FIC: My Hero (4/4)
Rating: MA
Genre: Romance, Smut, Humor, Angst
Word Count: 1,900
Summary: Roslin gives Adama his award early.
Setting: Post-Hero
Series: Love in a Time of War: 8
Chapter Four:
Laura had knocked on the hatch with no answer, but she knew Tigh was in there. She pushed the door open. The Colonel sat at the table, facing the opening as though expecting her. She stepped carefully over the rim.
Hands on hips, she said to him, “You weren’t at the ceremony; I sent you an invitation.”
“Nothing I wanted to see there.”
She remembered the way Bill’s eyes had scanned the hanger quickly as he stepped up on the platform and she hated this sopping drunk. His quarters smelled of sour sweat and stale booze and his eye’s bandage was crusty.
“You’re disgusting; an insult to this ship,” she said, scornful.
“You nagging harridan,” he sneered right back. “Dunnot know what the Old Man sees in you; you must have a pussy as cold as space herself.”
She strode up until her legs were within a breath of his knees. “You’ll never know,” she said, her top lip curled back.
“There’s not enough booze in the universe to make me try,” he said, reaching for his glass.
She knocked it from his hand and got out of his reach before his half-hearted backhand could land. “You’re going to go see Bill,” she told him.
“Frak off,” he said, tired.
“Or I’ll have your commission, have you tossed out of this cabin, relegated to a freighter where you can be a pimp for two cubit whores to earn your noodles,” she snarled.
He shook his head. “Bill’d never let you--“
“Why should he be faithful to you, when you won’t stand up for him?” she asked.
He squinted at her. “You haven’t told him--“
“Of course not.” She started to pace, breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench. “But he has to know...”
She came close again, damning the smell. “Is that it? You’re too afraid to tell him what you did?”
Tigh stumbled to his feet. “I’m no coward.”
She got in his face. “You are. You think he’ll judge you...he won’t; he understands what we went through--“
“How could he? He got his woman back!” he roared at her.
Her anger was gone. “I’m sorry, Saul--“
“Dunnot say that to me,” he gritted out. “Not when you’ve got a warm body in your bed at night.”
“I don’t. Just a warm body every now and then for an hour or two.” Her fingers twined together and she stared down at them. “We can’t...we have to remember our positions, our responsibilities--“
“You two and your nobility make me sick,” he said.
She met his gaze squarely. “You made your sacrifice too, Saul. And it was noble in its own twisted way.”
He bent to pick up his glass off the floor.
“He’s in his quarters now. His watch doesn’t start for another hour,” she told him. She went to the hatch. “You have your orders, Colonel Tigh.”
He stood up straight, and tossed her a salute. “Yes, sir.”
She looked as though she wanted to spit on him, but just turned on her heel.
“Damn woman,” he muttered, watching her leave.
Waiting until he heard the hatch latch, he put the glass down on the table and went to his closet. He tugged out his uniform, and began slowly dressing.
~ * ~
There was a knock at Adama’s quarters hatch, and he looked up from sorting files, expecting to see Laura. It was Saul, sidling in, his tunic unbuttoned, but at least he didn’t reek of alcohol.
“Heard you won a medal,” his old friend muttered.
“Yeah,” breathed Bill. “Give ‘em out for anything these days.” He put down his stack of files with a thump. “Good behavior. Attendance. Playing well with others.”
That last one was for Saul but his friend didn’t laugh. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them as Saul focused on the floor with his one good eye.
Well, Bill would take the next step if his buddy had summoned the courage to come down here. “I need you back in the CIC,” he told Saul. “Just ain’t the same without you in there, intimidating the inmates.”
Surprisingly, Saul growled, “That’s not what I came to talk to you about.”
Carefully, Bill replied, “Okay. So why are you here?”
His friend retreated. “Dunno. Nothing.”
“You wanna tell me what happened to Ellen?” Bill guessed and Saul’s rough face cracked just a bit.
He gasped, and gulped and said, “I could use a drink.” Of course, but Bill would give it to him this time with no qualms.
“Me too,” rasped Bill and he went for the glasses and decanter.
They sat at the conference table, just as he and Laura had, and talked.
“--that was rough, I tell you, Bill. Toughest thing I’ve ever had to do,” said Saul, draining glass, exhausted from his story.
“Of course,” soothed Bill, refilling his glass, but only to the halfway point. “I couldn’t have done the same thing,” he said, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, but then suddenly self-conscious that it sounded like a judgment. Laura would never have done what Ellen had done, for what that was worth.
“Nah, you couldn’t,” said Saul with an odd pride. “The president couldn’t make the tough calls either.”
Bill peered through the hazy glass, stopping its progress to his mouth. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
Leaning back in his chair, Saul said, “She didn’t want to use the suicide bombers. We were having success with them, dammit--belted me when I called her a Cylon-lover for it.“ He barked a rough laugh.
Bill set down the glass, wincing at the thought. Carefully, he said, “I’m glad that she didn’t. I don’t know if she wouldn’t have locked herself up in a cabin too, and we need her too damn much for that to happen.”
Saul glared at him.
“And I’m glad you didn’t force her into it, Saul. I never could have forgiven you for doing that to her.”
The glare turned to an incredulous stare. “What the frak is going on with you two?”
Adama shrugged and lifted his glass again.
Saul said confidently, “You’re frak buddies.”
Instant reaction from Adama: “Don’t talk about her that way.”
“Okay.” Saul held his hands up. “So it’s like that.”
“Yeah.”
Saul said, “That’s a mess.”
“I know.”
His friend told him, “Keep it at frak buddies. Trust me.”
“Saul, she’s not that sort of woman--“
“Oh? If so, where is she now? If it’s not just about sex, shouldn’t she be here picking up your mess? Tossing colorful pillows about the couch?”
Adama snorted at the mild-boggling image of Laura Roslin as his little woman but insisted, “Frakking isn’t why I want to be around her. There’re more important things.”
Saul’s brow furrowed in confusion. He couldn’t comprehend such a relationship. He began to look at Adama with worry.
“I’m not saying the sex isn’t great; it is--“
“Stop right there. I need to be able to salute that woman--“
“She’s not that woman.”
“I know. She’s your woman. So I’m keeping my mouth the hell shut.”
“Good.”
Saul kept talking anyway. “But you gotta assert yourself. You respect this woman too much--“
“Saul, you are so frakked up when it comes to women--“
“Says the guy with a divorce from a first rate bitch under his belt and now a woman has his nuts on a leash.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Adama said, his gaze distant and dare Saul use the term, dreamy.
But it disgusted him. “Dammit, Bill, now I’ve lost all respect for you. If you could see your face. You’re not fourteen anymore, just happy if the pretty girl has let you her touch her tits. You wanna get frakked? Plenty of women in this fleet who can be discreet; I’ll find one for you--“
“Gee, thanks, buddy. But no thanks.”
Saul suddenly saw the light. “That’s how you got in this mess, Bill. You got blue balls after a year in space with no pussy and sure, when she wasn’t president, why not, if that’s your taste in women.” He rolled his one eye. “But now it’s a terrible, awful, idea.”
Adama defended himself simply: “I fell in love.”
Saul’s head fell back and he gasped with shock. “I shoulda seen this coming. She’s a sneaky one, Laura Roslin--“
Bill’s bitter laugh cut him off. “Yeah, because it’s a great idea for the president to be involved with the admiral of the fleet. The best idea that she’s had yet, right up there with letting you help her try to steal the election.”
“Does she love you?” Saul asked, suddenly realizing that his friend had said, I fell in love, not, we fell in love.
There was just enough hesitation in Adama’s “Yes,” that Saul prodded deeper.
“Has she told you that?”
Evasive, Bill said, “She’s not using me for my sexy body,” with a shrug. “So what else could it be?”
Saul harrumphed, uncomfortable at this entire conversation.
Bill insisted, “And she’s not exactly without options as well, you know. She wasn’t making the smartest choice either.”
Sly, Saul said, “Yeah, she coulda gone for that Zarek frakker--“
“You’re the frakker,” growled Bill.
Exasperated, his friend roared, “So you admit that you’re both wrong, the whole thing is crazy, and yet the two of us are frakking sitting here, braiding each other’s hair, yakking about being in frakking love!”
“Am I interrupting?” came from the hatchway. Both men leapt to their feet. Laura looked from frozen-faced Tigh to the blank eyes of Adama.
Strolling in, she asked, “Did I break up a little boytalk?”
“Whaa?” said Saul, raising his eyebrow.
“Why do they say that men have a man to man talk, but women have girltalk?” she asked rhetorically. “You two seemed to be having a really intense discussion.” She gracefully lowered herself onto the couch. “But I’m not interrupting?”
“No, no,” both men insisted, not looking at each other.
“Guess I better get over to the CIC,” Saul said, hurriedly buttoning his tunic. “Remember what I said,” he warned Bill, giving Laura only a curt nod before scurrying out of the room.
“Coward,” Adama muttered.
“Are you?” said Laura, leaning back and regarding him coolly.
“Which one stuck around?” he said, refilling his glass.
She looked at his wide back, shoulders hunched. “Do we need to talk about something?” she asked.
He stared at the wall, sipping his drink. “No.”
“You going to try resigning again?” she said, “Because I thought we straightened that out.”
“We did.”
She flicked lint from her sleeve. “And I don’t think there’s another medal to give you.”
Her joke fell flat. “I don’t need another one.” He adjusted the new pin on his sash, caressing its unfamiliar shape.
He finally turned back to her, but from his stoic gaze, she might as well still be staring at the wall of blue wool. She said, “So Tigh’s coming back to the CIC?”
“Yes,” he said.
She rose. “Good. I’m glad.” She walked slowly towards the hatch, fighting the strange urge that she had to run. She gave him a tight little smile. “Then things are back the way they were before.”
He nodded. “Yes, it seems so.”
The end
Genre: Romance, Smut, Humor, Angst
Word Count: 1,900
Summary: Roslin gives Adama his award early.
Setting: Post-Hero
Series: Love in a Time of War: 8
Chapter Four:
Laura had knocked on the hatch with no answer, but she knew Tigh was in there. She pushed the door open. The Colonel sat at the table, facing the opening as though expecting her. She stepped carefully over the rim.
Hands on hips, she said to him, “You weren’t at the ceremony; I sent you an invitation.”
“Nothing I wanted to see there.”
She remembered the way Bill’s eyes had scanned the hanger quickly as he stepped up on the platform and she hated this sopping drunk. His quarters smelled of sour sweat and stale booze and his eye’s bandage was crusty.
“You’re disgusting; an insult to this ship,” she said, scornful.
“You nagging harridan,” he sneered right back. “Dunnot know what the Old Man sees in you; you must have a pussy as cold as space herself.”
She strode up until her legs were within a breath of his knees. “You’ll never know,” she said, her top lip curled back.
“There’s not enough booze in the universe to make me try,” he said, reaching for his glass.
She knocked it from his hand and got out of his reach before his half-hearted backhand could land. “You’re going to go see Bill,” she told him.
“Frak off,” he said, tired.
“Or I’ll have your commission, have you tossed out of this cabin, relegated to a freighter where you can be a pimp for two cubit whores to earn your noodles,” she snarled.
He shook his head. “Bill’d never let you--“
“Why should he be faithful to you, when you won’t stand up for him?” she asked.
He squinted at her. “You haven’t told him--“
“Of course not.” She started to pace, breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench. “But he has to know...”
She came close again, damning the smell. “Is that it? You’re too afraid to tell him what you did?”
Tigh stumbled to his feet. “I’m no coward.”
She got in his face. “You are. You think he’ll judge you...he won’t; he understands what we went through--“
“How could he? He got his woman back!” he roared at her.
Her anger was gone. “I’m sorry, Saul--“
“Dunnot say that to me,” he gritted out. “Not when you’ve got a warm body in your bed at night.”
“I don’t. Just a warm body every now and then for an hour or two.” Her fingers twined together and she stared down at them. “We can’t...we have to remember our positions, our responsibilities--“
“You two and your nobility make me sick,” he said.
She met his gaze squarely. “You made your sacrifice too, Saul. And it was noble in its own twisted way.”
He bent to pick up his glass off the floor.
“He’s in his quarters now. His watch doesn’t start for another hour,” she told him. She went to the hatch. “You have your orders, Colonel Tigh.”
He stood up straight, and tossed her a salute. “Yes, sir.”
She looked as though she wanted to spit on him, but just turned on her heel.
“Damn woman,” he muttered, watching her leave.
Waiting until he heard the hatch latch, he put the glass down on the table and went to his closet. He tugged out his uniform, and began slowly dressing.
~ * ~
There was a knock at Adama’s quarters hatch, and he looked up from sorting files, expecting to see Laura. It was Saul, sidling in, his tunic unbuttoned, but at least he didn’t reek of alcohol.
“Heard you won a medal,” his old friend muttered.
“Yeah,” breathed Bill. “Give ‘em out for anything these days.” He put down his stack of files with a thump. “Good behavior. Attendance. Playing well with others.”
That last one was for Saul but his friend didn’t laugh. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them as Saul focused on the floor with his one good eye.
Well, Bill would take the next step if his buddy had summoned the courage to come down here. “I need you back in the CIC,” he told Saul. “Just ain’t the same without you in there, intimidating the inmates.”
Surprisingly, Saul growled, “That’s not what I came to talk to you about.”
Carefully, Bill replied, “Okay. So why are you here?”
His friend retreated. “Dunno. Nothing.”
“You wanna tell me what happened to Ellen?” Bill guessed and Saul’s rough face cracked just a bit.
He gasped, and gulped and said, “I could use a drink.” Of course, but Bill would give it to him this time with no qualms.
“Me too,” rasped Bill and he went for the glasses and decanter.
They sat at the conference table, just as he and Laura had, and talked.
“--that was rough, I tell you, Bill. Toughest thing I’ve ever had to do,” said Saul, draining glass, exhausted from his story.
“Of course,” soothed Bill, refilling his glass, but only to the halfway point. “I couldn’t have done the same thing,” he said, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, but then suddenly self-conscious that it sounded like a judgment. Laura would never have done what Ellen had done, for what that was worth.
“Nah, you couldn’t,” said Saul with an odd pride. “The president couldn’t make the tough calls either.”
Bill peered through the hazy glass, stopping its progress to his mouth. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
Leaning back in his chair, Saul said, “She didn’t want to use the suicide bombers. We were having success with them, dammit--belted me when I called her a Cylon-lover for it.“ He barked a rough laugh.
Bill set down the glass, wincing at the thought. Carefully, he said, “I’m glad that she didn’t. I don’t know if she wouldn’t have locked herself up in a cabin too, and we need her too damn much for that to happen.”
Saul glared at him.
“And I’m glad you didn’t force her into it, Saul. I never could have forgiven you for doing that to her.”
The glare turned to an incredulous stare. “What the frak is going on with you two?”
Adama shrugged and lifted his glass again.
Saul said confidently, “You’re frak buddies.”
Instant reaction from Adama: “Don’t talk about her that way.”
“Okay.” Saul held his hands up. “So it’s like that.”
“Yeah.”
Saul said, “That’s a mess.”
“I know.”
His friend told him, “Keep it at frak buddies. Trust me.”
“Saul, she’s not that sort of woman--“
“Oh? If so, where is she now? If it’s not just about sex, shouldn’t she be here picking up your mess? Tossing colorful pillows about the couch?”
Adama snorted at the mild-boggling image of Laura Roslin as his little woman but insisted, “Frakking isn’t why I want to be around her. There’re more important things.”
Saul’s brow furrowed in confusion. He couldn’t comprehend such a relationship. He began to look at Adama with worry.
“I’m not saying the sex isn’t great; it is--“
“Stop right there. I need to be able to salute that woman--“
“She’s not that woman.”
“I know. She’s your woman. So I’m keeping my mouth the hell shut.”
“Good.”
Saul kept talking anyway. “But you gotta assert yourself. You respect this woman too much--“
“Saul, you are so frakked up when it comes to women--“
“Says the guy with a divorce from a first rate bitch under his belt and now a woman has his nuts on a leash.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Adama said, his gaze distant and dare Saul use the term, dreamy.
But it disgusted him. “Dammit, Bill, now I’ve lost all respect for you. If you could see your face. You’re not fourteen anymore, just happy if the pretty girl has let you her touch her tits. You wanna get frakked? Plenty of women in this fleet who can be discreet; I’ll find one for you--“
“Gee, thanks, buddy. But no thanks.”
Saul suddenly saw the light. “That’s how you got in this mess, Bill. You got blue balls after a year in space with no pussy and sure, when she wasn’t president, why not, if that’s your taste in women.” He rolled his one eye. “But now it’s a terrible, awful, idea.”
Adama defended himself simply: “I fell in love.”
Saul’s head fell back and he gasped with shock. “I shoulda seen this coming. She’s a sneaky one, Laura Roslin--“
Bill’s bitter laugh cut him off. “Yeah, because it’s a great idea for the president to be involved with the admiral of the fleet. The best idea that she’s had yet, right up there with letting you help her try to steal the election.”
“Does she love you?” Saul asked, suddenly realizing that his friend had said, I fell in love, not, we fell in love.
There was just enough hesitation in Adama’s “Yes,” that Saul prodded deeper.
“Has she told you that?”
Evasive, Bill said, “She’s not using me for my sexy body,” with a shrug. “So what else could it be?”
Saul harrumphed, uncomfortable at this entire conversation.
Bill insisted, “And she’s not exactly without options as well, you know. She wasn’t making the smartest choice either.”
Sly, Saul said, “Yeah, she coulda gone for that Zarek frakker--“
“You’re the frakker,” growled Bill.
Exasperated, his friend roared, “So you admit that you’re both wrong, the whole thing is crazy, and yet the two of us are frakking sitting here, braiding each other’s hair, yakking about being in frakking love!”
“Am I interrupting?” came from the hatchway. Both men leapt to their feet. Laura looked from frozen-faced Tigh to the blank eyes of Adama.
Strolling in, she asked, “Did I break up a little boytalk?”
“Whaa?” said Saul, raising his eyebrow.
“Why do they say that men have a man to man talk, but women have girltalk?” she asked rhetorically. “You two seemed to be having a really intense discussion.” She gracefully lowered herself onto the couch. “But I’m not interrupting?”
“No, no,” both men insisted, not looking at each other.
“Guess I better get over to the CIC,” Saul said, hurriedly buttoning his tunic. “Remember what I said,” he warned Bill, giving Laura only a curt nod before scurrying out of the room.
“Coward,” Adama muttered.
“Are you?” said Laura, leaning back and regarding him coolly.
“Which one stuck around?” he said, refilling his glass.
She looked at his wide back, shoulders hunched. “Do we need to talk about something?” she asked.
He stared at the wall, sipping his drink. “No.”
“You going to try resigning again?” she said, “Because I thought we straightened that out.”
“We did.”
She flicked lint from her sleeve. “And I don’t think there’s another medal to give you.”
Her joke fell flat. “I don’t need another one.” He adjusted the new pin on his sash, caressing its unfamiliar shape.
He finally turned back to her, but from his stoic gaze, she might as well still be staring at the wall of blue wool. She said, “So Tigh’s coming back to the CIC?”
“Yes,” he said.
She rose. “Good. I’m glad.” She walked slowly towards the hatch, fighting the strange urge that she had to run. She gave him a tight little smile. “Then things are back the way they were before.”
He nodded. “Yes, it seems so.”
The end