FIC: Turn the Page ~ Chapter Nineteen
Title: Turn the Page ~ Chapter 19
Author: bugs
Genre: AU, Romance, Drama
Rating: T
Word Count: 3,200
Chapter Nineteen:
The tolling doorbell finally pulled Bill out of his coma-like sleep. He blinked the crust from his eyelashes and moved his swollen tongue around his cotton-filled mouth. He couldn't read the clock without his glasses, but the room was light enough to tell him it was daytime.
The door. Someone was at the door. Perhaps it was Laura.
He made it to the bedroom door before he remembered why he was so anxious for it to be Laura. Clutching his sore head, he managed to make it down the stairs and to the front door.
But when he pulled it open, he was disappointed. "Carolanne, what are you doing here?" he said disagreeably.
"Good morning to you too," she said, brushing past him.
He trailed her down the hall. "Let me put the coffee on," he rumbled. Something told him he'd need it.
The kitchen still smelled of burned olive oil and spoiled shellfish. The two wine glasses sat on the table. Only the roses were lush and bright in their vase.
He filled the espresso machine and pushed the on button. He remained leaning against the counter, staring out the window at the sun-filled yard.
"You're a mess," Carolanne said with her familiar edgy voice. Standing beside him, she began picking the white rose petals from his sweater.
He stepped away. "Yeah," he grumbled.
"What's the visit about, Carolanne? I know you don't come to Oakland unless you have to."
"Lee will be a brilliant attorney--"
Bill closed his eyes. Of course she knew all about Lee's plans. She'd never been pleased that Lee and Zak had followed in his footsteps; she had bigger aspirations for her sons. And she hadn't let him forget it ever since Zak was killed. If they hadn't already been divorced, she would have left him for sure then.
"Lee should have been enough of a man to tell me he didn't want to be a cop instead of going along and hating it."
"He's saying it now."
Bill fumbled in the cabinet and got down two demi cups for their espresso. One of the few things they'd had in common was a love for strong coffee.
After pouring it, he drank one cup quickly, burning his tongue. At least it cleared the fuzz off.
"You still haven't told me why you're here."
"Lee needs your approval--"
He barked a laugh. "Does he?"
He refilled his cup. "You know, maybe Lee needs to stop looking for his father's approval if he doesn't like the options I recommend."
Carolanne grimaced at him.
He glowered back.
"A nun, Bill? What's that all about?"
He didn't bother to ask how she had heard. He hadn't told Lee, but Ellen Tigh knew, so it might as well have been printed on a billboard on the Nimitz Expressway. She probably dropped in on Carolanne, looking for her husband and a sympathetic ear.
"It's not about anything," he grumbled, draining his second cup.
"I mean, is it some sort of crazy mid-life crisis? You've gotten mixed up," she said patronizingly. "When you go for a fresh face who'll believe all your B.S., you're supposed to find some twenty-one year old blonde co-ed, not a dried-up virgin--"
"Not that it's any of your business," he cut her off. "But it's over, so it doesn't matter."
She opened her mouth to say something more, but finally noticed his despondent face.
Just as quickly as she attacked, Carolanne went on defense. "Why in the world is she rejecting you? You're a successful writer, you have all your hair, and you are a gentleman," she said in an offhand way.
He winced. Of course, no question if Bill had been the one rejecting.
He sighed. "I dunno, Carolanne." He looked at her significantly. "Maybe I've got too much baggage for someone else to tote around."
"I worry about you, Bill," she said, and he found that the most insulting thing she'd said yet.
He hustled her to the door. "You better go, Carolanne. I'm not going to change my mind about Lee and I've got to clean up."
Slamming the door on her protests, he headed upstairs to shower.
Laura stared out her window blankly, her pale hands wrapped around her cold cup of tea. The clouds were long gone, leaving a bright, cheerful day. She wished she could knock the cheery sun out of the sky. It was an offense on her emotions.
She'd replayed every word, every action from the previous evening so many times it was like an incantation to her.
Her prayer had been the baptism sacrament...
A baby lying on a white cloth...
A dead baby's body in a stainless steel medical pan, kindly lined with a drape by the morgue technician, so Father Neal could baptize Sandra's son.
Laura mumbling prayers to keep from screaming--
She rose from the table, pushing back the chair violently. She hated Bill in that instant for making her remember. She worked very hard at forgetting.
As though she evoked him with her thoughts, her phone rang. She looked at the number and it was Bill.
She drifted to the kitchen with her cup and emptied it in the sink. After washing it, she made her way back to the phone and played the voice mail.
"Laura, it's me--" As though he needed to identify that distinctive voice.
"I didn't expect you to pick up--" He sounded utterly defeated and she squashed any prickle of concern.
"Don't blame you, frankly."
She sat on the couch, ready to hear him grovel.
"I know you don't wanna listen to me flap my lips, so I'm not gonna. I'm gonna send you my first draft. Remember, that's how this all started. You'll be able to tell me if I'm on the right track."
For the longest time, Laura listen to the dial tone. That was all he had to say for himself. The blood began to pound through her veins again.
She wasn't going to mope around anymore and headed to her bedroom to dress. After leaving her apartment, she strolled down Piedmont Avenue, and glanced casually in the coffee shop. No Bill. But she went into the Starbucks across the street anyway.
She bought a chai tea and scone, suddenly ravenous. She'd had no supper or breakfast. She was adding that to her list of grievances when her her tablet chirped inside her large, sensible handbag. Bringing up her email, she was curious at the unfamiliar address: officer_husker@gmail.com.
It had an attachment. She remembered Ben Conoy's warning about only opening attachments from known emails, so she scanned it with her security software. It looked as though Bill had Internet access after all, she thought huffily.
When she opened it, the document was a PDF, scanned sheets of paper. There was no message in the email, but the title page read Love and Bullets by William Adama. How appropriate, she decided.
She wasn't going to read it though; she put the tablet aside and nervously broke off a corner of her scone. It would be the same as talking to him.
The white screen glowed patiently at her. Perhaps just the first paragraph...
When I started the job, seeing the first body had been tough. The second, a hard jolt. Then it became a routine. I looked into every face like a mirror, seeking my own visage in the strung-out junkie, the haggard streetwalker or the once smug adulterer. For the day the bullet finally found my heart, I wanted to know what I'd look like.
As that bullet hits, all we are, or that we think we are, all that we are certain about, is taken away from us. When you've worked the streets and seen what I've seen, you become more and more convinced of it every day.
Then I met her, and I finally saw my face in the mirror.
I entered the crime scene, a madman's dungeon under his house, and thought it was just another dead body. But her eyes opened, and gray/green glass reflected my dark shadow.
"Go away," she said clearly, rising from the cot in the homemade cell.
I stared at her retreating back. She was drawn to the open door; the door that had held her for twenty-five years, but now lead to the light. There was so much pride in the set of her spine, I wondered if her cell had been where freedom lay and my city was the prison.
I followed, and have been following ever since. From the moment I open my eyes, she was in my blood, like cheap wine. Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I'll never be free of her, nor do I wanna be, for she is what I am. All that is, should always be.
He had decided to use that line. Her moment of satisfaction was tempered--she was only going to read a paragraph. Resolute, she closed the document and pushed the tablet away again.
Damn him. She could reject Bill, but the latest William Adama book was another thing. She pulled the tablet back over, hating herself as she finished the chapter.
He didn't call on Sunday, but sent another chapter, again with no message in the email. Feeling as though she had no self control at all, Laura read it before attending Mass. She avoided the confessional booth and coffee shop once more.
Monday, she left her apartment early enough to go to Gaylord's for a cup of tea, but the familiar broad back wasn't hunched at one of the tables. She was beginning to worry, but then another email arrived with a chapter by lunchtime.
The next body I saw didn't open its eyes. My boy lay in the street, dropped on the grimy sidewalk like a crumpled cigarette pack--
She had to stop reading. Husker's son Joey had been a part of every book until the most recent one, a bright, fun-loving boy in such opposition to Husker's dour nature. She remembered how odd she found it that Joey wasn't present. Bill must have finished the book right after his own son's death.
My boy had been sacrificed to a god I did not understand. The cracked concrete was the altar, but there was no priest or prayer that can make this right.
She cleared the tears balancing on her eyelashes as Ben joined her at the lunchroom table. He didn't seem to notice her emotional display and unwrapped his tuna sandwich.
After exchanging greetings, she asked a favor of him: "I've been getting these emails, but I didn't think the sender had email access. Would you be able to determine where he's sending them from? Is there some trail?"
Ben smiled at her condescendingly. "Of course," he said, taking the tablet from her.
He tapped at her screen. "Have you been opening these attachments?"
She confessed she had, and he clucked under his breath. "It's a proxy address," he mused, his brow furrowed. "It's routed through an off-shore IP address like some porn dealer would."
He gave Laura a dubious look. "Who is this guy?"
"He's not dangerous," she assured him. "I just thought it was odd that he doesn't have Internet in his home but he's sending emails."
"He could just pop into any email cafe or the library," Ben said, "But why go to the bother of hiding his trail?"
"I know where he lives, after all," she pointed out.
"But if anyone accessed your email account, they still couldn't find him."
"Why would someone hack me?" She laughed. "I'm just a boring schoolteacher."
He continued tapping at her screen. "Let me just check for viruses."
Finally satisfied, he pushed the tablet back at her.
"Am I clean?" she asked.
"Pure as driven snow," he said, smiling.
She frowned. He started to get up from the table.
"Ben, you asked me about my faith once."
"I'm sorry, I should have realized it was very personal--"
"No, it's not that...It's hard for me to really talk about these days,that's all." Laura gave him a tight smile. "But I thought you might want to tell me how you're forming your beliefs."
His face lit up. "As a matter of fact, there's a lecture tonight that might interest you."
Laura wondered if God was going to make her give penance.
"Doctor Baltar is speaking at the Union Hall about the role of God in the technological future."
"Do you know the sort of work the doctor's doing?" Laura asked carefully.
Ben's eyes shifted toward the floor. "Yes," he said, equally guarded.
"And you approve?"
"I'm helping him!" Ben grinned widely. "This is such a new frontier, Laura. How could I not be in on it?"
She supposed putting a soul down into a binary code would appeal to Ben, but she still had misgivings about attending any lecture given by Gaius Baltar. Then she thought about returning to her empty apartment and her tumultuous thoughts.
She agreed to meet him at the Union Hall at seven. Billy joined them at that time, and she was grateful he was interested in attending as well.
Before leaving her apartment that evening, she checked her tablet, but there wasn't a chapter. She craved more and felt irrationally piqued.
Ben and Billy were outside the meeting hall when she arrived. Laura noticed the large men in dark suits were present again, watching the crowd entering the venue.
Ben secured seats up at the front and Laura observed the crowd. The first rows were all wide-eyed young women who were babbling excitedly among themselves.
"I haven't known that many girls to be interested in science," she noted.
Billy raised his eyebrows.
When the doctor came on the stage, the young women cheered wildly. He wore a dark suit with a black turtleneck underneath and Laura wondered if he was picking up his fashion sense from his guards.
She looked in the wings and saw more of the hulking men and his tall laboratory assistant, vivid in red, watching Baltar as he carefully lowered himself into an armchair. He pulled a microphone from its stand and began talking in a low, monotone voice. It was a very different man from the nervous, twitchy person she'd met previously. The setting seemed to bring out a different persona.
"What is God? What is the nature of God? Do we dare ask?"
Laura could see he wasn't really posing a question, but leading to something.
"With technology, we attempt to create perfection; it is obtainable. A perfect essence--" He paused dramatically. "A superior being."
Baltar leaned forward, looking into the upturned faces of the young women. "Even a god?"
A murmur passed around the room. Laura didn't look at the doctor anymore, but at the others to gauge their reaction. Billy's face; polite but skeptical. Ben, his chin rested on his palm, was obviously listening, but seemed a million miles away in thought. A sudden movement at the end of the aisle caught her attention. A slight, older man was leaned against the wall, his black eyes, so dark, and yet like fire in the dim space. Laura felt a chill, and suddenly wished Bill were there.
She remembered a line from his latest chapter: I thought I was saving her, then I thought she could save me, but all I could hope for now was that we'd hold each other's hand, balancing our way forward.
In her own thoughts, she missed much of Baltar's remaining speech. She looked again for the man that she realized had been his attacker at the party, but he was gone. When the doctor finished to thunderous applause, Laura didn't bother to clap.
Ben wished to stay for the reception, but Laura claimed a headache. Billy offered to escort her back to her neighborhood on the BART train and she gladly accepted.
They hadn't really chatted during the day, but the ride gave the young man a chance to question Laura.
He crossed his long legs and tried to look casual. "Did you have a nice weekend?"
She considered lying. "Not really," she admitted.
She tried staring out the window but only saw her own reflection. It reminded her of Bill's words.
Billy flushed. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Me too." She had a horrible urge to cry and wasn't sure why.
"I'm...Things will get better," he offered.
"I don't know about that," she said gloomily.
Biting his lip, Billy held back his words. Finally he offered some uncomfortable advice. "These things happen--"
"What things?" Laura asked quickly.
"Whatever happened." He shrugged helplessly. "A fight?" he guessed. "Fights happen."
She took a deep breath. "I just think...It's not what we were disagreeing about. It's fighting--the act....I don't want to do it."
Billy looked at her from under his long eyelashes. "I thought you were trying to break free from your vow of obedience."
"I don't like to feel that upset," she grumbled.
"Does it feel any better to have not fought?" he pointed out practically.
Before she could defend herself, the train stopped and Billy walked with her up to Piedmont. She didn't pick up the conversation again and the young man seemed content to remain silent until they came to his bus stop.
"Catch your bus, Billy," she told him. "I'll be fine going the couple blocks home."
But as she turned up the street, it began to rain. Finally, after all the cloudy days, the skies opened. Perfect, she decided, slogging home, being drenched to the skin. She had wanted the weather to match her mood, and now it did. She was irritated with Bill, with herself, with the two of them together, but thankfully the rain gave her something new to curse.
Inside her apartment, she stripped off her wet clothes and pulled on her robe. Shaking from the chill, she was going to the bathroom for a hot shower when the doorbell rang.
She remembered that she'd mentioned loaning a book to Mrs Gamble; it was probably the older woman.
But when she opened the door, it was Bill, rain dripping off his hair. Water beaded on his leather jacket. His hands were shoved in his pockets. His face looked even more hound dog sad than normal.
"Laura, I--"
She didn't give him a chance say anything more. Whatever he would say, it would be a waste of precious time. She grabbed a handful of his jacket and yanked him into the apartment.
End~ Chapter 19
Author: bugs
Genre: AU, Romance, Drama
Rating: T
Word Count: 3,200
Chapter Nineteen:
The tolling doorbell finally pulled Bill out of his coma-like sleep. He blinked the crust from his eyelashes and moved his swollen tongue around his cotton-filled mouth. He couldn't read the clock without his glasses, but the room was light enough to tell him it was daytime.
The door. Someone was at the door. Perhaps it was Laura.
He made it to the bedroom door before he remembered why he was so anxious for it to be Laura. Clutching his sore head, he managed to make it down the stairs and to the front door.
But when he pulled it open, he was disappointed. "Carolanne, what are you doing here?" he said disagreeably.
"Good morning to you too," she said, brushing past him.
He trailed her down the hall. "Let me put the coffee on," he rumbled. Something told him he'd need it.
The kitchen still smelled of burned olive oil and spoiled shellfish. The two wine glasses sat on the table. Only the roses were lush and bright in their vase.
He filled the espresso machine and pushed the on button. He remained leaning against the counter, staring out the window at the sun-filled yard.
"You're a mess," Carolanne said with her familiar edgy voice. Standing beside him, she began picking the white rose petals from his sweater.
He stepped away. "Yeah," he grumbled.
"What's the visit about, Carolanne? I know you don't come to Oakland unless you have to."
"Lee will be a brilliant attorney--"
Bill closed his eyes. Of course she knew all about Lee's plans. She'd never been pleased that Lee and Zak had followed in his footsteps; she had bigger aspirations for her sons. And she hadn't let him forget it ever since Zak was killed. If they hadn't already been divorced, she would have left him for sure then.
"Lee should have been enough of a man to tell me he didn't want to be a cop instead of going along and hating it."
"He's saying it now."
Bill fumbled in the cabinet and got down two demi cups for their espresso. One of the few things they'd had in common was a love for strong coffee.
After pouring it, he drank one cup quickly, burning his tongue. At least it cleared the fuzz off.
"You still haven't told me why you're here."
"Lee needs your approval--"
He barked a laugh. "Does he?"
He refilled his cup. "You know, maybe Lee needs to stop looking for his father's approval if he doesn't like the options I recommend."
Carolanne grimaced at him.
He glowered back.
"A nun, Bill? What's that all about?"
He didn't bother to ask how she had heard. He hadn't told Lee, but Ellen Tigh knew, so it might as well have been printed on a billboard on the Nimitz Expressway. She probably dropped in on Carolanne, looking for her husband and a sympathetic ear.
"It's not about anything," he grumbled, draining his second cup.
"I mean, is it some sort of crazy mid-life crisis? You've gotten mixed up," she said patronizingly. "When you go for a fresh face who'll believe all your B.S., you're supposed to find some twenty-one year old blonde co-ed, not a dried-up virgin--"
"Not that it's any of your business," he cut her off. "But it's over, so it doesn't matter."
She opened her mouth to say something more, but finally noticed his despondent face.
Just as quickly as she attacked, Carolanne went on defense. "Why in the world is she rejecting you? You're a successful writer, you have all your hair, and you are a gentleman," she said in an offhand way.
He winced. Of course, no question if Bill had been the one rejecting.
He sighed. "I dunno, Carolanne." He looked at her significantly. "Maybe I've got too much baggage for someone else to tote around."
"I worry about you, Bill," she said, and he found that the most insulting thing she'd said yet.
He hustled her to the door. "You better go, Carolanne. I'm not going to change my mind about Lee and I've got to clean up."
Slamming the door on her protests, he headed upstairs to shower.
Laura stared out her window blankly, her pale hands wrapped around her cold cup of tea. The clouds were long gone, leaving a bright, cheerful day. She wished she could knock the cheery sun out of the sky. It was an offense on her emotions.
She'd replayed every word, every action from the previous evening so many times it was like an incantation to her.
Her prayer had been the baptism sacrament...
A baby lying on a white cloth...
A dead baby's body in a stainless steel medical pan, kindly lined with a drape by the morgue technician, so Father Neal could baptize Sandra's son.
Laura mumbling prayers to keep from screaming--
She rose from the table, pushing back the chair violently. She hated Bill in that instant for making her remember. She worked very hard at forgetting.
As though she evoked him with her thoughts, her phone rang. She looked at the number and it was Bill.
She drifted to the kitchen with her cup and emptied it in the sink. After washing it, she made her way back to the phone and played the voice mail.
"Laura, it's me--" As though he needed to identify that distinctive voice.
"I didn't expect you to pick up--" He sounded utterly defeated and she squashed any prickle of concern.
"Don't blame you, frankly."
She sat on the couch, ready to hear him grovel.
"I know you don't wanna listen to me flap my lips, so I'm not gonna. I'm gonna send you my first draft. Remember, that's how this all started. You'll be able to tell me if I'm on the right track."
For the longest time, Laura listen to the dial tone. That was all he had to say for himself. The blood began to pound through her veins again.
She wasn't going to mope around anymore and headed to her bedroom to dress. After leaving her apartment, she strolled down Piedmont Avenue, and glanced casually in the coffee shop. No Bill. But she went into the Starbucks across the street anyway.
She bought a chai tea and scone, suddenly ravenous. She'd had no supper or breakfast. She was adding that to her list of grievances when her her tablet chirped inside her large, sensible handbag. Bringing up her email, she was curious at the unfamiliar address: officer_husker@gmail.com.
It had an attachment. She remembered Ben Conoy's warning about only opening attachments from known emails, so she scanned it with her security software. It looked as though Bill had Internet access after all, she thought huffily.
When she opened it, the document was a PDF, scanned sheets of paper. There was no message in the email, but the title page read Love and Bullets by William Adama. How appropriate, she decided.
She wasn't going to read it though; she put the tablet aside and nervously broke off a corner of her scone. It would be the same as talking to him.
The white screen glowed patiently at her. Perhaps just the first paragraph...
When I started the job, seeing the first body had been tough. The second, a hard jolt. Then it became a routine. I looked into every face like a mirror, seeking my own visage in the strung-out junkie, the haggard streetwalker or the once smug adulterer. For the day the bullet finally found my heart, I wanted to know what I'd look like.
As that bullet hits, all we are, or that we think we are, all that we are certain about, is taken away from us. When you've worked the streets and seen what I've seen, you become more and more convinced of it every day.
Then I met her, and I finally saw my face in the mirror.
I entered the crime scene, a madman's dungeon under his house, and thought it was just another dead body. But her eyes opened, and gray/green glass reflected my dark shadow.
"Go away," she said clearly, rising from the cot in the homemade cell.
I stared at her retreating back. She was drawn to the open door; the door that had held her for twenty-five years, but now lead to the light. There was so much pride in the set of her spine, I wondered if her cell had been where freedom lay and my city was the prison.
I followed, and have been following ever since. From the moment I open my eyes, she was in my blood, like cheap wine. Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I'll never be free of her, nor do I wanna be, for she is what I am. All that is, should always be.
He had decided to use that line. Her moment of satisfaction was tempered--she was only going to read a paragraph. Resolute, she closed the document and pushed the tablet away again.
Damn him. She could reject Bill, but the latest William Adama book was another thing. She pulled the tablet back over, hating herself as she finished the chapter.
He didn't call on Sunday, but sent another chapter, again with no message in the email. Feeling as though she had no self control at all, Laura read it before attending Mass. She avoided the confessional booth and coffee shop once more.
Monday, she left her apartment early enough to go to Gaylord's for a cup of tea, but the familiar broad back wasn't hunched at one of the tables. She was beginning to worry, but then another email arrived with a chapter by lunchtime.
The next body I saw didn't open its eyes. My boy lay in the street, dropped on the grimy sidewalk like a crumpled cigarette pack--
She had to stop reading. Husker's son Joey had been a part of every book until the most recent one, a bright, fun-loving boy in such opposition to Husker's dour nature. She remembered how odd she found it that Joey wasn't present. Bill must have finished the book right after his own son's death.
My boy had been sacrificed to a god I did not understand. The cracked concrete was the altar, but there was no priest or prayer that can make this right.
She cleared the tears balancing on her eyelashes as Ben joined her at the lunchroom table. He didn't seem to notice her emotional display and unwrapped his tuna sandwich.
After exchanging greetings, she asked a favor of him: "I've been getting these emails, but I didn't think the sender had email access. Would you be able to determine where he's sending them from? Is there some trail?"
Ben smiled at her condescendingly. "Of course," he said, taking the tablet from her.
He tapped at her screen. "Have you been opening these attachments?"
She confessed she had, and he clucked under his breath. "It's a proxy address," he mused, his brow furrowed. "It's routed through an off-shore IP address like some porn dealer would."
He gave Laura a dubious look. "Who is this guy?"
"He's not dangerous," she assured him. "I just thought it was odd that he doesn't have Internet in his home but he's sending emails."
"He could just pop into any email cafe or the library," Ben said, "But why go to the bother of hiding his trail?"
"I know where he lives, after all," she pointed out.
"But if anyone accessed your email account, they still couldn't find him."
"Why would someone hack me?" She laughed. "I'm just a boring schoolteacher."
He continued tapping at her screen. "Let me just check for viruses."
Finally satisfied, he pushed the tablet back at her.
"Am I clean?" she asked.
"Pure as driven snow," he said, smiling.
She frowned. He started to get up from the table.
"Ben, you asked me about my faith once."
"I'm sorry, I should have realized it was very personal--"
"No, it's not that...It's hard for me to really talk about these days,that's all." Laura gave him a tight smile. "But I thought you might want to tell me how you're forming your beliefs."
His face lit up. "As a matter of fact, there's a lecture tonight that might interest you."
Laura wondered if God was going to make her give penance.
"Doctor Baltar is speaking at the Union Hall about the role of God in the technological future."
"Do you know the sort of work the doctor's doing?" Laura asked carefully.
Ben's eyes shifted toward the floor. "Yes," he said, equally guarded.
"And you approve?"
"I'm helping him!" Ben grinned widely. "This is such a new frontier, Laura. How could I not be in on it?"
She supposed putting a soul down into a binary code would appeal to Ben, but she still had misgivings about attending any lecture given by Gaius Baltar. Then she thought about returning to her empty apartment and her tumultuous thoughts.
She agreed to meet him at the Union Hall at seven. Billy joined them at that time, and she was grateful he was interested in attending as well.
Before leaving her apartment that evening, she checked her tablet, but there wasn't a chapter. She craved more and felt irrationally piqued.
Ben and Billy were outside the meeting hall when she arrived. Laura noticed the large men in dark suits were present again, watching the crowd entering the venue.
Ben secured seats up at the front and Laura observed the crowd. The first rows were all wide-eyed young women who were babbling excitedly among themselves.
"I haven't known that many girls to be interested in science," she noted.
Billy raised his eyebrows.
When the doctor came on the stage, the young women cheered wildly. He wore a dark suit with a black turtleneck underneath and Laura wondered if he was picking up his fashion sense from his guards.
She looked in the wings and saw more of the hulking men and his tall laboratory assistant, vivid in red, watching Baltar as he carefully lowered himself into an armchair. He pulled a microphone from its stand and began talking in a low, monotone voice. It was a very different man from the nervous, twitchy person she'd met previously. The setting seemed to bring out a different persona.
"What is God? What is the nature of God? Do we dare ask?"
Laura could see he wasn't really posing a question, but leading to something.
"With technology, we attempt to create perfection; it is obtainable. A perfect essence--" He paused dramatically. "A superior being."
Baltar leaned forward, looking into the upturned faces of the young women. "Even a god?"
A murmur passed around the room. Laura didn't look at the doctor anymore, but at the others to gauge their reaction. Billy's face; polite but skeptical. Ben, his chin rested on his palm, was obviously listening, but seemed a million miles away in thought. A sudden movement at the end of the aisle caught her attention. A slight, older man was leaned against the wall, his black eyes, so dark, and yet like fire in the dim space. Laura felt a chill, and suddenly wished Bill were there.
She remembered a line from his latest chapter: I thought I was saving her, then I thought she could save me, but all I could hope for now was that we'd hold each other's hand, balancing our way forward.
In her own thoughts, she missed much of Baltar's remaining speech. She looked again for the man that she realized had been his attacker at the party, but he was gone. When the doctor finished to thunderous applause, Laura didn't bother to clap.
Ben wished to stay for the reception, but Laura claimed a headache. Billy offered to escort her back to her neighborhood on the BART train and she gladly accepted.
They hadn't really chatted during the day, but the ride gave the young man a chance to question Laura.
He crossed his long legs and tried to look casual. "Did you have a nice weekend?"
She considered lying. "Not really," she admitted.
She tried staring out the window but only saw her own reflection. It reminded her of Bill's words.
Billy flushed. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Me too." She had a horrible urge to cry and wasn't sure why.
"I'm...Things will get better," he offered.
"I don't know about that," she said gloomily.
Biting his lip, Billy held back his words. Finally he offered some uncomfortable advice. "These things happen--"
"What things?" Laura asked quickly.
"Whatever happened." He shrugged helplessly. "A fight?" he guessed. "Fights happen."
She took a deep breath. "I just think...It's not what we were disagreeing about. It's fighting--the act....I don't want to do it."
Billy looked at her from under his long eyelashes. "I thought you were trying to break free from your vow of obedience."
"I don't like to feel that upset," she grumbled.
"Does it feel any better to have not fought?" he pointed out practically.
Before she could defend herself, the train stopped and Billy walked with her up to Piedmont. She didn't pick up the conversation again and the young man seemed content to remain silent until they came to his bus stop.
"Catch your bus, Billy," she told him. "I'll be fine going the couple blocks home."
But as she turned up the street, it began to rain. Finally, after all the cloudy days, the skies opened. Perfect, she decided, slogging home, being drenched to the skin. She had wanted the weather to match her mood, and now it did. She was irritated with Bill, with herself, with the two of them together, but thankfully the rain gave her something new to curse.
Inside her apartment, she stripped off her wet clothes and pulled on her robe. Shaking from the chill, she was going to the bathroom for a hot shower when the doorbell rang.
She remembered that she'd mentioned loaning a book to Mrs Gamble; it was probably the older woman.
But when she opened the door, it was Bill, rain dripping off his hair. Water beaded on his leather jacket. His hands were shoved in his pockets. His face looked even more hound dog sad than normal.
"Laura, I--"
She didn't give him a chance say anything more. Whatever he would say, it would be a waste of precious time. She grabbed a handful of his jacket and yanked him into the apartment.
End~ Chapter 19