Fic: Dreams of Peace
Title: Dreams of Peace
Pairing: Adama/Roslin (background Kara/Lee)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 650
Summary: Bill watches Laura as they wander, stoned, through a dream. Written for the bsg_epics Pentathalon!
The sand under their feet was hard and packed, but when Bill scooped it up in his hands it slid right through his fingers. Bill shook his head at Laura, awe in his eyes, and she laughed. “It’s like...” he slurred, “it’s like the universe. All the stars, and from a distance they’re just this one vast thing but when you get close...” He held his hands between them in fists, then splayed his fingers open like fireworks.
“You,” Laura answered emphatically, “are stoned!” She kicked off her shoes and twirled away across the sand, her dress spinning out around her knees.
His chest was tight with sudden understanding: she was the same, just one woman in all the heavens that he’d gotten close enough to to see that she was a star.
“Bill!” Laura sang out. “Are you coming?”
He laughed and followed her.
*
“Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace!”
The stars themselves seemed to be shouting as Bill and Laura wandered through the night hand in hand, but Laura stopped and pointed, giggling. When Kara’s matching cry seemed to send stars shooting, Bill followed her gaze into the darkness, sudden tears in his eyes.
Laura turned back, smiling fondly at his expression. “We’re alive again,” she murmured.
“Do you remember when I kissed you?” he asked, squeezing her hand.
“Mmm,” Laura sighed, then tilted her chin up and asked archly,“You know I don’t have the power to grant promotions anymore, right?”
Bill laughed then, delighted with her. “In a time of war...in a time of war you have to act. Admitting it, saying things out loud...there’s no time.”
“So no action in peacetime, huh?” Laura bumped his shoulder with hers, her eyes still bright.
He looked out across the dunes, which seemed to ripple reassuringly in the moonlight. “In peacetime you can let yourself feel.” He glanced back at her. “And dream.”
Her hand was so soft in his. Soft and fragile even though he knew her strength. He might have kissed her then, but Lee and Kara’s moans were growing louder, and instead he dragged Laura away as she erupted in laughter.
*
It had been a long, long time since he’d felt so open, since he’d felt the night air cool in his lungs or the warm weight of a woman against his side.
“What are you dreaming?” Laura asked after a while, passing him the third - fourth? - joint she’d rolled.
Bill hugged her against him with one arm, kissing her temple before turning to take a long, slow drag. “I was dreaming that the war was over.”
Laura hummed in amusement. “And if it is?”
He met her eyes, a flush suffusing his cheeks, either from the drugs or from all the things he was suddenly dreaming. “I might have a few declarations of my own.” This time when he kissed Laura it wasn’t chaste, or mournful, or farewell. This time she kissed him back, parting her lips, tossing the joint across the sand as she pulled him against her.
*
Months later, pacing the halls of his empty ship, Bill catalogs those moments, blurred as they are by drugs and emotion. He remembers the taste of Laura’s skin and her bright, giddy laughter, and how good it felt to even dream that the war might be over.
Outside the windows of the empty observation room, the stars are at a distance once more, the human ships drifting tiny and meaningless among them. It’s hard to know if anything he remembers was real.
Lee reminds him, far too often, that everyone back on New Caprica might be dead. In his eyes, Bill sees his own pain, remembers the joy in his son’s voice that night. Even when his heart is rife with worry and doubt, he believes for both of them, tells Lee what they both need to hear: they’re still alive, and it’s a time of action.
Pairing: Adama/Roslin (background Kara/Lee)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 650
Summary: Bill watches Laura as they wander, stoned, through a dream. Written for the bsg_epics Pentathalon!
The sand under their feet was hard and packed, but when Bill scooped it up in his hands it slid right through his fingers. Bill shook his head at Laura, awe in his eyes, and she laughed. “It’s like...” he slurred, “it’s like the universe. All the stars, and from a distance they’re just this one vast thing but when you get close...” He held his hands between them in fists, then splayed his fingers open like fireworks.
“You,” Laura answered emphatically, “are stoned!” She kicked off her shoes and twirled away across the sand, her dress spinning out around her knees.
His chest was tight with sudden understanding: she was the same, just one woman in all the heavens that he’d gotten close enough to to see that she was a star.
“Bill!” Laura sang out. “Are you coming?”
He laughed and followed her.
*
“Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace!”
The stars themselves seemed to be shouting as Bill and Laura wandered through the night hand in hand, but Laura stopped and pointed, giggling. When Kara’s matching cry seemed to send stars shooting, Bill followed her gaze into the darkness, sudden tears in his eyes.
Laura turned back, smiling fondly at his expression. “We’re alive again,” she murmured.
“Do you remember when I kissed you?” he asked, squeezing her hand.
“Mmm,” Laura sighed, then tilted her chin up and asked archly,“You know I don’t have the power to grant promotions anymore, right?”
Bill laughed then, delighted with her. “In a time of war...in a time of war you have to act. Admitting it, saying things out loud...there’s no time.”
“So no action in peacetime, huh?” Laura bumped his shoulder with hers, her eyes still bright.
He looked out across the dunes, which seemed to ripple reassuringly in the moonlight. “In peacetime you can let yourself feel.” He glanced back at her. “And dream.”
Her hand was so soft in his. Soft and fragile even though he knew her strength. He might have kissed her then, but Lee and Kara’s moans were growing louder, and instead he dragged Laura away as she erupted in laughter.
*
It had been a long, long time since he’d felt so open, since he’d felt the night air cool in his lungs or the warm weight of a woman against his side.
“What are you dreaming?” Laura asked after a while, passing him the third - fourth? - joint she’d rolled.
Bill hugged her against him with one arm, kissing her temple before turning to take a long, slow drag. “I was dreaming that the war was over.”
Laura hummed in amusement. “And if it is?”
He met her eyes, a flush suffusing his cheeks, either from the drugs or from all the things he was suddenly dreaming. “I might have a few declarations of my own.” This time when he kissed Laura it wasn’t chaste, or mournful, or farewell. This time she kissed him back, parting her lips, tossing the joint across the sand as she pulled him against her.
*
Months later, pacing the halls of his empty ship, Bill catalogs those moments, blurred as they are by drugs and emotion. He remembers the taste of Laura’s skin and her bright, giddy laughter, and how good it felt to even dream that the war might be over.
Outside the windows of the empty observation room, the stars are at a distance once more, the human ships drifting tiny and meaningless among them. It’s hard to know if anything he remembers was real.
Lee reminds him, far too often, that everyone back on New Caprica might be dead. In his eyes, Bill sees his own pain, remembers the joy in his son’s voice that night. Even when his heart is rife with worry and doubt, he believes for both of them, tells Lee what they both need to hear: they’re still alive, and it’s a time of action.