The Adamas/Nixmom's Birthday
Title: Infinite Possibilities
Author: afrakaday
Rating: T
Word Count: 1350
A/N: Written for nixmom on the occasion of her birthday! I hope she enjoys my attempt to fit Bill and Laura into her sophisticated view of spacetime and perceiving reality. I am grateful to Daybreak expert rococoms for the beta.
"I don’t want infinite possibilities," complained Bill. He wrapped his arms tighter around Laura, savoring the squeeze of soft curves returned to her lithe frame, now nestled comfortably between his bent legs. "I only want experiences that involve you and me, together."
"Bill, a subset of infinity is still infinite," Laura pointed out practically, her tone evoking her previous life as a schoolteacher. She turned her gaze from him to continue admiring the easterly view of verdant hills, burrowing deeper against his chest. She tried to resolve her conflicting feelings about his presence here, with her; what had he been thinking? She’d always expected to reach this point alone. Yet here he was, so she’d have to explain her thoughts-- cultivated over months and years of sickbay stays, chamalla trips, and diloxin treatments-- on where they were and what lay ahead.
"Any path our lives could have taken, we can experience if we want, as long as we want.” She paused, unsure if she was making any sense to Admiral Atheist, but pressed ahead by appealing to his romantic side. “There are so many ways we could have ended up together, things we could have done or changed; why not enjoy them?"
Struggling to comprehend what she was saying--not only that, but the entirety of this most unexpected circumstance--Bill rested his chin atop her head, once again crowned in hirsute auburn glory. Their time together in life had been curtailed by their respective responsibilities, emotional safeguards that took too long to dismantle, and ultimately their aging bodies; there had been far too little time to live life as people as they might have had they met in another time and place.
Maybe it was a miracle that they had been given this chance to do it all over again, to construct a reality together. Maybe they had earned it by their sacrifice. Maybe he should just accept this stroke of outrageously good fortune-he chuckled at the irony-and live this afterlife with gusto. Maybe not even just "this" afterlife; his mind boggled at the thought of infinite afterlives. But if his reality would be living with Laura, wasn’t just "life" a more appropriate term than "afterlife"?
He recalled her final words: "So much life..." How prescient of her, his presidential prophetess. He’d follow her anywhere.
"I can feel you thinking, Bill," she chided gently. That was usually his line. "Let’s just enjoy this." With a firm hand, she pushed his shoulders back to the ground from their sitting position on the top of a ridge, Raptor remains smoldering nearby, and lowered herself beside him, happily burying her face into the crook of his neck.
***
Bill had been prattling inanely but sincerely about gardening, of all things, as he piloted the Raptor when he corralled his courage sufficiently to look over at Laura. His chest felt torn open again, as if by Boomer’s bullet, when he realized the silent stillness of her frame was incompatible with the rattling wheeze that had provided perverse reassurance that she still breathed. The sight of Laura’s peaceful form, slumped over slightly, rent his very soul. For all he’d known to expect this moment, as incredible as it was that she had even made it to the planet at all, he realized he never could have adequately prepared himself for the sorrow that descended upon him.
Choking back a sob, Bill did the thing he’d wanted to do since ... (he’d met her, their first kiss, she’d moved into his quarters? It had never mattered and it didn’t now.) He’d even dreamed of doing it, while Laura was on the basestar and he fell into a restless sleep in the eerie isolation of his lone Raptor, waiting desperately for her. That seemed a lifetime ago, already. Trembling fingers removed the ring from his left hand. Clasping her still-warm right hand between his, he gently slid the ring down her slender finger, cursing Thanatos--Laura’s god, he reminded himself, not his--for taking her from him.
Images of her as she had been over the course of their acquaintance flashed through his mind. The prim Secretary of Education, infuriating in her affront to him but undeniably attractive going up the ladder tube; surprisingly pliant in his arms as they danced for the first time; sitting next to him on his couch, drink in hand, shoes by the door, the day’s troubles lifting from her tense shoulders; frail and gleeful as she made him an admiral; all confident competence in the debate before the election, belying the giggling fit that had caused her to collapse against him just minutes before....
Glowingly beautiful in the New Caprican sunlight, her inviting smile testing his resolve; resolutely repatriating the mantle of leadership, suddenly remote despite their physical proximity; grasping his arm as she reclined in his shadowy rack; grasping his cock as they fooled around in her rack; all bright eyes and long lashes as she’d finally confessed her love for him....
He cried for all the times he’d ever pushed her away, for the moments he wished he’d told her he loved her. For the moments that they’d had, and the ones they never would.
In his distraction, Bill didn’t register the rhythmic buzzing sounds emanating from the Raptor control panel. A feeling of unease swooped through his stomach and settled in his toes, as a rumbling turbulence brought him back to the present. Full-fledged panic set in as he tried to make sense of the situation before him, his shaking hands punching futilely at various buttons and throttles. Had he remembered to set the navigation to autopilot? Or had it still been in manual when he’d abandoned the controls to make this last offering to Laura? Maybe there was a problem with the gimbal? He wasn’t used to flying in atmospheric conditions, and in his current emotional state, he was utterly incapable of remembering how to compensate for the increased gravity. The ground rose beneath the spacecraft, determined to swallow it up.
As Bill gave up any further attempt to control the thrusters in favor of holding Laura’s lifeless hand, his last thought was serene: "I would have built the cabin right here."
***
Laura drew lazy patterns on his chest. Sliding her hand through the uniform buttons to reach under the material, she gasped in surprise upon encountering an expanse of smooth, unscarred skin.
"Bill! Your zipper’s gone!" she said in wonder.
He smirked at her word choice. "You’re surprised, but that’s probably just because you haven’t seen yourself yet. Looking pretty spiffy there, Laura."
She examined her hand closely; he was right, the skin was smooth and unlined, the veins less prominent than they’d been when they were regularly being used to transport poison throughout her body. Scrunching her face in contemplation, she tugged aside the neckline of her white wrap shirt to prod her left breast. No lumps; death had healed that, too.
Rising from the ground, Laura stretched gracefully, catlike. "I feel fantastic," she announced. "What do you want to do?" She’d forgotten the sensation of the absence of pain, and it was invigorating. They could go anywhere, do anything, see anyone from their pasts-- the possibilities were staggering, and she found herself overwhelmed by wanting to do everything at once.
Bill looked around them; no signs of anything, anywhere, save for the smoke rising from the Raptor further down the hill. "Should we do something about our bodies? They are probably still in there," he said uncertainly, gesturing toward the smoke. Hadn’t Kara said something about finding her body, burning it...?
Laura shuddered. "Ugh. No. We have infinite possibilities, remember? Why would we do something so macabre?"
Catching her hand in his, Bill conceded. "Nothing we need in there anyway," he said, rubbing his fingers over the gold ring he’d given her, before. "Not sure how this got here, but I’m glad it did, Mrs. Adama."
She beamed at him. "Me too," she agreed easily. She rose onto her toes to give him a sweet kiss as they blinked into the next of an infinite number of universes to explore--together.
Author: afrakaday
Rating: T
Word Count: 1350
A/N: Written for nixmom on the occasion of her birthday! I hope she enjoys my attempt to fit Bill and Laura into her sophisticated view of spacetime and perceiving reality. I am grateful to Daybreak expert rococoms for the beta.
"I don’t want infinite possibilities," complained Bill. He wrapped his arms tighter around Laura, savoring the squeeze of soft curves returned to her lithe frame, now nestled comfortably between his bent legs. "I only want experiences that involve you and me, together."
"Bill, a subset of infinity is still infinite," Laura pointed out practically, her tone evoking her previous life as a schoolteacher. She turned her gaze from him to continue admiring the easterly view of verdant hills, burrowing deeper against his chest. She tried to resolve her conflicting feelings about his presence here, with her; what had he been thinking? She’d always expected to reach this point alone. Yet here he was, so she’d have to explain her thoughts-- cultivated over months and years of sickbay stays, chamalla trips, and diloxin treatments-- on where they were and what lay ahead.
"Any path our lives could have taken, we can experience if we want, as long as we want.” She paused, unsure if she was making any sense to Admiral Atheist, but pressed ahead by appealing to his romantic side. “There are so many ways we could have ended up together, things we could have done or changed; why not enjoy them?"
Struggling to comprehend what she was saying--not only that, but the entirety of this most unexpected circumstance--Bill rested his chin atop her head, once again crowned in hirsute auburn glory. Their time together in life had been curtailed by their respective responsibilities, emotional safeguards that took too long to dismantle, and ultimately their aging bodies; there had been far too little time to live life as people as they might have had they met in another time and place.
Maybe it was a miracle that they had been given this chance to do it all over again, to construct a reality together. Maybe they had earned it by their sacrifice. Maybe he should just accept this stroke of outrageously good fortune-he chuckled at the irony-and live this afterlife with gusto. Maybe not even just "this" afterlife; his mind boggled at the thought of infinite afterlives. But if his reality would be living with Laura, wasn’t just "life" a more appropriate term than "afterlife"?
He recalled her final words: "So much life..." How prescient of her, his presidential prophetess. He’d follow her anywhere.
"I can feel you thinking, Bill," she chided gently. That was usually his line. "Let’s just enjoy this." With a firm hand, she pushed his shoulders back to the ground from their sitting position on the top of a ridge, Raptor remains smoldering nearby, and lowered herself beside him, happily burying her face into the crook of his neck.
***
Bill had been prattling inanely but sincerely about gardening, of all things, as he piloted the Raptor when he corralled his courage sufficiently to look over at Laura. His chest felt torn open again, as if by Boomer’s bullet, when he realized the silent stillness of her frame was incompatible with the rattling wheeze that had provided perverse reassurance that she still breathed. The sight of Laura’s peaceful form, slumped over slightly, rent his very soul. For all he’d known to expect this moment, as incredible as it was that she had even made it to the planet at all, he realized he never could have adequately prepared himself for the sorrow that descended upon him.
Choking back a sob, Bill did the thing he’d wanted to do since ... (he’d met her, their first kiss, she’d moved into his quarters? It had never mattered and it didn’t now.) He’d even dreamed of doing it, while Laura was on the basestar and he fell into a restless sleep in the eerie isolation of his lone Raptor, waiting desperately for her. That seemed a lifetime ago, already. Trembling fingers removed the ring from his left hand. Clasping her still-warm right hand between his, he gently slid the ring down her slender finger, cursing Thanatos--Laura’s god, he reminded himself, not his--for taking her from him.
Images of her as she had been over the course of their acquaintance flashed through his mind. The prim Secretary of Education, infuriating in her affront to him but undeniably attractive going up the ladder tube; surprisingly pliant in his arms as they danced for the first time; sitting next to him on his couch, drink in hand, shoes by the door, the day’s troubles lifting from her tense shoulders; frail and gleeful as she made him an admiral; all confident competence in the debate before the election, belying the giggling fit that had caused her to collapse against him just minutes before....
Glowingly beautiful in the New Caprican sunlight, her inviting smile testing his resolve; resolutely repatriating the mantle of leadership, suddenly remote despite their physical proximity; grasping his arm as she reclined in his shadowy rack; grasping his cock as they fooled around in her rack; all bright eyes and long lashes as she’d finally confessed her love for him....
He cried for all the times he’d ever pushed her away, for the moments he wished he’d told her he loved her. For the moments that they’d had, and the ones they never would.
In his distraction, Bill didn’t register the rhythmic buzzing sounds emanating from the Raptor control panel. A feeling of unease swooped through his stomach and settled in his toes, as a rumbling turbulence brought him back to the present. Full-fledged panic set in as he tried to make sense of the situation before him, his shaking hands punching futilely at various buttons and throttles. Had he remembered to set the navigation to autopilot? Or had it still been in manual when he’d abandoned the controls to make this last offering to Laura? Maybe there was a problem with the gimbal? He wasn’t used to flying in atmospheric conditions, and in his current emotional state, he was utterly incapable of remembering how to compensate for the increased gravity. The ground rose beneath the spacecraft, determined to swallow it up.
As Bill gave up any further attempt to control the thrusters in favor of holding Laura’s lifeless hand, his last thought was serene: "I would have built the cabin right here."
***
Laura drew lazy patterns on his chest. Sliding her hand through the uniform buttons to reach under the material, she gasped in surprise upon encountering an expanse of smooth, unscarred skin.
"Bill! Your zipper’s gone!" she said in wonder.
He smirked at her word choice. "You’re surprised, but that’s probably just because you haven’t seen yourself yet. Looking pretty spiffy there, Laura."
She examined her hand closely; he was right, the skin was smooth and unlined, the veins less prominent than they’d been when they were regularly being used to transport poison throughout her body. Scrunching her face in contemplation, she tugged aside the neckline of her white wrap shirt to prod her left breast. No lumps; death had healed that, too.
Rising from the ground, Laura stretched gracefully, catlike. "I feel fantastic," she announced. "What do you want to do?" She’d forgotten the sensation of the absence of pain, and it was invigorating. They could go anywhere, do anything, see anyone from their pasts-- the possibilities were staggering, and she found herself overwhelmed by wanting to do everything at once.
Bill looked around them; no signs of anything, anywhere, save for the smoke rising from the Raptor further down the hill. "Should we do something about our bodies? They are probably still in there," he said uncertainly, gesturing toward the smoke. Hadn’t Kara said something about finding her body, burning it...?
Laura shuddered. "Ugh. No. We have infinite possibilities, remember? Why would we do something so macabre?"
Catching her hand in his, Bill conceded. "Nothing we need in there anyway," he said, rubbing his fingers over the gold ring he’d given her, before. "Not sure how this got here, but I’m glad it did, Mrs. Adama."
She beamed at him. "Me too," she agreed easily. She rose onto her toes to give him a sweet kiss as they blinked into the next of an infinite number of universes to explore--together.