Fic: Children of Gods: Interlude, Part Two
Title: Children of Gods, Interlude
Author: miabicicletta and olga_theodora
Summary: He reached for one of Elias Dorning’s earlier works on a shelf and replied, “Don’t tell. It’ll ruin my fearsome reputation if word gets out that I read trashy detective novels in my spare time.”
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Laura, Zak, Lee, Billy
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Wordcount: ~5000
Disclaimer: All characters are property of their creators.
Author's Notes: We’re sorry! If it is any consolation, the reason we’ve been so slow to update is because we’ve been so busy writing OTHER things! Modern day AUs! If Not, Winter-verse! Ship Swap stories! It is not for lack of inspiration that we have been remiss in posting!
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CHILDREN OF GODS: INTERLUDE (aka the Epic Romance of Bill and Laura)
Interlude: Part One
Interlude: Part Two
Their sleepovers had a tendency to contain very little sleep- a novel idea to Billy, who had never attended a sleepover in his life before meeting Zak Adama and had very literal ideas about what might go on during such an event. He had expected to be in bed by eleven. Midnight at the very latest.
Instead, his mother had smiled wryly and abandoned them for her own bed around ten, her only parting remark an amused ‘keep it down, boys.’
When three o’clock rolled around that first morning, Billy found himself struggling to stay awake as Zak enthusiastically described the cannon they could attach to the deck of their excellent tree-house come summer. He had very interesting ideas about how to build such a cannon. Flawed, but interesting, as though from a science-fiction perspective.
In his exhausted haze, Billy had the vague idea that a cannon might one day be useful. He resolved to research the topic at his next available opportunity. Preferably when his mother was not in the vicinity. He feared the rocket had tried her patience.
As the winter wore on, Billy found his tolerance for sleeplessness growing, and he gained a new appreciation for the peculiar mental state that inevitably appeared sometime after two in the morning. It made him feel lighter, if that was possible: the sense of what was possible expanded exponentially, leaving him dazzled by potential. He suspected this was comparable to certain types of drugs.
It was on one of those nights- a crazy, loopy, four-in-the-morning-blueprints-for-catapults night- when Billy came to a realization.
“I wish we could do this every night!” Zak had exclaimed enthusiastically, practically exploding with glee over Billy’s suggestion that they emblazon the Panther logo on the base of the catapult. Nearby Lee grunted something in his sleep, rolling over to sprawl across crumpled, rejected drafts.
And Billy blurted out- completely disregarding the existence of ‘school nights’- “Why not?”
Zak’s expression of sudden comprehension was everything Billy might have hoped for.
To date, it was the only sleepover idea that Billy still found plausible-desirable, even- in the sober light of day.
---
“We won! We won!” Billy’s mop of chestnut curls and Zak’s jet black crown emerged from the huddle as they came pelting across the field, both radiant with triumph in the early morning sunlight.
“Hey!” She said, scooping her son up. “Excellent job today,” she said, settling him on her hip. Billy squirmed, obviously feeling he was far too old to be picked up anymore. “You are definitely in the running to be my absolute most favorite child.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “I am your only child, Mother,” he returned pointedly.
“True,” she admitted with a half-giggle. Laura set him down and as she did was unable to deny the pang in her chest. How fast he was growing. She masked her momentary existential crisis by ruffling his hair affectionately. “It’s not much of a distinction then, is it?”
“I didn’t score any goals today,” Billy said, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his cleat, “but Zak did.”
“I saw that,” Laura nodded, holding her hand up. “Great work, Zak.”
Zak grinned, slapping her palm, and Laura hugged him to her as well. He had the same toothy smile as his father, she noticed. “Thanks, Miss Roslin.”
Laura leaned down, whispering conspiratorially. “Hey Zak? You can call me Laura when we’re not at school.” She glanced right and left, feigning suspicion. “But keep it to yourself, alright?”
Zak looked at Billy, uncertain, but her son just shrugged and jostled his shoulder. “Okay, Mi...Laura.”
A pair of figures emerged from the crowd, the taller one waving over his shoulder. As he turned, Laura pursed her lips, straightening up as she steeled herself to meet the cool-eyed Commander on equal footing.
“Dad! Did you see my goal? I totally faked the keeper!”
Bill Adama nodded, ruffling his youngest son’s hair, impressed. “I saw. That was a great move. Keep it up and you might be good enough to make the Bucs some day.”
Billy and Zak both protested loudly. “No way!” Zak shrieked, gravely offended. “I’d never play for the Bucs. The Panthers could kick their a--”
“Zakary...” Bill said, giving him a warning look.
“Well they could,” Zak said, indignant.
The boys tore off into a long-winded, madcap dialogue about something Laura couldn’t even begin to understand. She cocked her head to the side and shrugged in ignorance at Bill, who shook his head in affable confusion as well. An awkward moment passed. Although she had dropped the frosty demeanor, Laura had not yet finished forming her opinions of the man, and as yet was not ready to behave as though they were longtime friends. She settled on a small nod of acknowledgement, which the Commander dutifully returned.
“Good to see you, Laura.”
Laura forced herself to reply amicably. “And you, Commander”
Niceties observed, she attempted to make a tactful exit in ushering Billy away by the shoulders when a rare pause in the boys’ incessant chatter made itself known. “Mom,” Billy said. He craned his neck back against her belly, looking up at her, and politely inquired, “Can Zak and Lee come over?”
Oh, Zeus strike down her doe-eyed son. Something in his too-innocent face suggested the evidence of his uncommon cleverness at work. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep her scowl in check, Laura answered with false cheer:
“Why not?”
Great.
---
After roughly the seventy-fourth argument in exactly one week of construction, Zak figured just building the darn thing was going to result up in at least one murder between the three of them. At this rate the most probable victim was Billy, a call Zak based on his best friend’s diminutive size, which stood in direct contrast to Billy’s determination to win an argument, especially one with Lee.
Then again, as the project wore on, by the daggers Billy shot at his brother, he was beginning to prepare for it to go the other way.
The three of them had bickered about their plans throughout most of the winter, and once the ground had thawed enough to tramp safely into the woods and the trees had shed off the last of the winter’s ice and cracked bark, they were off exploring. Billy had tried to describe the best “kind” of tree for their purposes - something about strong trunks and enough limbs to create even support slats - but every time, Zak had waved him off. They would know their tree when they saw it. He was certain of it.
It didn’t take them long, really. Though the three of them hadn’t demanded many attributes of their dream tree (the list of necessary arboreal elements went something like #1 Tree for treehouse must be able to support treehouse. #2 Also people), Billy’s mother had been immovable on her demand that it be somewhere within sight of the house, or at least very close to it. So, with only a limited perimeter to survey, they had rather quickly found the object of their desire: a wide-trunked maple tree with thick branches forking out about ten feet above the ground. Billy had practically hugged the thing, and even Lee had to agree: it was perfect. The force of their excitement had not dissolved by the time their father arrived, and it was with this unified front that they implored him to begin helping them as soon as possible.
“You’re the one who agreed to it,” Laura had said with a shrug, and turned back to her grading. “Just take care not to trample my hydrangea!”
Zak had figured the hard part was over. He was wrong.
A feeling he was rather getting used to, by now.
While Billy and Lee got on well most of the time, neither had ever met an argument they didn’t like, a reality which made for more squabbling between them than on any other project to date. It was predictable, really: Lee was used to getting his way as the oldest of the two of them, and Billy was an only child. Given that the only other person his friend had had the opportunity to fight with up until now had been Laura, Zak was rather impressed that Billy had the stamina to stay in an argument at all. Of course, the motivation might have come from wanting to win one before he died.
“I think it needs to go there,” Billy said from his perch.
“I think it nees to go here,” Lee replied, scooching further out along the tree’s branch to move the object in question.
Beside Zak on the ground, his father rolled his eyes.
“How goes the construction?” Arms folded across her chest, Laura picked her way carefully across forest floor, avoiding the odd mud puddle here and there. She un-shouldered a pale canvas bag and placed it on a nearby log in a patch of shade. Zak sighed loudly and scowled at Billy and Lee who were so engrossed with one another that they hadn’t noticed Laura’s arrival.
Zak was irritated with both of them and this stupid project. When he glanced back over at Laura, she patted his shoulder and hugged him against her side. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you,” she said sidelong to his father.
“You do this every day?”
“And with thirty of them. Often without the benefit of coffee, low as the rations of it have been lately...”
His dad whistled, setting down the saw in his hand. “Well, let’s just say that after this morning and yesterday, I think you’d make a better soldier than I.”
Zak took a long drink of water and laid back. His father and Laura continued to chat while Lee and Billy argued about where to place the beams.
“Have they been that bad?”
“No, but you know how kids can be, especially excitable ones.”
“No, tell me. I have no idea...” Laura chuckled.
“I think it’s more of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.”
“Ah, so you may have to be making some executive decisions, Commander.”
“My crew tend to take orders better than this lot. I’m counting the days till the mutiny.”
Laura laughed at that and moved to offer Zak a cup full of the lemonade she’d brought along, contained in a silver thermos that had surely seen better days. Zak tentatively accepted; he had only had the tangy drink once or twice before. Lemons came from Scorpia or Canceron - one of the big, hot worlds positioned closer to their suns in their respective systems. It was tart and sweet at once and improved his sour mood more than he wanted to admit.
Laura then offered his father one. “Payment for hazard duty,” she said dryly. His father grinned and accepted, drinking deeply.
“Nah, they haven’t been so bad,” his dad said, setting aside the cup. He reached down to grab Zak under the arms and tossed him onto his shoulders. “It could have been a lot worse, really,” he said a he moved under a low-hanging branch so Zak could pull himself up and scramble toward where the first beam had been placed. Billy and Lee eyed the adults conversation with casual interest, their squabble momentarily forgotten.
“Oh?” Laura said. “How is that?”
Together the parents looked up at the skeleton treehouse beginning to take shape.
“Well,” Bill Adama said, a wink in his eyes, “just think the wars we’d be going through if they had been girls.”
Zak rather thought the barrage of acorns he, Billy and his brother rained down from their perch was fully deserved.
---
In the end, it was only one rope, a bow saw, and two fingernails that were broken in the course of making the treehouse; the boys’ friendships were fully intact by the time Bill announced they had finished the arduous task and might she be interested in coming for a visit?
She accepted with aplomb, appearing eager to leave the stack of grading behind for an hour or so, and produced a small basket that she quickly filled with the makings for a forest picnic. As they embarked on the short stroll to the treehouse- Billy and Lee running ahead, shouting about engine fuel, of all things- Zak hung back, curious about the delicate acquaintance that seemed to have sprung up between his father and Billy’s mother.
“I’m glad to see that everyone survived the construction intact,” Zak heard her say quietly to his father, a note of amusement in her voice.
“It was touch and go for a while there,” he replied. “Don’t think I didn’t suffer nightmares about rambunctious boys, hammers and saws.”
“I was certain we would have a broken bone. I believe this speaks to your leadership skills, Commander.”
Bill chuckled, dropping a hand on Zak’s shoulder. “Thank Zak. At times he was the only sane man on the crew.” Zak glanced up at his father, surprised. “Billy and Lee spent most of their time hashing out who was higher in the chain of command.”
Zak shrugged. Staying out of their power struggle had seemed the wisest course of action. Before meeting Billy, he had been engaged in similar power struggles with Lee- who inevitably won, if only by virtue of being the eldest- and he was finding his new position as observer to be rather amusing.
Laura laughed, and for the first time Zak thought that the sound was genuine, if a bit sad. “I was the same way with my sisters,” she admitted, and fell silent.
There was little time to dwell on the silence, as seconds later they took their last steps into the clearing with the treehouse. As Zak dashed forward to steady the rope ladder, he heard Laura utter a small sigh of appreciation. “Very well done,” she said. Upon looking back, Zak was unsure whether her gaze was fixed on the clean corners and secure joins of the small building, or on Billy’s happy face.
Laura eyed the rope ladder with a confident eye, brushing her skirt smooth with an casual hand. Graciously ignoring the no-girls-allowed mandate painted on a nearby sign, she pulled herself easily up the ladder.
Zak was not entirely sure why his father’s expression suddenly seemed slightly stunned as his eyes followed her from one rung to the next, but he wrote it off quickly, scrambling up the ladder after her, the basket a satisfying weight hanging from the crook of one elbow.
---
One of the qualities that Bill Adama valued so highly about life removed from the Colonial megacities (Caprica City in particular) was the way that smaller communities had been protected from the sweeping changes enacted by the regime.
While monolithic skyscrapers and huge concrete plazas replaced the Temples and the great Forum of Kobol in the Capitol, Qualai had remained very much the same these past decades. Small fishing villages were of little to no value to the Cylons, and even the human ministers had stopped making much of a fuss about the region once the mineral wealth that had previously existed in the Northwest died up. Bill, for one, was not complaining.
Yes, the name of the Main Street of his childhood may have changed - the “Way of Togetherness” did not have the same local appeal - but for the most part, most of the businesses he still remembered visiting as a child and teenager remained. The market was struggling under the yoke of state-controlled distributions and rationing, and aesthetically the town had certainly seen better days, but the people here were still strong, still determined. Their insular, take-care-of-our-own nature had helped pull them through, and would - Bill hoped - continue to do so in the uncertain future.
Still...Making his way down the street, Bill glanced through the windows of the shops he passed each in turn. The many young faces (far more than old) he saw was a stunning reminder of what the cost of the Cylon War had been. In many ways, it felt like a totally new village, and Bill a stranger in it.
The jangle of the doorbell rang clear as he entered, and his unease lifted at the sound. Longbourn’s had been an institution in this town since before his parents had emigrated from Tauron, and had been one of Bill’s favorite places as a boy. Though censorship was widespread and reading material (along with newspapers, magazines, films and artwork; anything with hard facts or creative expression of any kind) was heavily restricted by the government, there remained a few ways of circumventing the controls. Especially if you had been a customer for as long as Bill had.
It was with this perk in mind that he stopped by the shop one gray afternoon, hoping to find a new mystery or novel, something to pass the time after the boys had gone to sleep and the past and all its failures gnawed most steadily at his heart and mind.
He nodded to the shopkeeper, a short, meticulous man with mad-scientist brows and small round glasses named Martin Fletcher. He was about to inquire about any “favorites” that Fletch might have gotten in stock recently when a flash of color caught his eye. Down the end of one aisle, Laura Roslin stood on tiptoe, straining to reach the topmost row of books in the shelf.
“Here,” he said once he had approached her, “let me give you a hand with that.”
The moment he spoke, she reeled back, turning to face him very quickly. Behind her glasses, Laura’s were wide with unwanted surprise. She recovered quickly and smiled brightly. Too brightly, in his opinion.
“Commander,” she said in a rush of breath. She physically took a step back and amended. “Bill. I’m sorry. Didn’t...expect anyone there.”
“My fault,” he countered. “For sneaking up on you.” He glanced down at the book in her hands. “Broken Rock River,” he read, interest piqued. “You’re a fan of Owen Tate?”
Laura gave a little half-shrug.“I’ve only read one other of his, but I loved it. There weren’t any of his other novels in the library, so I had to pop in here and see if I couldn’t find one.”
“It’s a good one. I think you’ll enjoy it. She Walks In Beauty is my favorite of his. One of my favorite mysteries, actually.
“You like mysteries?” The tone of her voice was more than a bit surprised, making Bill wonder in what esteem this woman held him to find his interest in escapist literature surprising.
He reached for one of Elias Dorning’s earlier works on a shelf and replied, “Don’t tell. It’ll ruin my fearsome reputation if word gets out that I read trashy detective novels in my spare time.”
“I think, Commander, that depends on who’s listening,” Laura replied, her voice containing only the barest trace of cheek, before she skirted past him down the aisle and continued to browse.
Bill Adama did not think himself to be an overly confident man, nor was he the kind of serviceman who had allowed the power afforded by his position to go to his head. His ego, especially since the divorce, had taken more than a few blows of late. It was with this in mind that he considered the lilting, sardonic tone in her voice. It would be a stretch to call it flirtatious, but...No, no. He must have taken too many knocks to the head while sparring yesterday.
“I suppose it does.” He shook his head, glanced through a stack of paperbacks piled together.
“Wasn’t Tate a columnist or something? Before he started writing novels?” She glanced over her outstretched arm at him, her expression guileless.
“Something like that,” Bill replied. “He was a crime reporter in Hades, spent a lot of time working with the police in his line of work. Practically lived in the precinct. Most his best characters grew out of the relationships he had with people in law enforcement, the courts. People he knew from the beats.”
“I didn’t know that,” Laura said. “How awful.”
“Awful? He got some pretty good stories out of it, no?”
Laura flipped the cover of the book aside, finding the author’s description and the accompanying visual. The photo showed an unsmiling man with gunmetal gray hair and a lean, angular look to him. “It must have followed him, that kind of work,” she said absently. “Stayed close. He wrote it down to get it out, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Bill answered. The memory of a dead child in the street, the faces of the many men and women he’d seen slain by both Cylon and human hands sprang quickly and unbidden into his mind. Tate would have seen similar horrors in his line of work, and Bill had a sudden, piercing urge to know more about the man. “I wonder if there’s a book about him here..” Bill wondered aloud, turning in place to look for the proper section.
“No!” Laura suddenly reached out to grab his elbow, steering him towards the poetry nook. “I mean, I, uh, actually was wondering if you had ever read Kataris.”
Some weeks later, it would occur to Bill in a moment of utter clarity that Laura had very purposefully steered him away from the biographies section, along with any other area of the shop - sports, popular culture, Cylon & Human history - where he might have come across something she did not want him to see.
However, he was momentarily absorbed by the warm grip of her fingers along his bicep, and by her stream of questions and comments that kept their conversation going until poor Martin Fletcher had to shoo them out in the hour before curfew.
As they headed out into the cool evening, Laura paused, pressing her tongue to her upper lip in way that Bill found more than a little distracting. “You should...feel free to bring the boys by sometime. It’s good for Billy to have them around; he gets a bit stuck inside himself sometimes.” She shrugged in a way that suggested he gets that from me.
“And anyway, he and Zak are practically stitched at the hip.”
---
The more he got to know her, the more Bill prepared himself for the eventual revelation of Laura’s past.
He imagined something had afflicted her deeply and suddenly. Losing a young, unlucky lover in some untimely way. Perhaps alongside her family, as apart from the occasional neighbor or a fellow teacher, she seemed to have little support from anyone else in her life. It made him wonder, something he rather guiltily indulged in on occasion. Might she have been disowned by conservative parents? Orphaned? She was young enough that he could believe it, but still...There was a gravity that pressed on her smooth features that suggested something beyond her years. Bill caught it at odd moments: As she nervously stepped into a shadow, when someone caught her elbow or brushed her shoulder from behind.
Whatever Laura Roslin’s mystery, it was no doubt tragic. Or, if not tragic, then certainly unfortunate. He tried not to dwell on the matter, as really it was none of his business, and refrained from turning to the small-town gossip mill for information. He disliked doing things half-way, and guesses had no place in Bill Adama’s tidy, ordered universe. Still, he could hardly help wanting to know more about her (or all about her, if permitted), and found himself commenting on the bright Miss Roslin to Zak’s teacher one afternoon.
“Oh, yes, she’s a gem, isn’t she?” Mrs. Kirkpatrick said, knowingly. After a beat, she quirked her head to the side and her voice took on a funny tone as she added, “Especially considering.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Considering?”
The older woman glanced about, keeping her voice low. “Well, you know; most Tributes aren’t exactly high-functioning members of society. What’s the statistic? Eighty percent dead before they’re thirty?”
Bill felt his jaw drop. Tribute? Laura?
“She was in the Games?” He was incredulous, beyond shocked. In all the assumptions he’d made, the Games had never factored in, not once. But this...His stomach turned at the idea of a younger Laura Roslin being marched into the Arena. It was a horror that nothing - not a violent ex-boyfriend or a broken family - could begin to touch.
“About six, maybe seven years ago, I think it was. I believe she was the last Caprican to win, as a matter of fact.” Mrs. Kirkpatrick said. “Obviously, we don’t like to advertise it. Some Colonies might praise that sort of thing, but not us. I still remember...” Mrs. Kirkpatrick shook her head sadly and did not finish her train of thought. “Anyway, it works out, as Laura doesn’t talk about it much. I’m surprised you didn’t know, Commander. She talks about you quite often.”
Despite Violet Kirkpatrick’s winking smile, Bill couldn’t say his spirits were lifted in quite the way they might have soared under other circumstances.
---
A week went by before Bill decided what to do with the information at hand. Women, one of his old pilot buddies had once said, were like Triad. You had to know when to lie, when to fold, and when to go all in and risk losing it all. Then again, Juan had known to go get scores of girls in his bed, but had never been successful in convincing any to stay, so perhaps Lt. Calvin hadn’t been the great Casanova he’d made out to be.
The boys were off somewhere, wreaking minor havoc of some sort and thus leaving the pair of them alone (at least until said havoc had escalated by an order of magnitude or two). They sat at her kitchen table, a pair of mugs between them, as was their custom. She was halfway into a story about some unruly and cliquish sixth graders when he finally interrupted. “Laura.”
“I’m not sure where they get the nerve. Feeding off each other, probably. There’s probably a behavioral psychology term for it that I’ve forgotten --”
“Laura,” he said more forcefully, and caught her attention that time.
She gave him a look of mild surprise and amusement, as though she suspected he hadn’t been paying close attention. Which, naturally, he hadn’t. “Yes?”
Bill leaned forward across the table, hands folded, hoping to appear non-threatening. An anxious Laura was a mercurial Laura, and the last thing wanted to do was to come across as accusing.
“Laura,” he said seriously. “Vi Kirkpatrick told me something the other day. Something I couldn’t quite believe. Something I wanted to hear from you.”
Laura sat back, spine going rigid as a look of uncertainty briefly crossed her face. It shifted just as quickly to a glare, her eyes narrowing at him. “Spit it out, Bill. You’re not one to dance around what you mean to say.”
“She told me about the Games,” he said. Clarifying more softly, “She told me about your Games.”
A look of wild panic flashed in her eyes before she looked away from him, expression checked, unreadable. A long, silent moment stretched out uncomfortably between them, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and cool. “Zak has no idea, if that what you’re worried--”
“That’s not why I asked,” he protested. “I suppose I just wanted to know...” Why you never told me? Why you never said anything? How you do this, every day?
She turned on him quickly, anger flaring to the surface, flinging an arm out to point accusingly at hm. “No,” she growled. “You don’t get to... I don’t even know you. For all I’m aware, you wear the uniform for very different reasons than you pretend,” Laura accused. “Is that why you come here? You want to hear all about the Games? The great ‘honor’ of winning? Are you curious? A fan?” She spat the word like it burned.
He glowered at her, his own anger piqued at her words. “No,” he growled. “That’s both unfair and wrong. You know me better than that, Laura.”
She advanced on him, challenging him. “Do I really, Bill?”
He clenched his teeth, very deeply regretting that he had brought this up. "Look, I came here to talk, Laura. I didn’t come here to pick a fight with you.”
“I don’t know why you come here at all,” she shot back viciously.
"Yeah. Of course you don't," he replied, reaching for his jacket and starting down the hallway for the door.
If you leave now, there’s no going back, his mind said.
Part of Bill knew this wasn’t Laura he was dealing with, this was Laura at the mercy of some defense mechanism or whatever, and that getting angry with her for something beyond her control wasn’t going to get him anywhere. And if marriage had taught him anything, it was that recusing himself from a fight and walking out had never solved anything other than to let the issue simmer longer, making everything that much more unstable. Given a relationship that volatile, it was no wonder he and Carolanne had gone up in flames. He let his hand fall from the doorknob.
Her back was to him. Even from the doorway across the room, he could see her knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of the counter. He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided to chance it, and stepped closer. The line of her jaw was set, clenched tightly against whatever had made her breathing quicken, her eyes unfocused and wide.
Bill wanted very much to pull her into his arms, tell her nice things about being safe with him always. But despite what Laura implied, he knew her better than that, and settled just for standing at her side, leaning back against the counter. He glanced over his shoulder through the window that looked out to the yard. Outside, the boys reappeared, Lee and Billy chasing after Zak, hollering loud enough to be heard on Gemenon. Even if nothing came of this, he hoped they’d continue to be friends.
“I’m not trying to interrogate you, Laura,” he said softly, brushing the back of her hand with his thumb. “I brought it up because I wanted you to know that I know. That you never have anything you need to hide. Or to justify to me.”
He paused, hoping the way her expression seemed to soften was not a trick of the fading light. “And I think you know why I come here. You’re too smart not to.”
This time when he headed for the door, she was the one to stop him.
“Wait,” Laura said. She did not turn from her position by the sink, continuing to stare out at their collective children raising hell. “Just...”
Bill turned, watching the painful, hunched angle of her shoulders.
“Don’t,” she sighed. “Don’t leave.”
---
Author: miabicicletta and olga_theodora
Summary: He reached for one of Elias Dorning’s earlier works on a shelf and replied, “Don’t tell. It’ll ruin my fearsome reputation if word gets out that I read trashy detective novels in my spare time.”
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Laura, Zak, Lee, Billy
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Wordcount: ~5000
Disclaimer: All characters are property of their creators.
Author's Notes: We’re sorry! If it is any consolation, the reason we’ve been so slow to update is because we’ve been so busy writing OTHER things! Modern day AUs! If Not, Winter-verse! Ship Swap stories! It is not for lack of inspiration that we have been remiss in posting!
---
CHILDREN OF GODS: INTERLUDE (aka the Epic Romance of Bill and Laura)
Interlude: Part One
Interlude: Part Two
Their sleepovers had a tendency to contain very little sleep- a novel idea to Billy, who had never attended a sleepover in his life before meeting Zak Adama and had very literal ideas about what might go on during such an event. He had expected to be in bed by eleven. Midnight at the very latest.
Instead, his mother had smiled wryly and abandoned them for her own bed around ten, her only parting remark an amused ‘keep it down, boys.’
When three o’clock rolled around that first morning, Billy found himself struggling to stay awake as Zak enthusiastically described the cannon they could attach to the deck of their excellent tree-house come summer. He had very interesting ideas about how to build such a cannon. Flawed, but interesting, as though from a science-fiction perspective.
In his exhausted haze, Billy had the vague idea that a cannon might one day be useful. He resolved to research the topic at his next available opportunity. Preferably when his mother was not in the vicinity. He feared the rocket had tried her patience.
As the winter wore on, Billy found his tolerance for sleeplessness growing, and he gained a new appreciation for the peculiar mental state that inevitably appeared sometime after two in the morning. It made him feel lighter, if that was possible: the sense of what was possible expanded exponentially, leaving him dazzled by potential. He suspected this was comparable to certain types of drugs.
It was on one of those nights- a crazy, loopy, four-in-the-morning-blueprints-for-catapults night- when Billy came to a realization.
“I wish we could do this every night!” Zak had exclaimed enthusiastically, practically exploding with glee over Billy’s suggestion that they emblazon the Panther logo on the base of the catapult. Nearby Lee grunted something in his sleep, rolling over to sprawl across crumpled, rejected drafts.
And Billy blurted out- completely disregarding the existence of ‘school nights’- “Why not?”
Zak’s expression of sudden comprehension was everything Billy might have hoped for.
To date, it was the only sleepover idea that Billy still found plausible-desirable, even- in the sober light of day.
---
“We won! We won!” Billy’s mop of chestnut curls and Zak’s jet black crown emerged from the huddle as they came pelting across the field, both radiant with triumph in the early morning sunlight.
“Hey!” She said, scooping her son up. “Excellent job today,” she said, settling him on her hip. Billy squirmed, obviously feeling he was far too old to be picked up anymore. “You are definitely in the running to be my absolute most favorite child.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “I am your only child, Mother,” he returned pointedly.
“True,” she admitted with a half-giggle. Laura set him down and as she did was unable to deny the pang in her chest. How fast he was growing. She masked her momentary existential crisis by ruffling his hair affectionately. “It’s not much of a distinction then, is it?”
“I didn’t score any goals today,” Billy said, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his cleat, “but Zak did.”
“I saw that,” Laura nodded, holding her hand up. “Great work, Zak.”
Zak grinned, slapping her palm, and Laura hugged him to her as well. He had the same toothy smile as his father, she noticed. “Thanks, Miss Roslin.”
Laura leaned down, whispering conspiratorially. “Hey Zak? You can call me Laura when we’re not at school.” She glanced right and left, feigning suspicion. “But keep it to yourself, alright?”
Zak looked at Billy, uncertain, but her son just shrugged and jostled his shoulder. “Okay, Mi...Laura.”
A pair of figures emerged from the crowd, the taller one waving over his shoulder. As he turned, Laura pursed her lips, straightening up as she steeled herself to meet the cool-eyed Commander on equal footing.
“Dad! Did you see my goal? I totally faked the keeper!”
Bill Adama nodded, ruffling his youngest son’s hair, impressed. “I saw. That was a great move. Keep it up and you might be good enough to make the Bucs some day.”
Billy and Zak both protested loudly. “No way!” Zak shrieked, gravely offended. “I’d never play for the Bucs. The Panthers could kick their a--”
“Zakary...” Bill said, giving him a warning look.
“Well they could,” Zak said, indignant.
The boys tore off into a long-winded, madcap dialogue about something Laura couldn’t even begin to understand. She cocked her head to the side and shrugged in ignorance at Bill, who shook his head in affable confusion as well. An awkward moment passed. Although she had dropped the frosty demeanor, Laura had not yet finished forming her opinions of the man, and as yet was not ready to behave as though they were longtime friends. She settled on a small nod of acknowledgement, which the Commander dutifully returned.
“Good to see you, Laura.”
Laura forced herself to reply amicably. “And you, Commander”
Niceties observed, she attempted to make a tactful exit in ushering Billy away by the shoulders when a rare pause in the boys’ incessant chatter made itself known. “Mom,” Billy said. He craned his neck back against her belly, looking up at her, and politely inquired, “Can Zak and Lee come over?”
Oh, Zeus strike down her doe-eyed son. Something in his too-innocent face suggested the evidence of his uncommon cleverness at work. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep her scowl in check, Laura answered with false cheer:
“Why not?”
Great.
---
After roughly the seventy-fourth argument in exactly one week of construction, Zak figured just building the darn thing was going to result up in at least one murder between the three of them. At this rate the most probable victim was Billy, a call Zak based on his best friend’s diminutive size, which stood in direct contrast to Billy’s determination to win an argument, especially one with Lee.
Then again, as the project wore on, by the daggers Billy shot at his brother, he was beginning to prepare for it to go the other way.
The three of them had bickered about their plans throughout most of the winter, and once the ground had thawed enough to tramp safely into the woods and the trees had shed off the last of the winter’s ice and cracked bark, they were off exploring. Billy had tried to describe the best “kind” of tree for their purposes - something about strong trunks and enough limbs to create even support slats - but every time, Zak had waved him off. They would know their tree when they saw it. He was certain of it.
It didn’t take them long, really. Though the three of them hadn’t demanded many attributes of their dream tree (the list of necessary arboreal elements went something like #1 Tree for treehouse must be able to support treehouse. #2 Also people), Billy’s mother had been immovable on her demand that it be somewhere within sight of the house, or at least very close to it. So, with only a limited perimeter to survey, they had rather quickly found the object of their desire: a wide-trunked maple tree with thick branches forking out about ten feet above the ground. Billy had practically hugged the thing, and even Lee had to agree: it was perfect. The force of their excitement had not dissolved by the time their father arrived, and it was with this unified front that they implored him to begin helping them as soon as possible.
“You’re the one who agreed to it,” Laura had said with a shrug, and turned back to her grading. “Just take care not to trample my hydrangea!”
Zak had figured the hard part was over. He was wrong.
A feeling he was rather getting used to, by now.
While Billy and Lee got on well most of the time, neither had ever met an argument they didn’t like, a reality which made for more squabbling between them than on any other project to date. It was predictable, really: Lee was used to getting his way as the oldest of the two of them, and Billy was an only child. Given that the only other person his friend had had the opportunity to fight with up until now had been Laura, Zak was rather impressed that Billy had the stamina to stay in an argument at all. Of course, the motivation might have come from wanting to win one before he died.
“I think it needs to go there,” Billy said from his perch.
“I think it nees to go here,” Lee replied, scooching further out along the tree’s branch to move the object in question.
Beside Zak on the ground, his father rolled his eyes.
“How goes the construction?” Arms folded across her chest, Laura picked her way carefully across forest floor, avoiding the odd mud puddle here and there. She un-shouldered a pale canvas bag and placed it on a nearby log in a patch of shade. Zak sighed loudly and scowled at Billy and Lee who were so engrossed with one another that they hadn’t noticed Laura’s arrival.
Zak was irritated with both of them and this stupid project. When he glanced back over at Laura, she patted his shoulder and hugged him against her side. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you,” she said sidelong to his father.
“You do this every day?”
“And with thirty of them. Often without the benefit of coffee, low as the rations of it have been lately...”
His dad whistled, setting down the saw in his hand. “Well, let’s just say that after this morning and yesterday, I think you’d make a better soldier than I.”
Zak took a long drink of water and laid back. His father and Laura continued to chat while Lee and Billy argued about where to place the beams.
“Have they been that bad?”
“No, but you know how kids can be, especially excitable ones.”
“No, tell me. I have no idea...” Laura chuckled.
“I think it’s more of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.”
“Ah, so you may have to be making some executive decisions, Commander.”
“My crew tend to take orders better than this lot. I’m counting the days till the mutiny.”
Laura laughed at that and moved to offer Zak a cup full of the lemonade she’d brought along, contained in a silver thermos that had surely seen better days. Zak tentatively accepted; he had only had the tangy drink once or twice before. Lemons came from Scorpia or Canceron - one of the big, hot worlds positioned closer to their suns in their respective systems. It was tart and sweet at once and improved his sour mood more than he wanted to admit.
Laura then offered his father one. “Payment for hazard duty,” she said dryly. His father grinned and accepted, drinking deeply.
“Nah, they haven’t been so bad,” his dad said, setting aside the cup. He reached down to grab Zak under the arms and tossed him onto his shoulders. “It could have been a lot worse, really,” he said a he moved under a low-hanging branch so Zak could pull himself up and scramble toward where the first beam had been placed. Billy and Lee eyed the adults conversation with casual interest, their squabble momentarily forgotten.
“Oh?” Laura said. “How is that?”
Together the parents looked up at the skeleton treehouse beginning to take shape.
“Well,” Bill Adama said, a wink in his eyes, “just think the wars we’d be going through if they had been girls.”
Zak rather thought the barrage of acorns he, Billy and his brother rained down from their perch was fully deserved.
---
In the end, it was only one rope, a bow saw, and two fingernails that were broken in the course of making the treehouse; the boys’ friendships were fully intact by the time Bill announced they had finished the arduous task and might she be interested in coming for a visit?
She accepted with aplomb, appearing eager to leave the stack of grading behind for an hour or so, and produced a small basket that she quickly filled with the makings for a forest picnic. As they embarked on the short stroll to the treehouse- Billy and Lee running ahead, shouting about engine fuel, of all things- Zak hung back, curious about the delicate acquaintance that seemed to have sprung up between his father and Billy’s mother.
“I’m glad to see that everyone survived the construction intact,” Zak heard her say quietly to his father, a note of amusement in her voice.
“It was touch and go for a while there,” he replied. “Don’t think I didn’t suffer nightmares about rambunctious boys, hammers and saws.”
“I was certain we would have a broken bone. I believe this speaks to your leadership skills, Commander.”
Bill chuckled, dropping a hand on Zak’s shoulder. “Thank Zak. At times he was the only sane man on the crew.” Zak glanced up at his father, surprised. “Billy and Lee spent most of their time hashing out who was higher in the chain of command.”
Zak shrugged. Staying out of their power struggle had seemed the wisest course of action. Before meeting Billy, he had been engaged in similar power struggles with Lee- who inevitably won, if only by virtue of being the eldest- and he was finding his new position as observer to be rather amusing.
Laura laughed, and for the first time Zak thought that the sound was genuine, if a bit sad. “I was the same way with my sisters,” she admitted, and fell silent.
There was little time to dwell on the silence, as seconds later they took their last steps into the clearing with the treehouse. As Zak dashed forward to steady the rope ladder, he heard Laura utter a small sigh of appreciation. “Very well done,” she said. Upon looking back, Zak was unsure whether her gaze was fixed on the clean corners and secure joins of the small building, or on Billy’s happy face.
Laura eyed the rope ladder with a confident eye, brushing her skirt smooth with an casual hand. Graciously ignoring the no-girls-allowed mandate painted on a nearby sign, she pulled herself easily up the ladder.
Zak was not entirely sure why his father’s expression suddenly seemed slightly stunned as his eyes followed her from one rung to the next, but he wrote it off quickly, scrambling up the ladder after her, the basket a satisfying weight hanging from the crook of one elbow.
---
One of the qualities that Bill Adama valued so highly about life removed from the Colonial megacities (Caprica City in particular) was the way that smaller communities had been protected from the sweeping changes enacted by the regime.
While monolithic skyscrapers and huge concrete plazas replaced the Temples and the great Forum of Kobol in the Capitol, Qualai had remained very much the same these past decades. Small fishing villages were of little to no value to the Cylons, and even the human ministers had stopped making much of a fuss about the region once the mineral wealth that had previously existed in the Northwest died up. Bill, for one, was not complaining.
Yes, the name of the Main Street of his childhood may have changed - the “Way of Togetherness” did not have the same local appeal - but for the most part, most of the businesses he still remembered visiting as a child and teenager remained. The market was struggling under the yoke of state-controlled distributions and rationing, and aesthetically the town had certainly seen better days, but the people here were still strong, still determined. Their insular, take-care-of-our-own nature had helped pull them through, and would - Bill hoped - continue to do so in the uncertain future.
Still...Making his way down the street, Bill glanced through the windows of the shops he passed each in turn. The many young faces (far more than old) he saw was a stunning reminder of what the cost of the Cylon War had been. In many ways, it felt like a totally new village, and Bill a stranger in it.
The jangle of the doorbell rang clear as he entered, and his unease lifted at the sound. Longbourn’s had been an institution in this town since before his parents had emigrated from Tauron, and had been one of Bill’s favorite places as a boy. Though censorship was widespread and reading material (along with newspapers, magazines, films and artwork; anything with hard facts or creative expression of any kind) was heavily restricted by the government, there remained a few ways of circumventing the controls. Especially if you had been a customer for as long as Bill had.
It was with this perk in mind that he stopped by the shop one gray afternoon, hoping to find a new mystery or novel, something to pass the time after the boys had gone to sleep and the past and all its failures gnawed most steadily at his heart and mind.
He nodded to the shopkeeper, a short, meticulous man with mad-scientist brows and small round glasses named Martin Fletcher. He was about to inquire about any “favorites” that Fletch might have gotten in stock recently when a flash of color caught his eye. Down the end of one aisle, Laura Roslin stood on tiptoe, straining to reach the topmost row of books in the shelf.
“Here,” he said once he had approached her, “let me give you a hand with that.”
The moment he spoke, she reeled back, turning to face him very quickly. Behind her glasses, Laura’s were wide with unwanted surprise. She recovered quickly and smiled brightly. Too brightly, in his opinion.
“Commander,” she said in a rush of breath. She physically took a step back and amended. “Bill. I’m sorry. Didn’t...expect anyone there.”
“My fault,” he countered. “For sneaking up on you.” He glanced down at the book in her hands. “Broken Rock River,” he read, interest piqued. “You’re a fan of Owen Tate?”
Laura gave a little half-shrug.“I’ve only read one other of his, but I loved it. There weren’t any of his other novels in the library, so I had to pop in here and see if I couldn’t find one.”
“It’s a good one. I think you’ll enjoy it. She Walks In Beauty is my favorite of his. One of my favorite mysteries, actually.
“You like mysteries?” The tone of her voice was more than a bit surprised, making Bill wonder in what esteem this woman held him to find his interest in escapist literature surprising.
He reached for one of Elias Dorning’s earlier works on a shelf and replied, “Don’t tell. It’ll ruin my fearsome reputation if word gets out that I read trashy detective novels in my spare time.”
“I think, Commander, that depends on who’s listening,” Laura replied, her voice containing only the barest trace of cheek, before she skirted past him down the aisle and continued to browse.
Bill Adama did not think himself to be an overly confident man, nor was he the kind of serviceman who had allowed the power afforded by his position to go to his head. His ego, especially since the divorce, had taken more than a few blows of late. It was with this in mind that he considered the lilting, sardonic tone in her voice. It would be a stretch to call it flirtatious, but...No, no. He must have taken too many knocks to the head while sparring yesterday.
“I suppose it does.” He shook his head, glanced through a stack of paperbacks piled together.
“Wasn’t Tate a columnist or something? Before he started writing novels?” She glanced over her outstretched arm at him, her expression guileless.
“Something like that,” Bill replied. “He was a crime reporter in Hades, spent a lot of time working with the police in his line of work. Practically lived in the precinct. Most his best characters grew out of the relationships he had with people in law enforcement, the courts. People he knew from the beats.”
“I didn’t know that,” Laura said. “How awful.”
“Awful? He got some pretty good stories out of it, no?”
Laura flipped the cover of the book aside, finding the author’s description and the accompanying visual. The photo showed an unsmiling man with gunmetal gray hair and a lean, angular look to him. “It must have followed him, that kind of work,” she said absently. “Stayed close. He wrote it down to get it out, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Bill answered. The memory of a dead child in the street, the faces of the many men and women he’d seen slain by both Cylon and human hands sprang quickly and unbidden into his mind. Tate would have seen similar horrors in his line of work, and Bill had a sudden, piercing urge to know more about the man. “I wonder if there’s a book about him here..” Bill wondered aloud, turning in place to look for the proper section.
“No!” Laura suddenly reached out to grab his elbow, steering him towards the poetry nook. “I mean, I, uh, actually was wondering if you had ever read Kataris.”
Some weeks later, it would occur to Bill in a moment of utter clarity that Laura had very purposefully steered him away from the biographies section, along with any other area of the shop - sports, popular culture, Cylon & Human history - where he might have come across something she did not want him to see.
However, he was momentarily absorbed by the warm grip of her fingers along his bicep, and by her stream of questions and comments that kept their conversation going until poor Martin Fletcher had to shoo them out in the hour before curfew.
As they headed out into the cool evening, Laura paused, pressing her tongue to her upper lip in way that Bill found more than a little distracting. “You should...feel free to bring the boys by sometime. It’s good for Billy to have them around; he gets a bit stuck inside himself sometimes.” She shrugged in a way that suggested he gets that from me.
“And anyway, he and Zak are practically stitched at the hip.”
---
The more he got to know her, the more Bill prepared himself for the eventual revelation of Laura’s past.
He imagined something had afflicted her deeply and suddenly. Losing a young, unlucky lover in some untimely way. Perhaps alongside her family, as apart from the occasional neighbor or a fellow teacher, she seemed to have little support from anyone else in her life. It made him wonder, something he rather guiltily indulged in on occasion. Might she have been disowned by conservative parents? Orphaned? She was young enough that he could believe it, but still...There was a gravity that pressed on her smooth features that suggested something beyond her years. Bill caught it at odd moments: As she nervously stepped into a shadow, when someone caught her elbow or brushed her shoulder from behind.
Whatever Laura Roslin’s mystery, it was no doubt tragic. Or, if not tragic, then certainly unfortunate. He tried not to dwell on the matter, as really it was none of his business, and refrained from turning to the small-town gossip mill for information. He disliked doing things half-way, and guesses had no place in Bill Adama’s tidy, ordered universe. Still, he could hardly help wanting to know more about her (or all about her, if permitted), and found himself commenting on the bright Miss Roslin to Zak’s teacher one afternoon.
“Oh, yes, she’s a gem, isn’t she?” Mrs. Kirkpatrick said, knowingly. After a beat, she quirked her head to the side and her voice took on a funny tone as she added, “Especially considering.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Considering?”
The older woman glanced about, keeping her voice low. “Well, you know; most Tributes aren’t exactly high-functioning members of society. What’s the statistic? Eighty percent dead before they’re thirty?”
Bill felt his jaw drop. Tribute? Laura?
“She was in the Games?” He was incredulous, beyond shocked. In all the assumptions he’d made, the Games had never factored in, not once. But this...His stomach turned at the idea of a younger Laura Roslin being marched into the Arena. It was a horror that nothing - not a violent ex-boyfriend or a broken family - could begin to touch.
“About six, maybe seven years ago, I think it was. I believe she was the last Caprican to win, as a matter of fact.” Mrs. Kirkpatrick said. “Obviously, we don’t like to advertise it. Some Colonies might praise that sort of thing, but not us. I still remember...” Mrs. Kirkpatrick shook her head sadly and did not finish her train of thought. “Anyway, it works out, as Laura doesn’t talk about it much. I’m surprised you didn’t know, Commander. She talks about you quite often.”
Despite Violet Kirkpatrick’s winking smile, Bill couldn’t say his spirits were lifted in quite the way they might have soared under other circumstances.
---
A week went by before Bill decided what to do with the information at hand. Women, one of his old pilot buddies had once said, were like Triad. You had to know when to lie, when to fold, and when to go all in and risk losing it all. Then again, Juan had known to go get scores of girls in his bed, but had never been successful in convincing any to stay, so perhaps Lt. Calvin hadn’t been the great Casanova he’d made out to be.
The boys were off somewhere, wreaking minor havoc of some sort and thus leaving the pair of them alone (at least until said havoc had escalated by an order of magnitude or two). They sat at her kitchen table, a pair of mugs between them, as was their custom. She was halfway into a story about some unruly and cliquish sixth graders when he finally interrupted. “Laura.”
“I’m not sure where they get the nerve. Feeding off each other, probably. There’s probably a behavioral psychology term for it that I’ve forgotten --”
“Laura,” he said more forcefully, and caught her attention that time.
She gave him a look of mild surprise and amusement, as though she suspected he hadn’t been paying close attention. Which, naturally, he hadn’t. “Yes?”
Bill leaned forward across the table, hands folded, hoping to appear non-threatening. An anxious Laura was a mercurial Laura, and the last thing wanted to do was to come across as accusing.
“Laura,” he said seriously. “Vi Kirkpatrick told me something the other day. Something I couldn’t quite believe. Something I wanted to hear from you.”
Laura sat back, spine going rigid as a look of uncertainty briefly crossed her face. It shifted just as quickly to a glare, her eyes narrowing at him. “Spit it out, Bill. You’re not one to dance around what you mean to say.”
“She told me about the Games,” he said. Clarifying more softly, “She told me about your Games.”
A look of wild panic flashed in her eyes before she looked away from him, expression checked, unreadable. A long, silent moment stretched out uncomfortably between them, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and cool. “Zak has no idea, if that what you’re worried--”
“That’s not why I asked,” he protested. “I suppose I just wanted to know...” Why you never told me? Why you never said anything? How you do this, every day?
She turned on him quickly, anger flaring to the surface, flinging an arm out to point accusingly at hm. “No,” she growled. “You don’t get to... I don’t even know you. For all I’m aware, you wear the uniform for very different reasons than you pretend,” Laura accused. “Is that why you come here? You want to hear all about the Games? The great ‘honor’ of winning? Are you curious? A fan?” She spat the word like it burned.
He glowered at her, his own anger piqued at her words. “No,” he growled. “That’s both unfair and wrong. You know me better than that, Laura.”
She advanced on him, challenging him. “Do I really, Bill?”
He clenched his teeth, very deeply regretting that he had brought this up. "Look, I came here to talk, Laura. I didn’t come here to pick a fight with you.”
“I don’t know why you come here at all,” she shot back viciously.
"Yeah. Of course you don't," he replied, reaching for his jacket and starting down the hallway for the door.
If you leave now, there’s no going back, his mind said.
Part of Bill knew this wasn’t Laura he was dealing with, this was Laura at the mercy of some defense mechanism or whatever, and that getting angry with her for something beyond her control wasn’t going to get him anywhere. And if marriage had taught him anything, it was that recusing himself from a fight and walking out had never solved anything other than to let the issue simmer longer, making everything that much more unstable. Given a relationship that volatile, it was no wonder he and Carolanne had gone up in flames. He let his hand fall from the doorknob.
Her back was to him. Even from the doorway across the room, he could see her knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of the counter. He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided to chance it, and stepped closer. The line of her jaw was set, clenched tightly against whatever had made her breathing quicken, her eyes unfocused and wide.
Bill wanted very much to pull her into his arms, tell her nice things about being safe with him always. But despite what Laura implied, he knew her better than that, and settled just for standing at her side, leaning back against the counter. He glanced over his shoulder through the window that looked out to the yard. Outside, the boys reappeared, Lee and Billy chasing after Zak, hollering loud enough to be heard on Gemenon. Even if nothing came of this, he hoped they’d continue to be friends.
“I’m not trying to interrogate you, Laura,” he said softly, brushing the back of her hand with his thumb. “I brought it up because I wanted you to know that I know. That you never have anything you need to hide. Or to justify to me.”
He paused, hoping the way her expression seemed to soften was not a trick of the fading light. “And I think you know why I come here. You’re too smart not to.”
This time when he headed for the door, she was the one to stop him.
“Wait,” Laura said. She did not turn from her position by the sink, continuing to stare out at their collective children raising hell. “Just...”
Bill turned, watching the painful, hunched angle of her shoulders.
“Don’t,” she sighed. “Don’t leave.”
---