Airing Out The Laundry, for misscam
Title: Airing Out The Laundry
Author: flamingo55
Summary: Lee needs to learn how to knock.
Characters: Lee Adama, Bill Adama, Laura Roslin
Pairings: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T/M.
Warnings: None, unless sex at all squicks you out.
Title, Author and URL of original story: Sleeping With Your Laundry by misscam. http://misscam.livejournal.com/320344.html
Beta Thanks: zaleti, without whom this would be a disastrous mishmash of verb tenses.
Author Notes: When I was assigned to remix misscam, my first thought was, “Great! I love her fics!” My second thought was “Oh no - her stuff is fabulous, I’ll just mess it up.” After much deliberation, I selected this story because I love the original, and I thought looking at the, uh, situation from Lee’s perspective would be fun. (And it was!) I hope I’ve done it justice. :)
At the age of six, Lee Adama came home from school one day to see his father’s uniform jacket on a chair. Thrilled that he’d been granted his shore leave three days early, Lee ran upstairs with a big smile and quietly opened the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall, hoping to surprise his dad.
It was Lee who got the surprise.
Laundry, his flustered mother had said, yanking the sheet up to her chest while his father hightailed it into the bathroom. All of Bill’s clothes had been dirty when he’d returned, so she’d put them in the laundry, and hers as well. Laundry - and then a nap.
Lee had been running back out the door when his father had emerged a moment later, a towel wrapped around his waist, clearly fuming. Lee had thought that the anger was directed at him, but years later, replaying that fateful day in his head, he realized that the dark looks were aimed at his mother. He’d never found out exactly why, but he figured it had something to do with the fact that his father never came home again.
Lee didn’t do much smiling after that.
II
Delegate Adama rushes down Galactica’s corridor, seeking a last-minute opinion from the President before his next meeting. Nodding to the familiar guards posted outside his father’s quarters, he pushes the hatch open, still staring at the file in his hand, and quickly closes it behind him without looking up, automatically walking toward the table where the President and her files seem to be a permanent fixture these days.
Not today.
Puzzled, he stands still for a second, realizing that there is movement on the other side of the room. He turns around, but before he can say a word he is struck dumb by what he sees.
Oh my Gods, she really is bald.
Later, he will be embarrassed that that was his first thought on seeing Laura Roslin lying naked atop his father on the couch, and will chalk it up to the time his brain took to process the unexpected sight.
They are unquestionably frakking, and both are so into it that they have failed to register his presence. He knows he should go, turn and slip out before they see him, but he is rooted to the spot. Stock-still, he stands with the file still open in his hands, unable to speak or move as he watches their hips move in tandem, his father’s dark hands caressing the creamy skin of Roslin’s back.
It is she who catches sight of him first, paling slightly as she calls his father’s attention to the fact that they have an audience.
His dad’s face must be a mirror of his own, he thinks, and for several of the longest seconds of his life they stare at one another with a mixture of confusion and horror.
He watches as the normally unflappable President grabs at the blanket beneath them, but it is hopelessly tangled. In any event, there’s no denying what they’re doing, so finally, she laughs. The sound breaks the tension and he hears a low chuckle join the soft giggle. They’ve stopped looking at him now and are gazing at one another, smiling as though he wasn’t even there.
The realization that they are not about to stop, or separate, or apologize, or anything finally jolts Lee into action. “I should come back later,” he announces, and they barely pause in their cuddling and giggling to agree. Before they can start moving again, he flees, the sound of laughter echoing in the cabin as he closes the hatch as quickly as possible.
II
Lee dispenses with the Caprican delegation meeting as rapidly as he can without offending anyone. Immediately after, of their own accord, his feet carry him to Joe’s Bar and plant him on the nearest stool, his head in his hands.
“Want to talk about it?” the bartender asks, placing a shot in front of him.
“Gods, no,” Lee says, rubbing his forehead and tossing back the shot. “Another,” he asks, tapping the glass on the bar. He tosses that one back, too, and then nurses a third as he tries, with no success, to clear his mind. He polishes off the last of the alcohol, throws some cubits on the counter, and heads back to his quarters.
II
The images don’t fade as he tosses and turns. After a while, however, Lee realizes that it’s not the sight that greeted him on his arrival that he keeps replaying, but the sight he left behind at his hasty departure. No anger, this time - only laughter, and the happiest look he’s ever seen on his father’s face. He tries again to make sense of it - The President of the Twelve Colonies and the Admiral of the Fleet grinning at each other like infatuated teenagers, hardly caring that they’d been caught frakking.
Lee sighs and turns away from the wall. Living for years in pilots’ quarters he’d stumbled in on many a couple who’d forgotten, or not bothered, to put boots outside the door. But he can’t seem to recall ever having felt the same way as he had that afternoon - as though he’d not only interrupted, but intruded.
Something finally clicks.
He hadn’t walked in on two people frakking, he’d witnessed his father and Laura making love. All the little clues he’s pushed to the edge of his mind over the past few weeks - the courtroom outburst, the amount of time Bill spends at her side down in sickbay - suddenly coalesce into one blindingly obvious truth: his father was in love with Laura Roslin. Gods, how could he not have seen it before?
He sighs again and looks at the time - nearly oh-three-hundred. Flopping onto his back, he rubs his eyes, succumbing to exhaustion as he fights a war with himself. Delegate Adama abhors the appearance of impropriety. Bill’s eldest son is happy that his father has someone to share his burdens with. And Leland Joseph pouts that nobody told him.
He finally falls asleep, a single image overshadowing all the others.
They were smiling.
II
Two days later, Lee finds himself about to have a conversation with his father that threatens to surpass “the talk” in awkwardness. He stands in the middle of the room, in nearly the same spot he’d been in on that day, and accepts the large glass of whiskey his father offers. He watches as Bill sinks down on the couch, thinks briefly about sitting in a chair instead, realizes he’s being ridiculous, and joins him on the leather.
“Son, I - ” Bill begins, but Lee cuts him off.
“Dad, you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to say anything,” he says quickly, going straight to the heart of the matter.
Bill’s relief is palpable as he sips at his own drink. “I appreciate that.” He pauses, and then continues with a grin. “You might want to think about knocking, though.”
Lee smiles as well. “You can be sure I’ll be banging loudly on the hatch next time.” He looks sideways at Bill as a sudden thought strikes him. “Who else knows?”
“No one,” Bill replies simply. “Tory and Cottle suspect, I’m sure. The guards probably do too.”
Lee nods, and they both fall silent as he struggles to put his thoughts into words. “I can’t believe you’re not mad. Last time… with Mom…”
The memory hits Bill like a punch to the stomach, and he grimaces. “That had nothing to do with you.” At Lee’s pointed expression, he continues with a sigh, “I came home from six months in space to find another man’s toothbrush and razor lined up next to my sink.”
Now it is Lee who feels punched in the gut, though the news is only confirmation of what he has long suspected. He nods silently, finally feeling twinges of empathy for the man he’s always blamed for walking out on his family.
“I can’t believe you’re not mad,” Bill says, after some time. Lee’s head snaps up at the comment, a puzzled expression on his face. “The Admiral frakking the President? Appalling, isn’t it?” Bill finishes his drink and stares at his son, challenging him to agree.
A charged silence hangs between them until Lee at last breaks it. “You love her, don’t you?” he asks quietly, and Bill is so taken aback by the turn of the conversation that he can do nothing but stare.
“I’ve never seen you smile at anyone - not me, not Zak, especially not Mom, the way you were smiling at her,” Lee explains.
Bill’s expression softens at the mere mention of Laura, and he nods almost imperceptibly, unable to keep a grin from peeking through. Lee allows himself to be happy that his father has found someone to love on this gods-forsaken journey, then he knocks back the whiskey and stands to leave. “I’ll see you later, Dad,” he says, and departs, his father still smiling wistfully behind him.
II
Five more days pass before he sits down with the President. They’d repeatedly tried to schedule a time, but between meetings and treatments, it hadn’t been possible.
Treatments, he thinks as he approaches her office, and wonders if they’re working. Like so many other things, his father hasn’t shared that information. The guards wave him through the curtain, and he sees her, sitting calmly at her desk. He takes a chair in front of it and stares at the clutter on her desk, refusing to meet her eyes. He’s marginally comforted by the fact that the President (Laura, he thinks, deciding that, given the circumstances, it’s probably all right to think of her that way) seems just as awkward as he feels, even calling his father “the Admiral” in an attempt to distance herself from the situation. He allows himself to relax a little as he corrects her, finally looking up.
It’s the wig that prompts him to say what he says next. The wig that still startles him every time he sees it. The wig that reminds him that she’s going to leave his father. That she’s going to leave him. Hurt, he callously asks her to predict the date of her own death, then regrets the question when he sees the look on her face.
“Dad’s not great at letting go,” he tells her, by way of apology. It’s a lame one and he knows it, but she agrees with him. He can see from the look in her eyes that she’s even more worried about what her death will do to his father than he is. She loves him, too, he realizes.
He looks at her, this woman who is now the closest thing he has to a mother, and he needs her to understand. “He’s not great at letting in, either,” he begins. “He could have…I shouldn’t have to walk in to know he’s…He should have told me.” Laura just watches him, as the man he’s trying to become struggles to ignore the hurt little boy who wants to lash out.
Maturity wins in the end, but it’s a near thing. He knows he should be bothered by the relationship, but he can’t bring himself to feel that way. They make each other happy and that’s all that matters to him, and he tells her so.
“Thank you, Delegate Apollo,” she says, and he smiles at her deliberate misuse of his old call sign.
She’s part of his family, now.
II
He sees them together a few days later, exiting the Ward Room. Laura is obviously irritated, waving her hands animatedly as she talks. Bill nods silently and listens, then finally catches her hand and stills it, leaning in to speak quietly into her ear. Lee can’t hear what he says, but he can see her response. She turns her head slightly and smiles up at his father, who is already beaming back.
Disappearing around the corner, Lee smiles too.
FIN
Author: flamingo55
Summary: Lee needs to learn how to knock.
Characters: Lee Adama, Bill Adama, Laura Roslin
Pairings: Adama/Roslin
Rating: T/M.
Warnings: None, unless sex at all squicks you out.
Title, Author and URL of original story: Sleeping With Your Laundry by misscam. http://misscam.livejournal.com/320344.html
Beta Thanks: zaleti, without whom this would be a disastrous mishmash of verb tenses.
Author Notes: When I was assigned to remix misscam, my first thought was, “Great! I love her fics!” My second thought was “Oh no - her stuff is fabulous, I’ll just mess it up.” After much deliberation, I selected this story because I love the original, and I thought looking at the, uh, situation from Lee’s perspective would be fun. (And it was!) I hope I’ve done it justice. :)
At the age of six, Lee Adama came home from school one day to see his father’s uniform jacket on a chair. Thrilled that he’d been granted his shore leave three days early, Lee ran upstairs with a big smile and quietly opened the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall, hoping to surprise his dad.
It was Lee who got the surprise.
Laundry, his flustered mother had said, yanking the sheet up to her chest while his father hightailed it into the bathroom. All of Bill’s clothes had been dirty when he’d returned, so she’d put them in the laundry, and hers as well. Laundry - and then a nap.
Lee had been running back out the door when his father had emerged a moment later, a towel wrapped around his waist, clearly fuming. Lee had thought that the anger was directed at him, but years later, replaying that fateful day in his head, he realized that the dark looks were aimed at his mother. He’d never found out exactly why, but he figured it had something to do with the fact that his father never came home again.
Lee didn’t do much smiling after that.
II
Delegate Adama rushes down Galactica’s corridor, seeking a last-minute opinion from the President before his next meeting. Nodding to the familiar guards posted outside his father’s quarters, he pushes the hatch open, still staring at the file in his hand, and quickly closes it behind him without looking up, automatically walking toward the table where the President and her files seem to be a permanent fixture these days.
Not today.
Puzzled, he stands still for a second, realizing that there is movement on the other side of the room. He turns around, but before he can say a word he is struck dumb by what he sees.
Oh my Gods, she really is bald.
Later, he will be embarrassed that that was his first thought on seeing Laura Roslin lying naked atop his father on the couch, and will chalk it up to the time his brain took to process the unexpected sight.
They are unquestionably frakking, and both are so into it that they have failed to register his presence. He knows he should go, turn and slip out before they see him, but he is rooted to the spot. Stock-still, he stands with the file still open in his hands, unable to speak or move as he watches their hips move in tandem, his father’s dark hands caressing the creamy skin of Roslin’s back.
It is she who catches sight of him first, paling slightly as she calls his father’s attention to the fact that they have an audience.
His dad’s face must be a mirror of his own, he thinks, and for several of the longest seconds of his life they stare at one another with a mixture of confusion and horror.
He watches as the normally unflappable President grabs at the blanket beneath them, but it is hopelessly tangled. In any event, there’s no denying what they’re doing, so finally, she laughs. The sound breaks the tension and he hears a low chuckle join the soft giggle. They’ve stopped looking at him now and are gazing at one another, smiling as though he wasn’t even there.
The realization that they are not about to stop, or separate, or apologize, or anything finally jolts Lee into action. “I should come back later,” he announces, and they barely pause in their cuddling and giggling to agree. Before they can start moving again, he flees, the sound of laughter echoing in the cabin as he closes the hatch as quickly as possible.
II
Lee dispenses with the Caprican delegation meeting as rapidly as he can without offending anyone. Immediately after, of their own accord, his feet carry him to Joe’s Bar and plant him on the nearest stool, his head in his hands.
“Want to talk about it?” the bartender asks, placing a shot in front of him.
“Gods, no,” Lee says, rubbing his forehead and tossing back the shot. “Another,” he asks, tapping the glass on the bar. He tosses that one back, too, and then nurses a third as he tries, with no success, to clear his mind. He polishes off the last of the alcohol, throws some cubits on the counter, and heads back to his quarters.
II
The images don’t fade as he tosses and turns. After a while, however, Lee realizes that it’s not the sight that greeted him on his arrival that he keeps replaying, but the sight he left behind at his hasty departure. No anger, this time - only laughter, and the happiest look he’s ever seen on his father’s face. He tries again to make sense of it - The President of the Twelve Colonies and the Admiral of the Fleet grinning at each other like infatuated teenagers, hardly caring that they’d been caught frakking.
Lee sighs and turns away from the wall. Living for years in pilots’ quarters he’d stumbled in on many a couple who’d forgotten, or not bothered, to put boots outside the door. But he can’t seem to recall ever having felt the same way as he had that afternoon - as though he’d not only interrupted, but intruded.
Something finally clicks.
He hadn’t walked in on two people frakking, he’d witnessed his father and Laura making love. All the little clues he’s pushed to the edge of his mind over the past few weeks - the courtroom outburst, the amount of time Bill spends at her side down in sickbay - suddenly coalesce into one blindingly obvious truth: his father was in love with Laura Roslin. Gods, how could he not have seen it before?
He sighs again and looks at the time - nearly oh-three-hundred. Flopping onto his back, he rubs his eyes, succumbing to exhaustion as he fights a war with himself. Delegate Adama abhors the appearance of impropriety. Bill’s eldest son is happy that his father has someone to share his burdens with. And Leland Joseph pouts that nobody told him.
He finally falls asleep, a single image overshadowing all the others.
They were smiling.
II
Two days later, Lee finds himself about to have a conversation with his father that threatens to surpass “the talk” in awkwardness. He stands in the middle of the room, in nearly the same spot he’d been in on that day, and accepts the large glass of whiskey his father offers. He watches as Bill sinks down on the couch, thinks briefly about sitting in a chair instead, realizes he’s being ridiculous, and joins him on the leather.
“Son, I - ” Bill begins, but Lee cuts him off.
“Dad, you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to say anything,” he says quickly, going straight to the heart of the matter.
Bill’s relief is palpable as he sips at his own drink. “I appreciate that.” He pauses, and then continues with a grin. “You might want to think about knocking, though.”
Lee smiles as well. “You can be sure I’ll be banging loudly on the hatch next time.” He looks sideways at Bill as a sudden thought strikes him. “Who else knows?”
“No one,” Bill replies simply. “Tory and Cottle suspect, I’m sure. The guards probably do too.”
Lee nods, and they both fall silent as he struggles to put his thoughts into words. “I can’t believe you’re not mad. Last time… with Mom…”
The memory hits Bill like a punch to the stomach, and he grimaces. “That had nothing to do with you.” At Lee’s pointed expression, he continues with a sigh, “I came home from six months in space to find another man’s toothbrush and razor lined up next to my sink.”
Now it is Lee who feels punched in the gut, though the news is only confirmation of what he has long suspected. He nods silently, finally feeling twinges of empathy for the man he’s always blamed for walking out on his family.
“I can’t believe you’re not mad,” Bill says, after some time. Lee’s head snaps up at the comment, a puzzled expression on his face. “The Admiral frakking the President? Appalling, isn’t it?” Bill finishes his drink and stares at his son, challenging him to agree.
A charged silence hangs between them until Lee at last breaks it. “You love her, don’t you?” he asks quietly, and Bill is so taken aback by the turn of the conversation that he can do nothing but stare.
“I’ve never seen you smile at anyone - not me, not Zak, especially not Mom, the way you were smiling at her,” Lee explains.
Bill’s expression softens at the mere mention of Laura, and he nods almost imperceptibly, unable to keep a grin from peeking through. Lee allows himself to be happy that his father has found someone to love on this gods-forsaken journey, then he knocks back the whiskey and stands to leave. “I’ll see you later, Dad,” he says, and departs, his father still smiling wistfully behind him.
II
Five more days pass before he sits down with the President. They’d repeatedly tried to schedule a time, but between meetings and treatments, it hadn’t been possible.
Treatments, he thinks as he approaches her office, and wonders if they’re working. Like so many other things, his father hasn’t shared that information. The guards wave him through the curtain, and he sees her, sitting calmly at her desk. He takes a chair in front of it and stares at the clutter on her desk, refusing to meet her eyes. He’s marginally comforted by the fact that the President (Laura, he thinks, deciding that, given the circumstances, it’s probably all right to think of her that way) seems just as awkward as he feels, even calling his father “the Admiral” in an attempt to distance herself from the situation. He allows himself to relax a little as he corrects her, finally looking up.
It’s the wig that prompts him to say what he says next. The wig that still startles him every time he sees it. The wig that reminds him that she’s going to leave his father. That she’s going to leave him. Hurt, he callously asks her to predict the date of her own death, then regrets the question when he sees the look on her face.
“Dad’s not great at letting go,” he tells her, by way of apology. It’s a lame one and he knows it, but she agrees with him. He can see from the look in her eyes that she’s even more worried about what her death will do to his father than he is. She loves him, too, he realizes.
He looks at her, this woman who is now the closest thing he has to a mother, and he needs her to understand. “He’s not great at letting in, either,” he begins. “He could have…I shouldn’t have to walk in to know he’s…He should have told me.” Laura just watches him, as the man he’s trying to become struggles to ignore the hurt little boy who wants to lash out.
Maturity wins in the end, but it’s a near thing. He knows he should be bothered by the relationship, but he can’t bring himself to feel that way. They make each other happy and that’s all that matters to him, and he tells her so.
“Thank you, Delegate Apollo,” she says, and he smiles at her deliberate misuse of his old call sign.
She’s part of his family, now.
II
He sees them together a few days later, exiting the Ward Room. Laura is obviously irritated, waving her hands animatedly as she talks. Bill nods silently and listens, then finally catches her hand and stills it, leaning in to speak quietly into her ear. Lee can’t hear what he says, but he can see her response. She turns her head slightly and smiles up at his father, who is already beaming back.
Disappearing around the corner, Lee smiles too.
FIN