"Forever, Yours" - Adama/Roslin Fic
Title: Forever, Yours
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: R
Word Count: 2, 420 words
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show.
A/N: Written as a "five ways that Bill Adama showed Laura Roslin that he loved her," because that man showed his love for his family so beautifully and sincerely. Think of this as a series of "deleted scenes" from the BSG canon timeline. Thanks as always to redrockcan for her beta.
I.
“Gods,” Laura mumbled, slamming the book down on the couch next to her with a frustrated exhale. She blinked away the angry tears that threatened to spill, not wanting to alert Bill. But, the steady scratching of pen against paper in the background halted, followed by the screech of a chair against the floor; she barely had to say a word and he was already making his way over to her.
“Not enjoying that?” Bill asked good-naturedly as he made himself comfortable next to her. “I have to admit, it took me a few chapters to really get into it.” He smiled at her, his gaze both soft and warm.
“I’m loving it,” she said, “I just can’t read more than a few paragraphs without getting nauseous.” Silence hung between them, heavy and uncomfortable. She had just started treatments, he was still coping with the news of her cancer’s return; this was new territory for them.
“What part are you on?” he asked after a while.
“Celia just found the letter that her father left her in the study,” Laura said. “I am really quite in love with it,” she added sheepishly.
“It only gets better,” he promised her with that irresistible smile of his.
A beat passed.
“Would you like me to read to you?” His question hung suspended between them.
Would she like that? Undoubtedly. She could listen to him talk for hours about anything and everything. She loved his voice, loved the care and precision that he measured his words with.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I would really appreciate that.” She bit the inside of her cheek to stop those damn tears from trying to peak out once again. But when he carefully picked up the discarded novel, and the delicious timbre of his voice washed over her, a wayward, stubborn tear did indeed escape the confines of her iron will.
Without ever breaking eye contact with the page, Bill reached across the scant physical distant between them and gently grasped her hand.
His thumb traced nonsensical circles into the scared and bruised tissue of her hand while his words tattooed a steady rhythm against her heart.
II.
He knew that she was doing everything in her power to hide it from him. He had caught her frantically trying to wrap the dried husks in paper before discarding them in the trash. He had noticed the extra half hour spent in the head each morning, had heard her frustrated sobs.
He had pretended not to see anything.
She had all but begged him to.
He had counted, collected, and caressed each strand on his pillow. Had discovered and distressed over each found on his couch. He had wept, openly and unabashedly when he stumbled back into his - their - study after their fight to find an entire chunk waiting for him on his desk.
She had come home wearing the wig a few days ago, but he was still unaware of what she looked like without it.
He knew that she hated it.
She was in the head, the door was slightly ajar and he could see her standing in front of the mirror. Precisely, she lifted the wig up and off of her head. Her skin was so pale, it made the freckles that adorned her shoulders stand out proudly.
He couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to; slowly and quietly, he walked towards her. Placing his hands on the neutral zone of her upper arms, he leaned forward and gently kissed the top of her bare head.
“Beautiful,” he said softly.
“Not anymore,” she whispered. He felt her tremble, felt the sobs that threatened to wrack her body. Without hesitating, he wrapped his arms around her completely. Her hands clutched the strong muscles of his forearms.
She was completely exposed now; there would be no more hiding. For either of them.
III.
It had been years since he had regularly shared a bed with a woman. Years still since he had enjoyed doing so.
“Morning,” she sighed happily as he held her tightly and peppered her neck and shoulder with warm, gentle kisses.
“Hi,” he said, his mirth completely obvious. “Have I mentioned lately how very, very happy I am that you are back home again?”
Her heart constricted with pure, unfiltered love for him. She had left him; torn her belongings out of the home that they had created and abandoned him for the false comfort of solitude and he had accepted her back, arms and heart open as they had always been for her.
She felt his hand squeeze and cup her hips possessively. She giggled at his growl and subsequent sigh of contentment.
“As much as I would love to continue this, we both have places to be,” she reminded him practically.
He threw back the cover and propped himself up on one elbow. “’'Kay,” he said sleepily, “but can we just sit here for a while longer?”
She noticed his hungry yet loving gaze as they swept the lines and angles of her nude body.
“S’nicer view here than in the CIC,” he said cheekily before tracing her stomach with his broad hand.
“Yeah?” she asked somewhat breathlessly as his gentle ministrations sent delicious shivers up and down her spine. His gaze fixated on her completely nude body; grinning wolfishly, he nodded his head in the affirmative rather enthusiastically, which prompted a joyful chorus of laughter from the two of them.
“Unfortunately that is irrelevant. Get up soldier,” she said. He obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and when he emerged from the head, freshly showered and dressed for the day she was waiting for him on their couch, fuel consumption reports in hand.
“Lee is coming with you to the meeting?” he asked casually. He worried that she was overdoing it, despite her insistence that she was letting Lee do the heavy lifting.
“Yes, I am going to meet him there,” she answered with a knowing smile. He was just too easy to read at times.
He tipped her head upwards so that he could capture her still-smirking lips in a searing kiss. She whimpered when his tongue swiped her lower lip, moaned when his kiss became deep and downright devious.
“I’ll meet you in the ward room after,” he said as they parted. “We can have lunch together?” His suggestion was endearingly hopeful.
“You’re not rearranging your day just to coincide with mine, now are you Admiral?” she asked with a pointed look. “Because that is how rumors get started,” she said with a wink.
“The Admiral wouldn’t dream of it. Bill, on the other hand, would very much like to have an excuse to spend some time with you this afternoon,” he said.
“Well, please inform him that Laura accepts his invitation.”
They held hands, all the way to the hatch, until decorum dictated that they part.
“Until later.” Bill winked at her, and she felt heart skip a beat.
She could hardly wait.
IV.
“You did what?” Laura’s voice was calm, even; each word was perfectly enunciated. Inside, she was consumed by rage. It burnt low in her stomach, swirling and spreading until every limb felt as though it were alight with it.
“I assigned two more security details to you, for your-“
“And who are you to make such a decision? Why wasn’t this ever brought up to me for my approval?” Laura paced angrily, back and forth.
“I am the Admiral of the Fleet, and as such, the security of the President is my utmost concern,” he growled. “I felt that it was necessary, frak that, long overdue, that you have a proper security team following you.”
The look that she threw his way could have melted a hole through the hull of the Galactica.
She knew why he was acting this way; part of her couldn’t blame him. Part of her wanted to throttle him, the other part of her wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him stupid.
Truthfully, she had been rather lucky that in her years as President, the assassination attempts had been absolutely zero; until last week. Laura had been enjoying a walk through the halls of the ship; something of a ritual for her as of lately, when a young man had attacked her. She recalled turning a corner, then being tackled by the body weight of someone much younger and stronger before blacking out. She woke on one of Cottle’s gurneys about an hour later to find a white-faced and guilt ridden Bill clutching her hand like he was afraid that she would disappear if he let go.
The young man had been thrown in the brig, but before anyone could properly question him, he had committed suicide; dry swallowing a pill that he had concealed on his person, which was assumed to have been poisonous.
“He wasn’t working alone Laura,” Bill implored. “That means that there are more people out there, looking to harm you. Obviously their own lives are of no consequence to them, they won’t stop until they’ve accomplished their task.”
“Bill,” she cupped his face between her hands. “I don’t want to spend the little time that I have left here being treated like a prisoner. As it is, I hate that I can’t go anywhere without drawing attention to myself. I am done being the President, I want to be Laura. Just Laura,” she said.
Your lover. Your partner. I want to walk hand in hand with you on your ship, kiss you silly in front of your crew and not give a frak about what everyone might think.
“You’re not just Laura. You’re Laura Roslin, President of what is left of humanity, leader to an entire civilization of broken, lost souls. You are a symbol to these people, and you are too precious for me to let some whack-job take you out,” he said resolutely. “When they called me to tell me what happened, I…”
I nearly died myself. My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe that I was going to lose you so soon after finding you.
“Okay, okay,” she whispered. She chased the tears on his face with kisses, ran her fingers through his hair and let him hold her so, so close to him.
“Every day, I have to face the thought of losing you. Every day I get threats against your life, I get Cottle ringing me, yelling at me for not forcing you to see him,” he confessed in the crook of her neck, “I don’t know how to keep you safe from yourself, from your own stubbornness. Please,” he begged.
Laura bit her lip guiltily; she knew just how difficult she could be with him.
“I know,” she said, “I know. Okay, you’re right,” she sighed. She felt the tension in his shoulders and back lessen a bit.
He pulled back slightly from her embrace. “If it were really up to me, I’ll have you know that I would be your personal security, and I wouldn’t let you out of my sight,” he said.
Laura lightly caressed the lines and grooves in his face with her thumbs, wishing, not for the first time, that she could extract the guilt and sorrow that permeated his very soul. “That’s an arrangement that I could really support,” she said softly. “But I think that my security guard might get a bit sick of me.”
“Never,” he said seriously.
Eternity herself couldn’t give them enough time.
V.
Her eyes followed his hands as they travelled across her body.
She loved his hands.
Loved that hands, so capable of destruction and death, were also capable of being so gentle and loving. She loved how his darker skin contrasted with her pale and freckled body, loved how right it felt to have his hands on her.
She wished, not for the first time, that she could remain physically joined with him at all times. That her skin could be in contact with his own, always. That she would never have to suffer another second without knowing the feeling of his hands on her skin.
He loved to touch her.
Loved to hold her close and discover, and rediscover every inch of pale flesh on her body. Loved that she allowed him the distinct privilege of touching her, of loving her with his body. Loved that his touch was welcome, wanted, needed.
“You’re going to put me to sleep,” she whispered against his jaw. His hands swept up and down her spine, fingertips tickling each protruding disc.
“Am I boring you?” he asked cheekily.
“Noooo,” she giggled, “that feels so nice,” she sighed against him.
“Good,” he said happily. He knew how difficult it was for her to find peace in her sleep these days. “All a part of the plan,” he assured her.
“Mmmm,” she replied.
The feel of cool metal against her skin prompted a question to tumble out of her mouth.
“Do you miss it? Being married?” She wondered at times if he resented the nature of their relationship. He was a man of tradition, of values and structure; of symbols and vows.
His silence caused a wave of panic to tug at her heart.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“
Her apology was cut short as he carefully removed his hands from her. Her heart sank even deeper.
“What I had, it wasn’t a marriage. We were married, but we didn’t have a marriage,” he said softly.
She felt him slip the oversized band of gold around her finger. His other hand cupped her face.
“We’re not married,” she pointed out practically.
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “But our marriage is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He sealed the lid on the panic in her heart with a chaste kiss.
“Me too,” she admitted with a frantic nod of her head. She met his lips, cheeks, chin, and jaw for a series of furious kisses; these were the only vows that they ever needed to swear to, the merging of their bodies and souls the only ritual that ever needed to be completed.
His ring, slightly too large for her slender fingers fell forward so that it rested somewhere between their clasped hands; held in suspension between his body and her own.
He wrapped her in his arms once more and she slipped peacefully into the realm of slumber with a smile on her face.
His hands never once left their home on her body.
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: R
Word Count: 2, 420 words
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show.
A/N: Written as a "five ways that Bill Adama showed Laura Roslin that he loved her," because that man showed his love for his family so beautifully and sincerely. Think of this as a series of "deleted scenes" from the BSG canon timeline. Thanks as always to redrockcan for her beta.
I.
“Gods,” Laura mumbled, slamming the book down on the couch next to her with a frustrated exhale. She blinked away the angry tears that threatened to spill, not wanting to alert Bill. But, the steady scratching of pen against paper in the background halted, followed by the screech of a chair against the floor; she barely had to say a word and he was already making his way over to her.
“Not enjoying that?” Bill asked good-naturedly as he made himself comfortable next to her. “I have to admit, it took me a few chapters to really get into it.” He smiled at her, his gaze both soft and warm.
“I’m loving it,” she said, “I just can’t read more than a few paragraphs without getting nauseous.” Silence hung between them, heavy and uncomfortable. She had just started treatments, he was still coping with the news of her cancer’s return; this was new territory for them.
“What part are you on?” he asked after a while.
“Celia just found the letter that her father left her in the study,” Laura said. “I am really quite in love with it,” she added sheepishly.
“It only gets better,” he promised her with that irresistible smile of his.
A beat passed.
“Would you like me to read to you?” His question hung suspended between them.
Would she like that? Undoubtedly. She could listen to him talk for hours about anything and everything. She loved his voice, loved the care and precision that he measured his words with.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I would really appreciate that.” She bit the inside of her cheek to stop those damn tears from trying to peak out once again. But when he carefully picked up the discarded novel, and the delicious timbre of his voice washed over her, a wayward, stubborn tear did indeed escape the confines of her iron will.
Without ever breaking eye contact with the page, Bill reached across the scant physical distant between them and gently grasped her hand.
His thumb traced nonsensical circles into the scared and bruised tissue of her hand while his words tattooed a steady rhythm against her heart.
II.
He knew that she was doing everything in her power to hide it from him. He had caught her frantically trying to wrap the dried husks in paper before discarding them in the trash. He had noticed the extra half hour spent in the head each morning, had heard her frustrated sobs.
He had pretended not to see anything.
She had all but begged him to.
He had counted, collected, and caressed each strand on his pillow. Had discovered and distressed over each found on his couch. He had wept, openly and unabashedly when he stumbled back into his - their - study after their fight to find an entire chunk waiting for him on his desk.
She had come home wearing the wig a few days ago, but he was still unaware of what she looked like without it.
He knew that she hated it.
She was in the head, the door was slightly ajar and he could see her standing in front of the mirror. Precisely, she lifted the wig up and off of her head. Her skin was so pale, it made the freckles that adorned her shoulders stand out proudly.
He couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to; slowly and quietly, he walked towards her. Placing his hands on the neutral zone of her upper arms, he leaned forward and gently kissed the top of her bare head.
“Beautiful,” he said softly.
“Not anymore,” she whispered. He felt her tremble, felt the sobs that threatened to wrack her body. Without hesitating, he wrapped his arms around her completely. Her hands clutched the strong muscles of his forearms.
She was completely exposed now; there would be no more hiding. For either of them.
III.
It had been years since he had regularly shared a bed with a woman. Years still since he had enjoyed doing so.
“Morning,” she sighed happily as he held her tightly and peppered her neck and shoulder with warm, gentle kisses.
“Hi,” he said, his mirth completely obvious. “Have I mentioned lately how very, very happy I am that you are back home again?”
Her heart constricted with pure, unfiltered love for him. She had left him; torn her belongings out of the home that they had created and abandoned him for the false comfort of solitude and he had accepted her back, arms and heart open as they had always been for her.
She felt his hand squeeze and cup her hips possessively. She giggled at his growl and subsequent sigh of contentment.
“As much as I would love to continue this, we both have places to be,” she reminded him practically.
He threw back the cover and propped himself up on one elbow. “’'Kay,” he said sleepily, “but can we just sit here for a while longer?”
She noticed his hungry yet loving gaze as they swept the lines and angles of her nude body.
“S’nicer view here than in the CIC,” he said cheekily before tracing her stomach with his broad hand.
“Yeah?” she asked somewhat breathlessly as his gentle ministrations sent delicious shivers up and down her spine. His gaze fixated on her completely nude body; grinning wolfishly, he nodded his head in the affirmative rather enthusiastically, which prompted a joyful chorus of laughter from the two of them.
“Unfortunately that is irrelevant. Get up soldier,” she said. He obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and when he emerged from the head, freshly showered and dressed for the day she was waiting for him on their couch, fuel consumption reports in hand.
“Lee is coming with you to the meeting?” he asked casually. He worried that she was overdoing it, despite her insistence that she was letting Lee do the heavy lifting.
“Yes, I am going to meet him there,” she answered with a knowing smile. He was just too easy to read at times.
He tipped her head upwards so that he could capture her still-smirking lips in a searing kiss. She whimpered when his tongue swiped her lower lip, moaned when his kiss became deep and downright devious.
“I’ll meet you in the ward room after,” he said as they parted. “We can have lunch together?” His suggestion was endearingly hopeful.
“You’re not rearranging your day just to coincide with mine, now are you Admiral?” she asked with a pointed look. “Because that is how rumors get started,” she said with a wink.
“The Admiral wouldn’t dream of it. Bill, on the other hand, would very much like to have an excuse to spend some time with you this afternoon,” he said.
“Well, please inform him that Laura accepts his invitation.”
They held hands, all the way to the hatch, until decorum dictated that they part.
“Until later.” Bill winked at her, and she felt heart skip a beat.
She could hardly wait.
IV.
“You did what?” Laura’s voice was calm, even; each word was perfectly enunciated. Inside, she was consumed by rage. It burnt low in her stomach, swirling and spreading until every limb felt as though it were alight with it.
“I assigned two more security details to you, for your-“
“And who are you to make such a decision? Why wasn’t this ever brought up to me for my approval?” Laura paced angrily, back and forth.
“I am the Admiral of the Fleet, and as such, the security of the President is my utmost concern,” he growled. “I felt that it was necessary, frak that, long overdue, that you have a proper security team following you.”
The look that she threw his way could have melted a hole through the hull of the Galactica.
She knew why he was acting this way; part of her couldn’t blame him. Part of her wanted to throttle him, the other part of her wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him stupid.
Truthfully, she had been rather lucky that in her years as President, the assassination attempts had been absolutely zero; until last week. Laura had been enjoying a walk through the halls of the ship; something of a ritual for her as of lately, when a young man had attacked her. She recalled turning a corner, then being tackled by the body weight of someone much younger and stronger before blacking out. She woke on one of Cottle’s gurneys about an hour later to find a white-faced and guilt ridden Bill clutching her hand like he was afraid that she would disappear if he let go.
The young man had been thrown in the brig, but before anyone could properly question him, he had committed suicide; dry swallowing a pill that he had concealed on his person, which was assumed to have been poisonous.
“He wasn’t working alone Laura,” Bill implored. “That means that there are more people out there, looking to harm you. Obviously their own lives are of no consequence to them, they won’t stop until they’ve accomplished their task.”
“Bill,” she cupped his face between her hands. “I don’t want to spend the little time that I have left here being treated like a prisoner. As it is, I hate that I can’t go anywhere without drawing attention to myself. I am done being the President, I want to be Laura. Just Laura,” she said.
Your lover. Your partner. I want to walk hand in hand with you on your ship, kiss you silly in front of your crew and not give a frak about what everyone might think.
“You’re not just Laura. You’re Laura Roslin, President of what is left of humanity, leader to an entire civilization of broken, lost souls. You are a symbol to these people, and you are too precious for me to let some whack-job take you out,” he said resolutely. “When they called me to tell me what happened, I…”
I nearly died myself. My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe that I was going to lose you so soon after finding you.
“Okay, okay,” she whispered. She chased the tears on his face with kisses, ran her fingers through his hair and let him hold her so, so close to him.
“Every day, I have to face the thought of losing you. Every day I get threats against your life, I get Cottle ringing me, yelling at me for not forcing you to see him,” he confessed in the crook of her neck, “I don’t know how to keep you safe from yourself, from your own stubbornness. Please,” he begged.
Laura bit her lip guiltily; she knew just how difficult she could be with him.
“I know,” she said, “I know. Okay, you’re right,” she sighed. She felt the tension in his shoulders and back lessen a bit.
He pulled back slightly from her embrace. “If it were really up to me, I’ll have you know that I would be your personal security, and I wouldn’t let you out of my sight,” he said.
Laura lightly caressed the lines and grooves in his face with her thumbs, wishing, not for the first time, that she could extract the guilt and sorrow that permeated his very soul. “That’s an arrangement that I could really support,” she said softly. “But I think that my security guard might get a bit sick of me.”
“Never,” he said seriously.
Eternity herself couldn’t give them enough time.
V.
Her eyes followed his hands as they travelled across her body.
She loved his hands.
Loved that hands, so capable of destruction and death, were also capable of being so gentle and loving. She loved how his darker skin contrasted with her pale and freckled body, loved how right it felt to have his hands on her.
She wished, not for the first time, that she could remain physically joined with him at all times. That her skin could be in contact with his own, always. That she would never have to suffer another second without knowing the feeling of his hands on her skin.
He loved to touch her.
Loved to hold her close and discover, and rediscover every inch of pale flesh on her body. Loved that she allowed him the distinct privilege of touching her, of loving her with his body. Loved that his touch was welcome, wanted, needed.
“You’re going to put me to sleep,” she whispered against his jaw. His hands swept up and down her spine, fingertips tickling each protruding disc.
“Am I boring you?” he asked cheekily.
“Noooo,” she giggled, “that feels so nice,” she sighed against him.
“Good,” he said happily. He knew how difficult it was for her to find peace in her sleep these days. “All a part of the plan,” he assured her.
“Mmmm,” she replied.
The feel of cool metal against her skin prompted a question to tumble out of her mouth.
“Do you miss it? Being married?” She wondered at times if he resented the nature of their relationship. He was a man of tradition, of values and structure; of symbols and vows.
His silence caused a wave of panic to tug at her heart.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“
Her apology was cut short as he carefully removed his hands from her. Her heart sank even deeper.
“What I had, it wasn’t a marriage. We were married, but we didn’t have a marriage,” he said softly.
She felt him slip the oversized band of gold around her finger. His other hand cupped her face.
“We’re not married,” she pointed out practically.
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “But our marriage is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He sealed the lid on the panic in her heart with a chaste kiss.
“Me too,” she admitted with a frantic nod of her head. She met his lips, cheeks, chin, and jaw for a series of furious kisses; these were the only vows that they ever needed to swear to, the merging of their bodies and souls the only ritual that ever needed to be completed.
His ring, slightly too large for her slender fingers fell forward so that it rested somewhere between their clasped hands; held in suspension between his body and her own.
He wrapped her in his arms once more and she slipped peacefully into the realm of slumber with a smile on her face.
His hands never once left their home on her body.