Birthday Fic: The Plains of Esdraelon (11/11)
Title: The Plains of Esdraelon (11/11)
Author: bugs
Summary: Bill and Laura straighten things out.
Rating: MA
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Angst, Drama
Word Count: 2,600
Series: The Stars in Their Courses
A/N: Not to bad; only one chapter over my goal. Thank you to all my birthday girls for the inspiration!
Chapter Eleven:
Watching Bill settle onto the other corner of the sofa, Laura tried to keep it light. “Take off your coat; stay a while.”
He glanced down at his leather jacket. “Oh, yeah.” He slowly shucked it.
She needed to remain on an impersonal level with him, go toe to toe--she glanced down at her fuzzy slippers--but when she glanced up, the soft wool sweater stretched across his chest and shoulders as he tossed the coat on a chair. Damn--very personal thoughts immediately leapt to mind.
She forced her best political smile on. “What’d you want to talk about, Bill?”
He concentrated on his clasped hands in his lap and shrugged. “Missed you.”
She decided not to make things easy for him. “Is that all?”
He tipped his head, still not looking at her. “How’s it going with the temporary presidency?”
Apparently he could play the ‘not easy’ game too. “Well. I seem to have the Quorum’s support.”
“The boy doing all right on the Quorum?”
“He’s not a boy, Bill.”
Briefly shutting his eyes, Bill sighed. “If he’s gonna be looking at my daughter all goo-goo eyed, and her looking back, he’s got to be a boy.”
Nodding, Laura conceded the point. “So the elections are set for a month from now.”
“Any serious opponents?”
“A surprising one or two. Wally Gray, for one. But I’m sure more will come out of the woodwork.”
“Don’t want to look like I’m interfering...” Bill glanced at her quickly. “But I’m not going to allow another Baltar.”
“We’ll worry about that when and if it happens.” He’d finally broken her patience with this tip-toeing around. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
There was a long silence. Bill seemed fascinated by his own hands, running one sturdy thumb up the other as if testing its strength. “No,” he finally said. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the universe.”
Ridiculous joy bubbled up from her heart. “But we’re down to only twenty thousand women, not counting Cylon super models.” She instantly saw joking was the wrong course when he hunched his shoulders.
Earnest, he started to apologize, and she felt a frantic need to stop him, as though if he did, it would embarrass both of them. Yet she found herself apologizing instead.
“I guess I forgot how to be married while I was away--I haven’t had much practice, you know. I expected to come back and have you be the big strong man for me. I didn’t think you might need some understanding and support, that you might have been scared shitless for four months straight too.”
Now his two thumbs were tip to tip, pushing back and forth in a miniature war. He gave one quick nod.
She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it, her mind suddenly blank. It felt like they were dancing on each other’s toes, with lots of wincing and stopping and starting, afraid to take the next step.
When Bill finally turned to face her, his intense gaze pinning her in place, Laura remembered what a good dancer he was.
“That morning, when I woke up alone, I looked out that huge window, across the city, and realized there were millions of women and you were just one of them--there was no hope of finding you.
Did I ever tell you I saw you years later? Or, your picture. Zak won a prize in school and the award came with a brochure from Adar. Your picture was on there too. I thought about contacting you, but I was a coward about it. I was too cool--didn’t want to feel like a fool if you shot me down.”
He reached over and took one of her hands lightly in his all encompassing grasp. “We can’t afford such nuanced emotions anymore. Love, hate, that’s all we have left. And I choose love.”
It was her turn to gulp back tears and nod quickly.
“You’ll come home then?” he asked and she nodded again, still not trusting her voice.
“You look tired,” Bill said sincerely, making Laura feel a bit peevish. Then he grabbed his jacket from the chair and pulled it back on.
“I am,” she replied coolly.
He patted her thigh. “You’ll probably want to sleep here tonight then.”
Of course not, she thought. “I suppose.” She plucked at her robe. “Can’t be seen in the corridors of the Galactica like this.”
He smiled shyly. “Are you kidding? You’d have a trail of guys following you to our quarters.”
She crossed her legs and quickly pulled her robe closed. “Please, Bill. Those kids see each other naked in the shower ever day. Me in my ratty old robe wouldn’t do anything for anyone.”
That strip of fur he called a mustache stretched wide, trying to hide a grin.
“Well...” She cleared her throat; her voice had gone squeaky. “I guess I’ll say goodnight.”
A goodnight kiss on the cheek wouldn’t do any harm...
Instead, her lips met his mouth, clashing, then quickly settling into their familiar pattern, a tilt of her head, a turn of his, tongues meeting and plunging deep.
She couldn’t breathe and was sure he couldn’t either. She had his neck in a death grip in case he decided to try and leave after all. Then a better idea came to her. He couldn’t leave naked.
Grabbing two handfuls of his jacket, she yanked it down, only to get stuck on his elbows. His lower lip trapped in her teeth in case he had any idea of escaping, she hissed, “Off.”
He’d been fumbling with her pajama buttons but took a moment to shrug out of the jacket and toss it across the room. The last button came loose and his hands went to her breasts--she groaned loudly before delving back into his mouth.
Skin...skin was a good idea. She snaked one hand up under his turtleneck and went faint at the feel of his bare skin; no tanks tonight. Her other hand was jerking at his jeans’ zipper with little success. She growled in frustration.
He gently pushed her over, following her all the way down, their mouths still sparring. She could finally undo his pants and push them and his briefs down--she didn’t even know he owned a pair of briefs. She pulled back and stared up at him.
“What?” He sounded scared, as if worried she’d changed her mind. As if.
“Just checking,” she said. “New underwear?”
He grinned. “Nothing’s too much for my lady.” Stroking up her neck with his mustache, his tongue left a moist path. The downstroke was prickly, making her nipples two hard pebbles in his palms. She arched like a cat under his petting hands.
Oh, yes, her objective was to have him naked. She tugged off his sweater, getting it stuck on his head. Another jerk, and his blender-whipped hair was revealed, his grin flashing bright before he dived back down to suckle at her breasts and collarbone.
His pants were stuck at mid-thigh. She managed to get her toes hooked onto the waistband and push them the rest of the way down so he could kick them off. Thankfully, he’d worn loafers instead of boots this evening...had he planned this?
A dog was whining impatiently in the background and with horror, she realized it was her. All of her clothes were still on, with only her top unbuttoned. But she wanted him now, couldn’t bear the thought of being separated enough far enough and long enough to lose her garments.
He understood. Lifting her hips with one hand, he pulled her bottoms down and off, but his touch was never gone from her skin. Sliding back up her bare leg, his fingers grazed along the inside of her thigh before stroking through her folds just long enough moisten his touch, then two fingers slid in to stretch her open...
“Bill.” It was a one word command he understood, but she added, “Please,” anyway, because she knew he loved it when she begged, and frankly, she did too.
“Right here,” he assured her, guiding his cock to her opening. Any worry that he might be thinking to do things slow and gentle were gone with the first plunge of his hips.
“Frak, yeah,” they moaned in unison. They briefly collapsed in laughter before nature too over. She...he had to move now. Their hips clashed and crashed, trying to find a familiar rhythm on this narrow and slippery sofa.
Laura braced on foot on the ground and hitched the other leg against his shoulder to give him more room to prop up on his knees. That’s when she realized her damn pajama bottoms were stuck on her foot and tangled around his head. With a few flicks of her foot, she kicked them off. Her moves drove him deeper still and he could only groan in delight.
Grabbing the sofa’s back and arm, he had the support he needed to thrust. The robe under her made their purchase precarious, but she was in for the whole ride, and would have killed him if he tried to stop now.
Not that the passion-fueled maniac staring down at her looked like anything short of a missile strike would stop him. Understanding his emotion, she sank her teeth into his bicep.
He hissed and bucked, hitting a new angle and she had to release her grip to sob in ecstasy.
“Am I getting it?” he gasped.
She could only gargle in impatience and excitement, greedily wanting more, more, more but with absolutely no way to express this. She tried anyway, sputtered embarrassingly incoherent phrases about love and fear and absence and longing, his rasping voice echoing hers.
One of his legs slipped off the sofa for a frightening moment, then he got his footing, the angle changed again, and he was hitting that spot again and again, sending pinwheels spinning across her vision.
“Can’t...need you...” he moaned.
“Yes...yes...yes...” She was answering several questions and posing new ones at the same time. He got it anyway.
Bowing his head, he slowed his pace to just grinding his pelvic bone against her swollen clit and she was totally gone, shot from the airlock into the space, the place where her lungs were crushed from lack of air.
His bellowing cries were like escaping gravity roaring in her ears. She hung on for dear life; they would explode together.
Somehow, with his last ounce of strength, he rolled them so he was on the bottom and she could drape across his still heaving chest. “I’m too old for these sort of acrobatics,” he gasped. “Let’s go home.”
She weakly patted his cheek. “I’d say forget it, but you do have your bare ass on Baltar’s couch. A shower is in order, first thing.”
He groaned for an answer, a shudder passing through his body. “Okay, just give me a moment. Slow refractory now extends to walking.”
Ruffling his mustache, she peered at it blindly. “So you’re going to keep this thing?”
Gently shifting her, he sat upright, glancing around for his clothes. “I guess it’s time to shave it off. Go to the barber and get a haircut too.”
Standing on wavering legs, Laura hid her disappointment. He was right though. It was time to return to duty.
She did walk through the corridors of Galactica in her robe. The crew made a point of not noticing. Bill had one arm looped through hers and carried her bag on the other, like a schoolboy carrying his girl’s books for the first time, his face showing his quiet pride and relief.
~*~
Laura looked out across the starboard hangar at the assembled crowd. “I am very proud to announce my candidacy for President of the Twelve Colonies. It would be an honor and privilege to serve humanity again.”
Her voice grew stronger. “It is time to look forward to our quest for a new home, not back at the events of New Caprica. In that regard, I’m announcing that my first action as temporary president is the full and unconditional pardon of all those labeled as collaborators on New Caprica.”
The assembly mumbled among themselves and she waited for them to quiet. More than a few gave pointed looks to Felix Gaeta, back in uniform and standing beside Dee Adama. He raised his chin in defiance.
Turning to Billy beside her, Laura smiled. “I will also be putting forward William Keikeya as my running mate. A hero of the resistance against the Cylons, he carries the scars from that war.”
Billy forced on a smile under the curious stares of the many Galactica and Pegasus crew that had not been on New Caprica.
“Mr. Keikeya is also an intelligent, seasoned administrator with the idealism of his youth, ready to join me in leading us to Earth.” Laura glanced at Lee for a moment, then away. “I welcome a vigorous campaign and its many challenges.”
She then asked for questions from the press and the tight pack of reporters surged forward.
Billy finally disentangled himself from the crowd and found Elizabeth standing by the large observation window.
“You should be pressing the flesh,” she scolded.
He squeezed her hand. “I am.”
Stroking his tie, she smiled. “You wore my present.”
“I still didn’t see anything wrong with my ties,” he said, frowning at the dull burgundy strip of silk.
“Not presidential.”
“Vice-presidential. And I’m just helping your mother out, that’s all.”
Elizabeth pursed her mouth. “Give yourself some credit, Billy. She believes in you as a leader and I know you can do it.”
He looked her up and down, taking in her flight cadet’s uniform. “I still can’t believe your mother is allowing you to fly again.”
“I don’t know when I’ll actually fly,” she said ruefully. “With two battlestars worth of pilots jockeying for flight time. But I can be of use somewhere, I know. We’re going to need every pilot before this thing is done.”
She turned to watch the CAP fly by the glass. He knew she couldn’t hear the approaching aircraft, so perhaps it was always a sixth sense with her. He observed that certain expression come to her clear eyes, a fierce determination and excitement and felt that same fear that he was sure Laura had finally quashed. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and quickly dropped a kiss upon her curls.
As if she read his mind, she touched the pins at her collar. “I have my father’s wings as protection. Don’t worry.”
“I worry because I love you, like your mother.”
“Like my mother?”
“Okay, not like your mother.”
She slipped her arm around his waist. “Good, ‘cause I love you too.”
Across the hangar, Bill watched in disgust as photographers shot footage of Elizabeth and Billy. “I can see the headlines now. Military and government in bed together.”
“Better not be,” grumbled Laura, they remembered the heated discussion she’d had with her daughter when she’d been told not only to butt out of the girl’s relationship with Billy, but to run interference with Bill. As if--although Bill wasn’t looking at the young man with his usual hawkish expression.
He was probably too busy focusing on Elizabeth’s uniform. She gave a shattering sigh.
Reading her mind, Bill slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, mirroring the young couple. He kissed her temple. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”
“You can’t say that.”
He bowed his head. “No, I guess not. But a safe peaceful life isn’t assured any of us anymore. She has her destiny; we all do.”
They looked out the window to the stars ahead, the pinpricks of light leading their way to Earth.
“Back on course,” he said. “We’re back on course.”
The End (11/11)
Author: bugs
Summary: Bill and Laura straighten things out.
Rating: MA
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Angst, Drama
Word Count: 2,600
Series: The Stars in Their Courses
A/N: Not to bad; only one chapter over my goal. Thank you to all my birthday girls for the inspiration!
Chapter Eleven:
Watching Bill settle onto the other corner of the sofa, Laura tried to keep it light. “Take off your coat; stay a while.”
He glanced down at his leather jacket. “Oh, yeah.” He slowly shucked it.
She needed to remain on an impersonal level with him, go toe to toe--she glanced down at her fuzzy slippers--but when she glanced up, the soft wool sweater stretched across his chest and shoulders as he tossed the coat on a chair. Damn--very personal thoughts immediately leapt to mind.
She forced her best political smile on. “What’d you want to talk about, Bill?”
He concentrated on his clasped hands in his lap and shrugged. “Missed you.”
She decided not to make things easy for him. “Is that all?”
He tipped his head, still not looking at her. “How’s it going with the temporary presidency?”
Apparently he could play the ‘not easy’ game too. “Well. I seem to have the Quorum’s support.”
“The boy doing all right on the Quorum?”
“He’s not a boy, Bill.”
Briefly shutting his eyes, Bill sighed. “If he’s gonna be looking at my daughter all goo-goo eyed, and her looking back, he’s got to be a boy.”
Nodding, Laura conceded the point. “So the elections are set for a month from now.”
“Any serious opponents?”
“A surprising one or two. Wally Gray, for one. But I’m sure more will come out of the woodwork.”
“Don’t want to look like I’m interfering...” Bill glanced at her quickly. “But I’m not going to allow another Baltar.”
“We’ll worry about that when and if it happens.” He’d finally broken her patience with this tip-toeing around. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
There was a long silence. Bill seemed fascinated by his own hands, running one sturdy thumb up the other as if testing its strength. “No,” he finally said. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the universe.”
Ridiculous joy bubbled up from her heart. “But we’re down to only twenty thousand women, not counting Cylon super models.” She instantly saw joking was the wrong course when he hunched his shoulders.
Earnest, he started to apologize, and she felt a frantic need to stop him, as though if he did, it would embarrass both of them. Yet she found herself apologizing instead.
“I guess I forgot how to be married while I was away--I haven’t had much practice, you know. I expected to come back and have you be the big strong man for me. I didn’t think you might need some understanding and support, that you might have been scared shitless for four months straight too.”
Now his two thumbs were tip to tip, pushing back and forth in a miniature war. He gave one quick nod.
She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it, her mind suddenly blank. It felt like they were dancing on each other’s toes, with lots of wincing and stopping and starting, afraid to take the next step.
When Bill finally turned to face her, his intense gaze pinning her in place, Laura remembered what a good dancer he was.
“That morning, when I woke up alone, I looked out that huge window, across the city, and realized there were millions of women and you were just one of them--there was no hope of finding you.
Did I ever tell you I saw you years later? Or, your picture. Zak won a prize in school and the award came with a brochure from Adar. Your picture was on there too. I thought about contacting you, but I was a coward about it. I was too cool--didn’t want to feel like a fool if you shot me down.”
He reached over and took one of her hands lightly in his all encompassing grasp. “We can’t afford such nuanced emotions anymore. Love, hate, that’s all we have left. And I choose love.”
It was her turn to gulp back tears and nod quickly.
“You’ll come home then?” he asked and she nodded again, still not trusting her voice.
“You look tired,” Bill said sincerely, making Laura feel a bit peevish. Then he grabbed his jacket from the chair and pulled it back on.
“I am,” she replied coolly.
He patted her thigh. “You’ll probably want to sleep here tonight then.”
Of course not, she thought. “I suppose.” She plucked at her robe. “Can’t be seen in the corridors of the Galactica like this.”
He smiled shyly. “Are you kidding? You’d have a trail of guys following you to our quarters.”
She crossed her legs and quickly pulled her robe closed. “Please, Bill. Those kids see each other naked in the shower ever day. Me in my ratty old robe wouldn’t do anything for anyone.”
That strip of fur he called a mustache stretched wide, trying to hide a grin.
“Well...” She cleared her throat; her voice had gone squeaky. “I guess I’ll say goodnight.”
A goodnight kiss on the cheek wouldn’t do any harm...
Instead, her lips met his mouth, clashing, then quickly settling into their familiar pattern, a tilt of her head, a turn of his, tongues meeting and plunging deep.
She couldn’t breathe and was sure he couldn’t either. She had his neck in a death grip in case he decided to try and leave after all. Then a better idea came to her. He couldn’t leave naked.
Grabbing two handfuls of his jacket, she yanked it down, only to get stuck on his elbows. His lower lip trapped in her teeth in case he had any idea of escaping, she hissed, “Off.”
He’d been fumbling with her pajama buttons but took a moment to shrug out of the jacket and toss it across the room. The last button came loose and his hands went to her breasts--she groaned loudly before delving back into his mouth.
Skin...skin was a good idea. She snaked one hand up under his turtleneck and went faint at the feel of his bare skin; no tanks tonight. Her other hand was jerking at his jeans’ zipper with little success. She growled in frustration.
He gently pushed her over, following her all the way down, their mouths still sparring. She could finally undo his pants and push them and his briefs down--she didn’t even know he owned a pair of briefs. She pulled back and stared up at him.
“What?” He sounded scared, as if worried she’d changed her mind. As if.
“Just checking,” she said. “New underwear?”
He grinned. “Nothing’s too much for my lady.” Stroking up her neck with his mustache, his tongue left a moist path. The downstroke was prickly, making her nipples two hard pebbles in his palms. She arched like a cat under his petting hands.
Oh, yes, her objective was to have him naked. She tugged off his sweater, getting it stuck on his head. Another jerk, and his blender-whipped hair was revealed, his grin flashing bright before he dived back down to suckle at her breasts and collarbone.
His pants were stuck at mid-thigh. She managed to get her toes hooked onto the waistband and push them the rest of the way down so he could kick them off. Thankfully, he’d worn loafers instead of boots this evening...had he planned this?
A dog was whining impatiently in the background and with horror, she realized it was her. All of her clothes were still on, with only her top unbuttoned. But she wanted him now, couldn’t bear the thought of being separated enough far enough and long enough to lose her garments.
He understood. Lifting her hips with one hand, he pulled her bottoms down and off, but his touch was never gone from her skin. Sliding back up her bare leg, his fingers grazed along the inside of her thigh before stroking through her folds just long enough moisten his touch, then two fingers slid in to stretch her open...
“Bill.” It was a one word command he understood, but she added, “Please,” anyway, because she knew he loved it when she begged, and frankly, she did too.
“Right here,” he assured her, guiding his cock to her opening. Any worry that he might be thinking to do things slow and gentle were gone with the first plunge of his hips.
“Frak, yeah,” they moaned in unison. They briefly collapsed in laughter before nature too over. She...he had to move now. Their hips clashed and crashed, trying to find a familiar rhythm on this narrow and slippery sofa.
Laura braced on foot on the ground and hitched the other leg against his shoulder to give him more room to prop up on his knees. That’s when she realized her damn pajama bottoms were stuck on her foot and tangled around his head. With a few flicks of her foot, she kicked them off. Her moves drove him deeper still and he could only groan in delight.
Grabbing the sofa’s back and arm, he had the support he needed to thrust. The robe under her made their purchase precarious, but she was in for the whole ride, and would have killed him if he tried to stop now.
Not that the passion-fueled maniac staring down at her looked like anything short of a missile strike would stop him. Understanding his emotion, she sank her teeth into his bicep.
He hissed and bucked, hitting a new angle and she had to release her grip to sob in ecstasy.
“Am I getting it?” he gasped.
She could only gargle in impatience and excitement, greedily wanting more, more, more but with absolutely no way to express this. She tried anyway, sputtered embarrassingly incoherent phrases about love and fear and absence and longing, his rasping voice echoing hers.
One of his legs slipped off the sofa for a frightening moment, then he got his footing, the angle changed again, and he was hitting that spot again and again, sending pinwheels spinning across her vision.
“Can’t...need you...” he moaned.
“Yes...yes...yes...” She was answering several questions and posing new ones at the same time. He got it anyway.
Bowing his head, he slowed his pace to just grinding his pelvic bone against her swollen clit and she was totally gone, shot from the airlock into the space, the place where her lungs were crushed from lack of air.
His bellowing cries were like escaping gravity roaring in her ears. She hung on for dear life; they would explode together.
Somehow, with his last ounce of strength, he rolled them so he was on the bottom and she could drape across his still heaving chest. “I’m too old for these sort of acrobatics,” he gasped. “Let’s go home.”
She weakly patted his cheek. “I’d say forget it, but you do have your bare ass on Baltar’s couch. A shower is in order, first thing.”
He groaned for an answer, a shudder passing through his body. “Okay, just give me a moment. Slow refractory now extends to walking.”
Ruffling his mustache, she peered at it blindly. “So you’re going to keep this thing?”
Gently shifting her, he sat upright, glancing around for his clothes. “I guess it’s time to shave it off. Go to the barber and get a haircut too.”
Standing on wavering legs, Laura hid her disappointment. He was right though. It was time to return to duty.
She did walk through the corridors of Galactica in her robe. The crew made a point of not noticing. Bill had one arm looped through hers and carried her bag on the other, like a schoolboy carrying his girl’s books for the first time, his face showing his quiet pride and relief.
~*~
Laura looked out across the starboard hangar at the assembled crowd. “I am very proud to announce my candidacy for President of the Twelve Colonies. It would be an honor and privilege to serve humanity again.”
Her voice grew stronger. “It is time to look forward to our quest for a new home, not back at the events of New Caprica. In that regard, I’m announcing that my first action as temporary president is the full and unconditional pardon of all those labeled as collaborators on New Caprica.”
The assembly mumbled among themselves and she waited for them to quiet. More than a few gave pointed looks to Felix Gaeta, back in uniform and standing beside Dee Adama. He raised his chin in defiance.
Turning to Billy beside her, Laura smiled. “I will also be putting forward William Keikeya as my running mate. A hero of the resistance against the Cylons, he carries the scars from that war.”
Billy forced on a smile under the curious stares of the many Galactica and Pegasus crew that had not been on New Caprica.
“Mr. Keikeya is also an intelligent, seasoned administrator with the idealism of his youth, ready to join me in leading us to Earth.” Laura glanced at Lee for a moment, then away. “I welcome a vigorous campaign and its many challenges.”
She then asked for questions from the press and the tight pack of reporters surged forward.
Billy finally disentangled himself from the crowd and found Elizabeth standing by the large observation window.
“You should be pressing the flesh,” she scolded.
He squeezed her hand. “I am.”
Stroking his tie, she smiled. “You wore my present.”
“I still didn’t see anything wrong with my ties,” he said, frowning at the dull burgundy strip of silk.
“Not presidential.”
“Vice-presidential. And I’m just helping your mother out, that’s all.”
Elizabeth pursed her mouth. “Give yourself some credit, Billy. She believes in you as a leader and I know you can do it.”
He looked her up and down, taking in her flight cadet’s uniform. “I still can’t believe your mother is allowing you to fly again.”
“I don’t know when I’ll actually fly,” she said ruefully. “With two battlestars worth of pilots jockeying for flight time. But I can be of use somewhere, I know. We’re going to need every pilot before this thing is done.”
She turned to watch the CAP fly by the glass. He knew she couldn’t hear the approaching aircraft, so perhaps it was always a sixth sense with her. He observed that certain expression come to her clear eyes, a fierce determination and excitement and felt that same fear that he was sure Laura had finally quashed. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and quickly dropped a kiss upon her curls.
As if she read his mind, she touched the pins at her collar. “I have my father’s wings as protection. Don’t worry.”
“I worry because I love you, like your mother.”
“Like my mother?”
“Okay, not like your mother.”
She slipped her arm around his waist. “Good, ‘cause I love you too.”
Across the hangar, Bill watched in disgust as photographers shot footage of Elizabeth and Billy. “I can see the headlines now. Military and government in bed together.”
“Better not be,” grumbled Laura, they remembered the heated discussion she’d had with her daughter when she’d been told not only to butt out of the girl’s relationship with Billy, but to run interference with Bill. As if--although Bill wasn’t looking at the young man with his usual hawkish expression.
He was probably too busy focusing on Elizabeth’s uniform. She gave a shattering sigh.
Reading her mind, Bill slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, mirroring the young couple. He kissed her temple. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”
“You can’t say that.”
He bowed his head. “No, I guess not. But a safe peaceful life isn’t assured any of us anymore. She has her destiny; we all do.”
They looked out the window to the stars ahead, the pinpricks of light leading their way to Earth.
“Back on course,” he said. “We’re back on course.”
The End (11/11)