when the going gets tough
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Rating: if you're old enough to watch BSG, you're old enough to read this ficlet
Ship: Roslin/Adama
Summary: While struggling to survive on New Caprica, Laura Roslin takes comfort in memories of things that never happened.
A/N: This is for
lupinslittlesis! It's approx. 340 words, and contains spoilers for the first few episodes of Season 3.
She tries not to think about him during the day, and most of the time she succeeds. It's during the day that she has to be strong: for her young students, her fellow teachers, the rebels who chafe under Baltar and the Cylons' regime. Her people.
Even after all these months, Laura Roslin thinks of them as her people, even though most of them chose Gaius Baltar as their leader. She would think of them thus even if she weren't aware of their regret. She has a duty to fulfill, a home to find. That home was never meant to be New Caprica. She has known it all along; her people are realizing it.
She has to appear strong during the day, when her people can see her. At night, however, when she's cocooned in her thin woolen blanket, turning listlessly on her cot, listening to the squeaky springs and the occasional heavy footfall of a centurion on patrol, then she can undo her armor and think of Bill and wish that he were with her.
Or better still, in the cabin she meant to build, by the glass-clear stream she discovered shortly after planetfall. She remembers describing it to him as they lay in the bright sunlight, her cheek against his shoulder, her palm on his broad chest.
Laura Roslin lies in her cot, her arm bent behind her head. Rain patters the tin roof and the wooden slats that surround her tremble in the brisk wind. Elsewhere in the night, Baltar is cavorting with his women, or plotting with the Cylons. Laura is aware of this, but she doesn't intend to give it any serious thought until the morning. For one thing, there's nothing she can do right at this moment. For another…
Her eyes drift closed and she's in that strange, fragile world between waking and dreaming. Bill is with her, solid as a granite cliff. She touches his face, exploring the pitted skin with her fingertips. Slides her fingers into his hair, brings his mouth down to hers.
5/17/2008