FIC: A Degree of Reconciliation (4/4)
<<
Rating: MA (This chapter T)
Word Count: 1,800
Summary: There’s only a few days left until Roslin assumes the presidency again.
Episode Setting: Collaborators
Series: Love in a Time of War: 3
Chapter 4:
Laura was hearing the words from Zarek, about his executive death warrants against collaborators during the Cylon occupation, but she couldn’t even comprehend what he was saying. She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, and listened instead to the strong breathing of Adama across the room, his back to Zarek.
“Your presidency is a farce,” Adama rasped, barely glancing over his shoulder. “It stops right now.”
Laura insisted, “If they’re guilty, they’ll be tried by a jury of their peers--“
“They have a jury--“ Zarek started, and then pulled the black curtain back and revealed the dungeons that he dwelled in; disgusting thoughts about quick, easy justice, ending in an airlock. “They just disappear now, in a great twilight before the long night of the occupation and the dawn of a new era. You come into office clean without the blood on your hands.”
She cut it off. “Very poetic, but you have a problem, Mr. President. Everyone, by law, is entitled to a trial with representation.”
Zarek moved in on her, showing how his mind worked, the efficiency and tendency to take moral shortcuts that was the foundation of this terrorist’s beliefs. Adama stayed back, letting her fight this battle, and she wondered when that push-back would come.
“Is that how you want to spend your next term, Laura? As executioner and chief?” He was making her think all right, as she sought the eyes of Adama and Tory. But her conclusions were very different than his.
She turned her back to him and said, “Admiral, Tory, could you please give us a moment?”
Tory left willingly, Adama less so, his gaze staying on her until he came to the hatch, and then it shifted to Zarek, and she thought of the term, if looks could kill--
Tom laughed as soon as the hatch shut. “You have him well trained; he didn’t want to leave. Your Admiral doesn’t like me very much.”
She didn’t smile back. “No he does not.” She leaned against the table. “And I’m not liking you very much right now either.”
“It had to be done,” he said, and she saw the cold-blooded killer in an instant, before the easy grin of the politician took its place. Fascinating...
“Yes, but you didn’t get your hands dirty this time,” she said. “Who did, Tom?”
“What do you mean?” he stalled.
“The six men and women. Who were they?”
Tom crossed his arms and took a step closer. She steeled herself. “The head jurist is the same person who planned the suicide bombings on New Caprica. Wonder what Adama would think about that?”
She could have guessed that one. She only had to blink to see Ellen’s slack body lying on the cot, hear her own voice, frightened, asking, ‘What happened?’ All she’d gotten back from Tigh was his insolent stare from his remaining eye, even if his cheek was still tear-stained.
“Who else?” she asked.
“Strong, dedicated patriots. Fearless fighters,” said Tom.
Gods, this man was full of shit. Did he believe this stuff himself? But she knew that meant Kara. She would stop there. Those two were bad enough.
Since he was so close, she kept her voice low but fierce. “I took a risk with the Admiral by choosing you as vice-president.”
“You know, you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” Tom said, his grin staying fast.
She snapped her glasses off so that he got the full effect of her withering glare. “Go suck Zeus’s balls, Tom.”
He shrugged and sneered, “My week to get that offer.”
She carefully replaced her glasses. “So that’s it, eh? Bill Adama cuts off your balls, so you’re going to try and do the same with him.”
Zarek’s didn’t look so amused anymore.
She narrowed her eyes. “Understand this. We’re not posing on the schoolyard. You decide to make a play; it’s going to have repercussions. Admiral Adama won’t hesitate to remove you and I won’t stand in his way.”
Tom crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. For all her tough talk, she didn’t want Adama to know about The Circle’s identity. What else hadn’t she told him about their adventures on New Caprica? She’d withheld information from him once before, about her cancer, and it had nearly torn the fleet apart. This time, Tom decided that she was concealing the facts out of love--good. They were weakened by this emotion, and Zarek only had to wait for the opportune moment. For now, she was on guard, Adama right there at her shoulder. But it was early days yet.
He smiled at her. “Of course, Madam President. I understand.”
She nodded. “Good. I’ll see you at the swearing in.”
“No kiss goodbye?” he said, gathering his papers, but she was already to the hatch. As it swung open, he saw that Adama had been lurking right outside. He smirked and nodded at the Admiral as he watched Laura shake her head to Adama’s urgent mute questions.
This time, Laura took her vow with a clear voice and a steady hand on the Scrolls. And she enjoyed watching the faces of Adama and Zarek as she announced her amnesty plans. Zarek’s becoming more and more frozen, while Adama’s had warmed, leading him to rise and lead applause.
She’d still made sure Bill left when she dismissed everyone else, even as she snapped the curtain closed across his imploring face.
She needed a moment. Sinking into the chair--her chair--she laid her palms flat on her desk--Baltar’s monstrosity had been removed. She closed her eyes, pushing away the buzz from behind the curtain. Let them all wait a damn minute.
The only problem was, with her eyes closed, it was easy to see the hurt in Bill’s gaze.
“Damn,” she whispered. She’d skillfully avoided the subject so obviously on his mind the past two days. “Coward,” she added.
She’d gone to his quarters on the second day of their three days, this time with no pretenses. As her reward, he’d made achingly slow love to her. They’d kissed for at least half an hour before even moving off the couch, keeping clothes on, groping like teenagers. She’d learned he was a kisser during her visits to the Galactica, even though, at their age, kissing should just be a placeholder, a couple of minutes before moving things along. Still, he’d never initiated such an extensive session before; they’d always kept one eye on the clock, knowing he was due on CIC, she on the planet surface.
But this night, he’d taken his time. She’d breathed in his tongue, her fingers having trouble finding purchase in his shorter hair, sort of missing the burn of that ridiculous mustache. He’d tugged her onto his lap, and she’d giggled at the thought of watching movies on the couch at her Caprica City townhouse with him, and how they would have done just this. He would have been a hand-holding boyfriend, she decided, as incongruous as that was to imagine--either the hand-holding or William Adama as a boyfriend.
No hand-holding for them now, though. The Admiral and President could not be caught dead strolling through the corridor holding hands, let alone with their arms around each other’s waist--damn, his uniform had no pockets. She’d always loved sliding her hand in her guy’s pocket...
Laura carefully wiped the traitorous tear from her cheek and replaced her glasses. She hadn’t gone to him last night. It was for the best.
Unannounced, Tory swished through the curtain, pen and pad in hand, her prim features suggesting approval at her president’s dismissal of Adama. Laura nodded at her, forcing a smile. “Ready to go to work,” she said to the young woman.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Tory said.
Laura’s smile faded. “First things first, though.”
Tory cocked her head, questioning.
“Do you have my journal?” asked Laura.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I’ve locked it in the cabinet--“
“Bring it out.” Laura opened her desk drawer and found a lighter.
“Ma’am, what are you going to do?” Tory said, placing the rag-wrapped bundle on the desk.
“Put it in the trash can,” Laura said. “We’ll take it down to the hanger bay and tell the deck crew to turn off the smoke alarms.”
“Why?” Tory asked, her hand still on the precious journal.
“You heard me, Tory, in there,” Laura said, nodding through the doorway to the press conference room. “I’m putting the events on New Caprica behind us.”
As they watched the flames leap up in the canister, Laura told her assistant, “Reconciliation begins with forgiveness. There’s enough information in those pages to negate forgiveness.”
When she’d asked about Tigh’s removal from the CIC, Adama had immediately changed the subject; obvious smarting from Tigh’s own silence and emotional isolation. What would his reaction be to Tigh’s actions during the past four months? Adama needed Tigh, and she must help bring about at least one reconciliation.
Tory was still protesting. “But we worked so hard to record everything, to protect that journal.”
Laura decided to shut her assistant down. “We also worked hard to protect Isis,” she said, and sure enough, the younger woman’s chin quavered. But she’d hurt herself as well.
She’d come to love the baby, this form of machine and man that had saved her life and had given her this precious year, for all its horrors. The child’s dark eyes were wise, even as Laura told herself that there was no way her thoughts went beyond food, a clean diaper and sleep. Their connection had been a complicated knot of hemp rope and conduit, but now that was snapped through.
Even as the flames died down, and Laura stared in at the curling black ashes, she resisted the urge to beat them to dust with a hammer. On the pages had been Tigh’s heartbreaking orders, sweet Tyrol’s part in bomb making, Kara’s ominous missing months, and her own unguarded mentions of Isis. She’d recorded it all with an expectation of not being there when he read the words.
Or if she’d had any strength left, she would have told him, read this journal as you would hope another would read your logs; remember context. But she was weak as a newborn calf, still trying to find her balance. For now, the secrets of New Caprica were her new cell, and she must bar Adama from finding out the painful truths.
The end
End Notes: One of the great things about fanfiction is that you can ‘fix’ stuff that drives you crazy in an episode. For me, the thing I had to fix was Roslin’s journal. She’s seen scribbling madly in the thing, while her voice-over drones, and she pulls it from her coat so triumphantly as Colonial One takes off from New Caprica...and then we never see or hear about the thing again! WTH?