her. "Hiding in plain sight, armed already, instilling a sense of security... We've had to take in more people to cover for those lost in the mutiny, haven't we?"
"Yes," Bill says, and for a moment, grief seems etched on his face. "We're short."
Kara stands up abruptly. "I'll bring in the cat."
"Starbuck..."
"Sir, they're not going to tell you about a murder plot against the President. Especially not when she's with you. And Lee's your son."
"I know," Bill says, and the affection he looks at Kara with makes Laura smile a little. Bill's family. So very Bill's family. "Don't do anything stupid, Starbuck."
"You know me, sir. It's what I'm best at."
II
"You're telling me several marines have seen the Admiral and President frolic through the halls, and haven't told me?" Tigh asks, and it manages to sound remarkably like 'do they have a death wish?'
"Yes, sir," Hoshi says quietly. "Sir, they're apparently more scared of the Admiral than you, sir."
"That's a surprise," Lee remarks brightly, and Tigh gives him a scalding look.
"If it helps any, it's a close call, sir. I believe the President's presence was a deciding factor," Hoshi offers.
"Hoshi?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Get scarier."
"Yes, sir."
II
As they leave, one bar patron slides a piece of paper over to Bill, and he picks it up without comment.
Laura doesn't say anything either, but she does smile a little.
It's still Bill's ship, she thinks.
II
"Hey, Woodchuck!"
There are a few places a man could expect some privacy, Santo reflects. About to take a piss is one of them.
"Starbuck," he says evenly.
"Eaten more wood lately?"
Get drunk and nibble on just one chair, and you never hear the last of it, Santo thinks.
"No, just algea," he says brightly. "Frakked more Cylons lately?"
Starbuck tilts her head and looks down him, smiling a little. "Jealous, Chuck? As pleasant as it is watching you pee, I'm not here for that. What do you know about someone going after the President, the VP and maybe the Old Man?"
"Someone wants to kill our esteemed leaders? What do I care?"
"You care," Starbuck says, "because if you don't tell me what you know, I will ram this toilet so far up your frakking ass I'll be peeing through your mouth. You will care about that, trust me."
II
Bill does know his ship, and Laura finds herself wandering halls she has never seen, not even while running through. It is a big ship, and she's starting to feel a little breathless.
"What?" Bill asks softly when she touches his arm, and taking a look at her he immediately puts a supporting arm around her.
"Just catching my breath," she says, trying to smile. It doesn't change the look on his face, and he leads her a few steps to a hatch, and punching some numbers, opens it to guide her inside. It's some sort of storage, she notes, and he pulls out a box for her to sit at. He kneels down by her, a hand on her knee as he watches her steady her breath a little.
"Maybe you should get some rest," he offers.
"Not without you," she says firmly. "Besides, if we go back to your quarters, I think the Colonel might lock us both in."
Bill chuckles a little, even if she wasn't really joking and she loves the sound too much to correct him.
"Bill? What if this isn't about me?"
He looks at her, and she knows he has been considering the same possibility since they heard about Lee.
"It makes more sense if it's you," she says softly. "I'm dying. It would be rather pointless to kill me."
"No," he says. "Not pointless. Not dying. You're..."
He breathes, leaning his forehead against her and she watches his lips, but he doesn't say anything else. He doesn't need to, when she knows and he knows she knows.
She's this, she thinks, and kisses him because she loves him.
It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
II
If Tigh is a little surprised to get Baltar calling, he doesn't betray it in his voice. He merely listens, even making polite noises at the appropriate places and hanging up with an almost sincere, "Thank you, doctor".
"The Old Man and the President went to Baltar," he tells Lee, sounding torn between disgusted and impressed. "Apparently, he looked into the matter for them and have heard rumours some associates of Zarek have been in contact with Galactica."
"Zarek," Lee says, shaking his head a little.
"Even dead, he manages to be bad news," Tigh mutters. "Right. Astral Queen was Zarek's little happy place. Lets see if there's been any calls made from there to Galactica of late."
II
There's a time and place for everything. For frakking the Admiral, this is probably neither.
But time is a commodity and Laura will take as much of it as she can have and place, well, the place is still Galactica and it feels a little like her home too now.
Through him, she thinks.
He's hard inside her, but his kisses are soft and his hands are gentle, and the contrast of it sends a flush to her face. She is humming into his skin, the military blankets he's wrapped around them seeming to encase them in a cocoon and the only sounds here theirs.
He breathes, and groans when she clenches her muscles a little around him, and she thinks all the noises of him lovely, and most of all his voice.
"This isn't much resting," he whispers, stroking strands of her wig out of her face, kissing the heat in her cheeks and watching her writhe a little as he moves.
It's enough, she thinks, no breath to answer.
She does have breath to cry out a little later when he finally coaxes her over the edge; he takes the sound of it in a kiss.
II
Starbuck isn't that great at knocking, Helo thinks, but at least she doesn't seem particularly bothered to be walking in on him with a hand down Athena's flightsuit.
"Kara," he says, trying to look dignified and wondering why she has a bruise at her temple. It can't be good news.
"Agathons," Starbuck greets back. "I need some friends. You got five minutes to get done. I'll be outside. Try not to be loud."
She leaves, leaving both Helo and Athena to look after her.
"She's grumpy of late," Helo says, and Athena looks at him, age in her eyes.
"It hurts to die," Athena says quietly. "Even if it's not permanent. I'll excuse grumpy."
II
"What was on that note?" Laura asks, and Bill frees one of his hands from hers long enough to show her two scribbled words. A name.
"Rita Castial? But Bill, I know her. She was on New Caprica. She died during the occupation. What connection could she have to this?"
"I don't know," Bill says, his cheek brushing across hers as he shifts position a little. "But I wonder if she had a family."
II
"Joel Castial," Tigh says, turning to Lee as he hangs up. "He logged a call to the Astral Queen yesterday. Interesting thing, Apollo, is that he died in the mutiny."
"Dead man calling?"
"I've had enough returns from the dead," Tigh says, with a look on his face that Lee is convinced would raise the dead in a heartbeat from pure fear. "It's a waste of a funeral."
II
"Woodchuck spilled some interesting things while taking a leak," Starbuck says, Athena and Helo trailing her as she walks. "A few associates of Zarek's have been talking to those not so happy how Gaeta's little coup turned out. Word is, they're not getting too many ears, but they're frakking persistent."
"And we're going to...?"
"Find out which ears they did get," Starbucks says evenly. "And box them in."
II
"You're going to get Hoshi in trouble, making him not tell the Colonel you called," Laura says, but she can't quite keep a little amusement out of her voice. "You'll have to promote him to make up for it."
"Remind me," Bill says, and there's a little laughter in his eyes too.
"What did he say?"
"A Joel Castial served on this ship. He was killed in the mutiny. His next of kin is listed as Rita Castial mother, desceased, and Joesph Castial, only living relative. His father. He has quarters on this ship. He's helping the repairs."
"I see," Laura says quietly, and meets Bill's gaze. Son, she thinks. Lee. Wife. Her, after a fashion. Loss for loss. Revenge. Evening it out.
But that doesn't work, she knows now. Get enough blood on the scales, and it's never even. It's just a wound, and it never stops bleeding.
"I think we better get back," Bill says, and she nods as he takes her hand.
II
"Frak," Lee says as they steer down the halls, trying to match his reading speed with Tigh's walking speed. " Joel Castial was a marine. His father got the frakking uniform. His father! He's been walking around as a marine all along."
"Frak," Tigh echoes, and adds a few colourful phrases of his own. "I sent Bill's marine guards out to search. He can just wait at the Admiral's quarters, and if they come back..."
Frak indeed, Lee thinks.
II
There's a marine outside Bill's quarters, Laura notes. Just one, and her brain screams at her as everything in her head seems to click into place, like magnets meeting.
She yanks Bill back; three seconds later the shots come.
II
The great thing about people trying to kill you, Kara thinks, is how wonderfully alive it always feels when they don't succeed.
"I'm already dead, boys," she says, standing up from where she was taking cover from their gunfire and the two brutes look at her confused, not noticing Helo and Athena coming up behind them again with Very Big Guns. "Now, do you want to find out what it's like or do you want to tell me who you've talked into going after the Admiral?"
Surprisingly, they're not so keen on dead.
II
Bill's body feels strangely all around her, Laura observes, an embrace to keep her alive at the cost of even his life, and she's not all that keen on that possibility. She just doesn't have the breath to tell him, and he might not hear her over shots he's firing in the general direction of their attacker.
In the corner of her eye, she sees movement and wonders if it's friend or foe; she really would be happy to see even Baltar at this point.
II
"He's got dad and Laura pinned down," Lee whispers to Tigh, drawing his weapon carefully. "What do we do?"
"Something really stupid," Tigh says, and steps out. "Hey, Joesph! You want to kill something dear to the Admiral?"
II
"I'm going to kill Saul," Bill mutters, taking a deep breath and slipping something cold into her hands. "Laura? Don't frak your aim this time."
She doesn't have the time to ask him what he means before he stands up too, holding his gun out and dropping it with a clatter to the floor.
"Joesph? You want to kill the actual Admiral?"
II
"Not yet," Joesph Castial says, and Lee gets his first proper look at their killer, marine-clad and weapon pointed squarely at William Adama. "I want you to be dead first, nothing to live for. If you hadn't led us to this... You promised us Earth and a home and my wife is killed on New Caprica when you left us and my son is killed in a mutiny over you. Where's my home? Where's my wife and my son? Why should you have those when I don't?"
"I don't know," Bill says after a moment, very quietly. "But I've lost a son and a wife. We've all lost something. It doesn't ease the pain to inflict it on others."
"Yes, it will," Joesph says, tears in his eyes and for a brief moment Lee almost feels pity. "It has to."
"I'm sorry," Laura says quietly from the side where she's stood up without anyone noticing, (what must be) Bill's other gun pointed squarely at Joesph's chest. Lee takes aim with her, and for a moment, it's a frozen tableau of aimed guns.
It's Starbuck who actually shoots.
II
There are a lot of explanations, Laura notes. There always are.
She sits on the couch in Bill's (and hers) quarters and listen to some of them – Starbuck's story of Zarek's associates being in contact with Joesph Castial and more or less setting him up to be lone gunman, Lee about the attempt on him and what he and Tigh reasoned out, Bill's fairly short tale of their own adventures (abridged version) – and tries not to think of the tragedy of it all.
Whole family, she thinks. She knows what that feels like, and she tries not to cry. For Nia Catelony too, in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the wrong hair colour too.
Tigh doesn't do anything but glower until Starbuck, Lee, Athena and Helo have all left, then he just walks up to Bill and looks torn between wanting to hug and wanting to punch.
"Just kiss and make up," she says, and both of them look at her. "Or do I have to do it for both of you?"
"Maybe you should," Bill says, eyes bright and she feels his eyes on her all the way as she walks over and kisses Saul softly.
II
Lee Adama doesn't say much as the body is rolled into sick bay for autopsy, but Cottle is a doctor and knows bodies; their language too.
He even agrees.
Too often it ends with another dead body. There's never enough life.
Not even for those who dedicate a life to saving as many as possible.
II
Starbuck is waiting in the hall outside sickbay when Lee exits, and he leans against the wall next to her, feeling tired.
"Nicely timed appearance," he tells her, not having the energy to make it a joke.
"You look like hell," she says, but her smile is almost luminous.
"So do you," he throws back, because it's easy and expected and she smiles even more at it.
She doesn't really, he doesn't say. She looks like Kara, and she might have made him feel like hell sometimes, but she's never looked it. Not through his eyes.
"I wish the world was simple," Lee says, and Kara looks at him, her eyes in shadow.
"You don't know what complicated is," she says.
When he kisses her, she still tastes of it.
II
It's been a long day, Laura thinks, and her body is starting to tell her that very insistently, tallying the damage. Aches in her bones, soreness in her muscles, a few bruises here and there and even something as silly as a lovebite in an awkward place.
Laura Roslin's day of adventure, she thinks, and smiles at Bill as he closes the door behind Tigh.
"Is the Colonel going to forgive us?" she asks lightly, and Bill chuckles.
"In a decade or two."
"So soon?" she jokes, and smiles up at him as he puts an arm around her, nuzzling her against him carefully and intently at the same time. "We have to thank Baltar for his help."
"No, we don't," Bill says firmly. "I'm not thanking Gaius Baltar. I'll not kill him. That's a lot of thanks."
That's a sort of forgiveness too, she thinks, and remembers not killing Gaius Baltar so very well. She's glad she didn't, strange as it seems.
She's even a little glad it was Starbuck who killed Joesph Castial, saving her the choice. She would have, for Bill, but she didn't have to. Selflessly, she can be glad for that.
"You all right?" Bill asks, looking at her and she smiles at him before he has time to get worried.
"Just a little tired."
His eyes are warm as they hold her, and his voice is warmer still. "I think it's bedtime."
"Yes," she agrees, because falling asleep to the sound of him is the most at peace she ever feels and the best rest she can think of.
"We still had a chapter left of 'Murder At the Temple Grounds'," he reminds her, but she can tell from the tone of his voice he isn't much in the mood for that.
"I think," she says softly, leaning into him, "we'll read that tomorrow instead."
Enough murder mysteries for a day, she thinks.
II
She really doesn't know simple, Starbuck thinks. Simple was meant to be Sam, and now he's in sickbay and she wears his bullet around her neck and somewhere along the way, they lost that simple.
Lee, Lee is simple too, loving what he loves, doing what he thinks is right, staying so effortlessly Lee. Lee is simple. It's the sum of them that isn't.
This will be nothing but complications, she thinks, and then doesn't, because she is frakking Lee Adama and there are too many bodily sensations to process to think.
It's better like that.
II
In the morning, Lee untangles himself from Kara's sheets and leaves while she still sleeps. She has Sam's bedside to be at (whatever he shares with Kara doesn't change that, and Kara doesn't change that he still grieves Dee) and he, he goes to see his father.
It takes two knocks before his father opens, in a bathrobe only, looking peaceful and content and quite human. There's Laura too, in a shirt and wrapped in a blanket on the couch, and it is a little awkward.
It is also a little comforting, and he accepts an invitation to breakfast.
"I feel sorry for him," he tells them over algae coffee and scrambled algae and Laura smiles at him with something almost like understanding. "Joesph Castial, I mean."
"He tried to kill you and Laura," Bill says, and Lee can almost hear all the emotion underneath the controlled voice. Almost.
"I know," Lee says, feeling the stitches on his arm hurt a little, and remembering Kara licking them the night before. Best not to think of that. At all. "But he had a family. He lost so much, all taken away from him."
"'All that we are, or that we think we are, all that we are certain about, is taken away from us'," Bill quotes softly, and smiles faintly and a little distantly. "'Love and Bullets'. Good book."
"When you lose everything, it's easy to find something to die for," Laura says, and she looks down at her fingers without seeming to see them, at least until his father tugs at them gently and she looks up. "It's a lot harder to find something to live for."
"All good things are hard," Bill says, and Laura nods slowly.
"Like love?" Lee asks, thinking of Zak and Kara, him and Kara, Sam and Kara, him and Dee, and never quite getting the dance right.
"Love's simple, son," his father says, eyes never leaving Laura. "It doesn't mean life is."
Love, Lee thinks, and watches it in front of him.
Simple as that. Complicated as that.
Life as that.
II
FIN
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 02:05 pm (UTC)"Starbuck..."
"Sir, they're not going to tell you about a murder plot against the President. Especially not when she's with you. And Lee's your son."
"I know," Bill says, and the affection he looks at Kara with makes Laura smile a little. Bill's family. So very Bill's family. "Don't do anything stupid, Starbuck."
"You know me, sir. It's what I'm best at."
Aww, Kara! Loved that bit.
And the Agathons. You got five minutes to get done. I'll be outside. Try not to be loud. ROFL!
...waste of a funeral.
Aww, Tigh.
"You're going to get Hoshi in trouble, making him not tell the Colonel you called," Laura says, but she can't quite keep a little amusement out of her voice. "You'll have to promote him to make up for it."
"Remind me," Bill says, and there's a little laughter in his eyes too.
AHAHAHA! I like that. I like that a lot.
And I do of course love that you put a smidge of L/K in there for me. *wubs* (licking his stitches though? :P)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 02:15 pm (UTC)Glad you liked it, babe! *wubs back*
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Date: 2009-04-11 12:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-04-10 02:05 pm (UTC)Yay, this is so funny and yet solemn at the same time. :] Great job! :]
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Date: 2009-04-10 02:16 pm (UTC)Thank you :)
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Date: 2009-04-10 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 02:28 pm (UTC)"Joesph? You want to kill the actual Admiral?"
LOL. Loved these. And I'm amazed at how you get dialogue so right--Laura and Bill's of course, but also Kara's and Lee's and especially Tigh's are pitch perfect.
And I also really loved how Bill and Laura, with death always just so close, make love seem so simple when Lee and Kara, with all the time in the world (...well, seemingly), find it so complicated.
And aww at Laura Roslin's day of adventure. <3 DAMMIT, SHOW, WHY WAS THERR NO MAGIC INSTA-CURE FOR CANCER?
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Date: 2009-04-10 02:43 pm (UTC)I think the fact that Bill and Laura took so long helped them get to that point, really. Plus, the fact that death did hang over them probably made everything else seem minor details. Limited time does focus you.
Kara and Lee seemed to manage to add complications to their thing, in addition to those life had already given them. I like the contrast - says something about how love is such a different thing depending on circumstance and personality. Simple, complicated, love can do both.
CRUEL SHOW WAH.
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Date: 2009-04-10 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 05:18 pm (UTC)They would - a friend joked with me they should have a PI spinoff a la Magnum. I'd watch it!
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Date: 2009-04-10 05:28 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for sharing this - I enjoyed it immensely.
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Date: 2009-04-10 08:43 pm (UTC)Yeah, Kara kicking ass while snarking is really Kara at her best, so I couldn't resist have some of that, heh.
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Date: 2009-04-10 05:40 pm (UTC)Thank you for such a wonderful read!
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Date: 2009-04-10 09:01 pm (UTC)Thank you :)
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Date: 2009-04-10 08:46 pm (UTC)"Yes, sir?"
"Get scarier."
"Yes, sir."
Priceless.
Get enough blood on the scales, and it's never even. It's just a wound, and it never stops bleeding. *g*
"Just kiss and make up," she says, and both of them look at her. "Or do I have to do it for both of you?"
"Maybe you should," Bill says, eyes bright and she feels his eyes on her all the way as she walks over and kisses Saul softly. Great!
"Like love?" Lee asks, thinking of Zak and Kara, him and Kara, Sam and Kara, him and Dee, and never quite getting the dance right.
"Love's simple, son," his father says, eyes never leaving Laura. "It doesn't mean life is."
Love, Lee thinks, and watches it in front of him.
Simple as that. Complicated as that.
Life as that.
Ok, so technically, I could have quoted the whole piece, but I restrained myself. I love the tone, I love the flow, I love the characters and their interactions.
The best fic with plot I've read in a very long while!
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Date: 2009-04-10 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 09:17 pm (UTC)Oh, and this conversation particularly wins at life:
"You're telling me several marines have seen the Admiral and President frolic through the halls, and haven't told me?" Tigh asks, and it manages to sound remarkably like 'do they have a death wish?'
"Yes, sir," Hoshi says quietly. "Sir, they're apparently more scared of the Admiral than you, sir."
"That's a surprise," Lee remarks brightly, and Tigh gives him a scalding look.
"If it helps any, it's a close call, sir. I believe the President's presence was a deciding factor," Hoshi offers.
"Hoshi?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Get scarier."
"Yes, sir."
LOL!
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Date: 2009-04-10 09:52 pm (UTC)And I really do think 'who can be scariest?' contest between Tigh and Adama would be a close one, but add in Roslin, and really, you know who wins ;)
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Date: 2009-04-10 10:37 pm (UTC)*claps*
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 02:06 am (UTC)"Laura Roslin's day of adventure" - abso-frakking-lutely. Thanks for sharing! :D
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 03:40 am (UTC)And -- Get drunk and nibble on just one chair, and you never hear the last of it, Santo thinks. Seriously. Best. Line. Ever. :)
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:55 am (UTC)(And that chair-bit is almost based on a true story from my university days, hee.)
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Date: 2009-04-11 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 12:18 pm (UTC)When I read your stories I always want to write more, write better and take more chances with my writing. Your writing makes me want to keep improving my own.
I hope you're fantastically smug about your writing ability!!!!
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Date: 2009-04-11 04:20 pm (UTC)Um, mostly I'm very flattered and a little embarassed. I'm Norwegian, we're a bit weird about compliments. But you know, I really, really enjoy your writing and sometimes I wish I wrote like you. I guess the great thing about fanfic communities is that sometimes, writers inspire each other to try new things, evolve and write better. I love that.
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Date: 2009-04-11 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 03:58 pm (UTC)It might be my favourite of yours yet.
*prints it out*
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Date: 2009-04-11 04:24 pm (UTC)Thank you very much - I'm glad you liked it as much, and you certainly encouraged a lot of it and made me have so much fun writing it. So props to you.
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Date: 2009-04-12 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 02:32 pm (UTC)