I don't shine if you don't shine
I'm about to head out for running errands and getting treated to birthday dinner, but in the meantime I have a request. I would really, really love to feel like I can string sentences together; I've been in a creative slump for long enough that it's starting to spread. So... if you leave me a character or two -- or a pairing -- and a specific
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When she's sworn in there's a tremor in her hand that matches the one in her voice. When you're forty-third in the line of succession you never think about what it would take for the Presidency to find its way to you. She allows herself one night, in the relative safety and comfort of her official suite on Colonial One, to think about it, to cleanse herself of the tears that have been creeping up on her all day.
One thing she's sure of is that from today on she is not a person in the eyes of the general public. She will no longer be thought of as someone's colleague, someone's teacher, someone's daughter, sister, friend. Today she becomes President Roslin, and if there's one thing she's sure of it's this: in this new reality they've been handed nobody will care about her feelings. Everyone has something to grieve; everyone has something to fear. Her job will be to make decisions no one wants to deal with, decisions no one has ever had to deal with, and her personal feelings won't matter to anyone but her.
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In theory she'd pay good money not to ever have to replay the look on Bill's face the moment he realizes why she's been feeling so good, and in practice she knows that even though she loves him dearly she will break his heart again and again. As long as it takes. The time for treatments is over. The time for trying to inject herself with false hope is over. What good is stretching your life out as long as you possibly can if the quality of it suffers? She has loved her life, mourned countless people, seen and felt firsthand what happens when life starts to slip away, and no, even now she doesn't want to die. But it will happen, and sooner rather than later. Gods - if they're even out there - know she wants to feel as good as she can until then.
With that in mind, she gives Bill's cheek an affectionate pat before she jogs out into the corridor. "I'll be back. Try not to work too hard, Admiral."
Gods know she wants what she's feeling to matter.
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This is gorgeous! Poor Laura :( Your first part is so very much how I see her feeling most of the way through the show.
I love that last line so much.
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I love your brain dump about her at Epics! I kept reading it and thinking oh, that's our Laura! all the way through.
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You wrote her beautifully!
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