Waiting Game (Battlestar Galactica, Adama/Roslin)
So. Um. After this week's episode? Yeah. Wrote this in about an hour.
OH GOD SHOW. I WAS READY TO QUIT YOU AFTER "SINE QUA NON" AND THEN YOU CAME BACK WITH THIS.
Title: Waiting Game
Author: puella_nerdii
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairing: Bill Adama/Laura Roslin
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor spoilers through 4.03 or so.
Prompt: Roslin and Adama: the memory cannot keep me warm / but it never leaves me cold
Wordcount: 1000
Summary: What they've been reduced to.
Laura’s mother wore wigs during the treatment process; so many different styles and colors, one to suit each mood. Reddish-blond with stiff starched curls when she felt youthful, reddish-brown and straight with heavy bangs when she felt pensive, auburn and wavy when she felt vital, short and strawlike and carrot-colored when she felt melancholy, and a kerchief when she felt only pain, spasming wracking aches and pains, the ones the treatment never really ameliorated.
They don’t have that kind of selection available on Galactica, of course. They have synthetic fibers stitched to scratchy caps. She picks one up and examines it under the fluorescents; the highlights should be red, she thinks, but the wig gleams purple, if anything.
“Are these wigs or refurbished mops?” she asks.
Bill chuckles.
“I had no idea these still existed,” she says.
“We salvaged them from a luxury craft,” Bill tells her.
“What does the military need with wigs?”
“You’d be surprised.” He smiles, the crags around his mouth deepening. His eyes are pitted these days, even when he smiles, shadowed and sunken and tired, so tired.
She imagines she looks the same. She’s avoided mirrors lately-she doesn’t have hair to brush, and she knows how to put on lipstick without looking, if she has to. She rubs the lines clustered at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Bill.”
Laura reaches up to her chin, unknots the kerchief tied around her head. The cloth slips free, slides over her head, pools in her hands. She rubs her head before she realizes she’s doing it and feels the skin slide under her fingers, slick with a thin sheen of sweat. The wig goes on over that, over whatever that’s been reduced to. It prickles the way she thought it would, the synthetic hairs rubbing and itching at her scalp, but the scratching’s almost a tickle compared to the rest of it. The transmutation of her bones into paper, the rasping of her breath in her lungs, the creaking and splintering of her ribs as they force themselves out and in and out again.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Beautiful.”
She rubs the bridge of her nose. He’s smiling, but his eyes aren’t.
“So they do teach you how to flatter in the military,” she says.
“I learned that one before I entered the service.”
“Somehow,” she says, “I have a hard time picturing you out of uniform.”
They both laugh at that. The sound echoes through the hull, bounces down the corridor, expands until it fills the silence.
“It’s been a while,” he admits.
“Do you think you’ll get the opportunity again?” she asks, leaning against the wall. The wig rides up on her scalp. She’s only had it a few minutes and she’s already mussing up the layers.
“I hope I remember what to do with myself when that time comes.” Bill looks up, towards the lights. The glare throws his nose into sharp relief.
“You’ll find something to do.” She smiles. “Have you thought about taking up golf?”
“Golf’s too slow,” he says. “Too much of a waiting game.”
“And this isn’t?”
“I’ll be ready for the change,” he says.
***
The monitors’ beeping parallels the cadence of her breathing. Slow, even, measured. But the beeps are effortless, there’s no struggle taking place in the gap between one sound and the next, no question about whether the next noise will come out. She doesn’t say any of this to Bill. She doesn’t need to.
“You’re good at this,” she says.
“Good at what?”
“Reading people to sleep.” Her eyelids, paper-thin and sore, slide over her eyes. It’s cooler like this, in the dark; the burning subsides, fades to a low throb.
“I haven’t done it in years,” he says. “Not since-”
His voice rattles, fades.
Laura steels herself against the way her muscles wrench, twist, contract. “I’m sorry, Bill,” she says.
“You’re not wearing the wig,” Bill says.
“It seems pointless to try to look my best here, doesn’t it?” she asks. She twitches her head to the side-can’t beckon him closer, her hands have to remain where they are, she can’t dislodge the IVs-and he knows how to read that, he leans in closer. “Besides, the frakking thing itches.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His hand covers hers; he squeezes the sides of her hand together just enough to let her know that he’s there.
“I’ve lived through worse.”
“And you’ll live through worse.”
“Oh,” she says, “I have no doubt about that.”
It’s the perfect opportunity for the pain to return, but it doesn’t. The chamalla, and whatever else is in the cocktail floating through her bloodstream now, mutes that much. It mutes other things too, of course. The lights overhead blur at the edges and Bill’s face blends into them, shadows and lines and abstract shapes.
“Laura.”
“Bill.” It’s hard for her to lift her chin enough that she can meet his eyes, her neck protests every jerking movement, but she manages. She’s good at managing.
“You’ve done this before,” he says.
“All this has happened before,” she recites, “all this will happen again.”
“This has nothing to do with Pythia.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“The Scriptures say nothing about a dead leader.”
“They have a lot to say about a dying one.” There’s a kind of comfort in it. It’s been written. She’ll do what she was fated to do, until she dies. She’ll do what she must, and nothing else.
Laura arches her thumb back and rubs the pad of it against Bill’s palm. She can still do that much.
“You trust the prophecies.” He sets the book aside. “I’ll trust Cottle.”
“Then we’ve got all of our bases covered, don’t we? Gaius Baltar’s latest heresies excepted,” she adds, her voice as cotton-dry as her mouth.
Bill grunts, deep in the back of his throat. “I’m fine with leaving Baltar out of this.”
“So am I.”
The monitor stutters and skips a beep. Laura waits.
OH GOD SHOW. I WAS READY TO QUIT YOU AFTER "SINE QUA NON" AND THEN YOU CAME BACK WITH THIS.
Title: Waiting Game
Author: puella_nerdii
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairing: Bill Adama/Laura Roslin
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor spoilers through 4.03 or so.
Prompt: Roslin and Adama: the memory cannot keep me warm / but it never leaves me cold
Wordcount: 1000
Summary: What they've been reduced to.
Laura’s mother wore wigs during the treatment process; so many different styles and colors, one to suit each mood. Reddish-blond with stiff starched curls when she felt youthful, reddish-brown and straight with heavy bangs when she felt pensive, auburn and wavy when she felt vital, short and strawlike and carrot-colored when she felt melancholy, and a kerchief when she felt only pain, spasming wracking aches and pains, the ones the treatment never really ameliorated.
They don’t have that kind of selection available on Galactica, of course. They have synthetic fibers stitched to scratchy caps. She picks one up and examines it under the fluorescents; the highlights should be red, she thinks, but the wig gleams purple, if anything.
“Are these wigs or refurbished mops?” she asks.
Bill chuckles.
“I had no idea these still existed,” she says.
“We salvaged them from a luxury craft,” Bill tells her.
“What does the military need with wigs?”
“You’d be surprised.” He smiles, the crags around his mouth deepening. His eyes are pitted these days, even when he smiles, shadowed and sunken and tired, so tired.
She imagines she looks the same. She’s avoided mirrors lately-she doesn’t have hair to brush, and she knows how to put on lipstick without looking, if she has to. She rubs the lines clustered at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Bill.”
Laura reaches up to her chin, unknots the kerchief tied around her head. The cloth slips free, slides over her head, pools in her hands. She rubs her head before she realizes she’s doing it and feels the skin slide under her fingers, slick with a thin sheen of sweat. The wig goes on over that, over whatever that’s been reduced to. It prickles the way she thought it would, the synthetic hairs rubbing and itching at her scalp, but the scratching’s almost a tickle compared to the rest of it. The transmutation of her bones into paper, the rasping of her breath in her lungs, the creaking and splintering of her ribs as they force themselves out and in and out again.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Beautiful.”
She rubs the bridge of her nose. He’s smiling, but his eyes aren’t.
“So they do teach you how to flatter in the military,” she says.
“I learned that one before I entered the service.”
“Somehow,” she says, “I have a hard time picturing you out of uniform.”
They both laugh at that. The sound echoes through the hull, bounces down the corridor, expands until it fills the silence.
“It’s been a while,” he admits.
“Do you think you’ll get the opportunity again?” she asks, leaning against the wall. The wig rides up on her scalp. She’s only had it a few minutes and she’s already mussing up the layers.
“I hope I remember what to do with myself when that time comes.” Bill looks up, towards the lights. The glare throws his nose into sharp relief.
“You’ll find something to do.” She smiles. “Have you thought about taking up golf?”
“Golf’s too slow,” he says. “Too much of a waiting game.”
“And this isn’t?”
“I’ll be ready for the change,” he says.
***
The monitors’ beeping parallels the cadence of her breathing. Slow, even, measured. But the beeps are effortless, there’s no struggle taking place in the gap between one sound and the next, no question about whether the next noise will come out. She doesn’t say any of this to Bill. She doesn’t need to.
“You’re good at this,” she says.
“Good at what?”
“Reading people to sleep.” Her eyelids, paper-thin and sore, slide over her eyes. It’s cooler like this, in the dark; the burning subsides, fades to a low throb.
“I haven’t done it in years,” he says. “Not since-”
His voice rattles, fades.
Laura steels herself against the way her muscles wrench, twist, contract. “I’m sorry, Bill,” she says.
“You’re not wearing the wig,” Bill says.
“It seems pointless to try to look my best here, doesn’t it?” she asks. She twitches her head to the side-can’t beckon him closer, her hands have to remain where they are, she can’t dislodge the IVs-and he knows how to read that, he leans in closer. “Besides, the frakking thing itches.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His hand covers hers; he squeezes the sides of her hand together just enough to let her know that he’s there.
“I’ve lived through worse.”
“And you’ll live through worse.”
“Oh,” she says, “I have no doubt about that.”
It’s the perfect opportunity for the pain to return, but it doesn’t. The chamalla, and whatever else is in the cocktail floating through her bloodstream now, mutes that much. It mutes other things too, of course. The lights overhead blur at the edges and Bill’s face blends into them, shadows and lines and abstract shapes.
“Laura.”
“Bill.” It’s hard for her to lift her chin enough that she can meet his eyes, her neck protests every jerking movement, but she manages. She’s good at managing.
“You’ve done this before,” he says.
“All this has happened before,” she recites, “all this will happen again.”
“This has nothing to do with Pythia.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“The Scriptures say nothing about a dead leader.”
“They have a lot to say about a dying one.” There’s a kind of comfort in it. It’s been written. She’ll do what she was fated to do, until she dies. She’ll do what she must, and nothing else.
Laura arches her thumb back and rubs the pad of it against Bill’s palm. She can still do that much.
“You trust the prophecies.” He sets the book aside. “I’ll trust Cottle.”
“Then we’ve got all of our bases covered, don’t we? Gaius Baltar’s latest heresies excepted,” she adds, her voice as cotton-dry as her mouth.
Bill grunts, deep in the back of his throat. “I’m fine with leaving Baltar out of this.”
“So am I.”
The monitor stutters and skips a beep. Laura waits.