"Closure" - Adama/Roslin Ficlet
Title: Closure
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T
Word Count: 540
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show
A/N: Written for the "second chances" prompt for the Month of Love at adama_roslin.
“Are you sure?” he asked carefully.
Her first response was a gentle kiss to the roughened skin of his cheek, followed by a gentle nudge of her nose against his own. He wrapped his arms tighter around her and she sighed contently.
“I’m sure,” she said after a moment.
They sat, with Laura folded lovingly in Bill’s lap, on the floor; in front of them lay a small stack of journals and a single box of matches. Laura reached out and caressed the spine of the nearest journal, the leather bound pages had been her sanctuary on New Caprica. Now, they felt like a prison of sorts, chaining her to the suffering and loneliness of her past.
“The past is the past Bill. I’m tired, I’m so tired of holding on to what has happened and ignoring what is happening right in front of me.”
He nodded his understanding then paused. When she had asked him, shyly, solemnly, nervously, if he would help her find closure he had eagerly answered in the affirmative. Yet even after she had explained her plan and set up the necessary items, he was unsure what role he would be playing.
“Do you want to do it? Or should I?” he questioned.
“I’d like to do it, but I would appreciate it if you could light the match for me. My hands…”
“Of course.” It was with great care that he handed the burning match to her. “Be careful,” he said, ignoring her affectionate glare.
The pages curled and writhed under the relentless heat of the flame. Laura’s distinct scrawl melted, becoming molten ash before transforming again, into smoke to surround them both. Laura herself seemed to transform, Bill felt a lightness suffuse her entire being as she watched, transfixed as her once-precious journals burned.
“I used to think that by writing everything down I’d be set free,” she said quietly, “I thought that if I could just get everything down on paper, it would leave me. All the anger, the regret, the grief, if I could somehow trap it in paper it would leave me.”
Bill gently rubbed her back as she quietly confessed to him. His fingertips lovingly traced each nodule of her prominent spine.
“But it didn’t, it didn’t leave me. Instead it festered, it got darker, louder. It got so loud that all I could hear at any given time were my own regrets, my own anger.” She shifted in his lap so that she could cup his face.
He regarded her, then turned his attention to the scene in front of them. Laura could see the struggle to understand, to accept, flash across his features. “This…it helps you let go?”
“Yes. It helps me move on; I can’t change the past Bill, none of us can. I can only change how I decide to move forward with what is left of my life.”
He let out a lingering sigh before turning his piercing gaze back to her.
“This is our second chance Bill, probably our last one. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts,” she said softly, into the crook of his neck.
He said nothing, but continued to watch the smoke, their collective pain, rise and then disappear around them.
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T
Word Count: 540
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show
A/N: Written for the "second chances" prompt for the Month of Love at adama_roslin.
“Are you sure?” he asked carefully.
Her first response was a gentle kiss to the roughened skin of his cheek, followed by a gentle nudge of her nose against his own. He wrapped his arms tighter around her and she sighed contently.
“I’m sure,” she said after a moment.
They sat, with Laura folded lovingly in Bill’s lap, on the floor; in front of them lay a small stack of journals and a single box of matches. Laura reached out and caressed the spine of the nearest journal, the leather bound pages had been her sanctuary on New Caprica. Now, they felt like a prison of sorts, chaining her to the suffering and loneliness of her past.
“The past is the past Bill. I’m tired, I’m so tired of holding on to what has happened and ignoring what is happening right in front of me.”
He nodded his understanding then paused. When she had asked him, shyly, solemnly, nervously, if he would help her find closure he had eagerly answered in the affirmative. Yet even after she had explained her plan and set up the necessary items, he was unsure what role he would be playing.
“Do you want to do it? Or should I?” he questioned.
“I’d like to do it, but I would appreciate it if you could light the match for me. My hands…”
“Of course.” It was with great care that he handed the burning match to her. “Be careful,” he said, ignoring her affectionate glare.
The pages curled and writhed under the relentless heat of the flame. Laura’s distinct scrawl melted, becoming molten ash before transforming again, into smoke to surround them both. Laura herself seemed to transform, Bill felt a lightness suffuse her entire being as she watched, transfixed as her once-precious journals burned.
“I used to think that by writing everything down I’d be set free,” she said quietly, “I thought that if I could just get everything down on paper, it would leave me. All the anger, the regret, the grief, if I could somehow trap it in paper it would leave me.”
Bill gently rubbed her back as she quietly confessed to him. His fingertips lovingly traced each nodule of her prominent spine.
“But it didn’t, it didn’t leave me. Instead it festered, it got darker, louder. It got so loud that all I could hear at any given time were my own regrets, my own anger.” She shifted in his lap so that she could cup his face.
He regarded her, then turned his attention to the scene in front of them. Laura could see the struggle to understand, to accept, flash across his features. “This…it helps you let go?”
“Yes. It helps me move on; I can’t change the past Bill, none of us can. I can only change how I decide to move forward with what is left of my life.”
He let out a lingering sigh before turning his piercing gaze back to her.
“This is our second chance Bill, probably our last one. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts,” she said softly, into the crook of his neck.
He said nothing, but continued to watch the smoke, their collective pain, rise and then disappear around them.