Defying the Odds (Once More), a BSG fanfic
Long time coming, isn't it? Here's the next part of "Past Lives". Muse got sick from lack of A/R in "No Exit", after all.
Once again, let's slow clap laurawillows for her part in beta-reading this. :]
Title: Defying the Odds (Once More)
Author: Lily Winterwood
Rating: T (or M, if you seriously count the end scene)
Fandom: BSG
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama, Earth!Bill and Laura
Pairings: A/R
Summary: This is "Blood on the Scales" from Laura's point of view. Meanwhile, a group of people on Earth have taken the school where Earth!Laura works hostage...
Disclaimer: I wish I owned BSG.
Defying the Odds (Once More)
“Narcho, Galactica. Hostile Raptor outbound bearing 634N2. Order your flight to engage the target and destroy.”
Laura Roslin’s heart is pounding as she hears that message. “Oh gods,” she murmurs to herself, praying that she (and Bill Adama, who’s trapped in an auxiliary airlock with Colonel Saul Tigh) would be able to evade death once again.
The Viper pilots are chasing them now; one of the pilots is clamoring for them to identify themselves while the other insists on just destroying them first and asking questions later. The Eight coolly sitting in the cockpit exudes confidence, but Laura feels the exact opposite. Behind her, Gaius Baltar is silent.
“Hotdog, Narcho. Destroy the target or disengage. I repeat: destroy the target or disengage!”
At that, Laura loses it and scrambles into the co-pilot seat to find the headset. “This is President Laura Roslin aboard the Raptor. Do not fire!”
~~
Bill sits in his office at the police station, mentally debating whether or not to give his wife Laura a call.
A few moments earlier, Saul had dropped by and notified him that he couldn’t do night patrols anymore. Bill had questioned his colleague and friend extensively on it, but all he got is “Ellen wants me to spend more time with her”.
He sighs, and the phone rings. It is Laura, and she sounds worried.
~~
The frequency is jammed, and Laura feels like yelling in frustration.
“Sit down and hang on!” the Eight exclaims, and Laura does so, albeit reluctantly. A few moments later, even more bad news come. “They’ve got a missile logged onto us!”
Narcho fires and the Eight manages to maneuver the Raptor out of harm’s way and into the Baseship. Laura lets go of the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. They are safe for now.
~~
“Bill,” she whispers urgently. “The school’s in a lockdown right now. There are armed intruders on campus; I think they’re planning to take us hostage. I just wanted you to know so that-” she is suddenly cut off.
“Hello?” Bill asks. There is no reply. “Hello? HELLO?”
It is then he realizes that the phone has lost connection. “LAURA!” he shouts, but this time he knows it’s fruitless.
~~
Tory Foster is the first one of the Cylons to demand an answer. “Why are we under attack?”
The Six is next. “Colonial Vipers are firing at our ship.”
“You’re not under attack. They’re firing at us,” Laura answers. That made the Cylons look even more agitated.
“What did you do?” Tory asks in a voice that sounds more like a mother berating her daughter than a former aide questioning her former employer.
“The government has lost control,” replies the Eight, and Laura finds herself mildly annoyed at that statement, even if it is true.
“The government has not lost control,” she growls, but Baltar quickly shoots that down.
“Excuse me, but how would you describe it, Madame President?” he demands. “Adama’s a fugitive, Gaeta has an army, and Zarek has control of Colonial One.”
Laura finds it ridiculously hard to grasp the fact that Bill was no longer in power. “Bill-er, I meant Admiral Adama is free!” she insists.
Of course Gaius Baltar would have something to say to that. “When I last saw Adama, he was cornered up in an airlock with Colonel Tigh.”
“If you were forced to escape, then Gaeta and Zarek must have substantial support,” Leoben points out as soon as Baltar finishes.
Laura feels like she is at a press conference. “They don’t,” she snaps. “In fact, we’re here because a pilot refused to shoot us down.” Turning to the Eight, Laura adds, “Tell them.”
“Yes,” replies the Eight, “but the other one had no qualms about shooting down the President of the Colonies, if they’re willing to do that.”
Tory cuts her off. “It’s not safe. We have to jump.”
That stings. Laura feels her anger beginning to boil. How dare they think about escape! “No,” she insists.
“I have to agree,” the Six adds.
“But what about the Final Four?” Leoben asks, and Laura sees a card to play. “Tyrol, Anders, and Tigh? They’re still over there; what about them?”
Laura decides to play the card Leoben offers. “If you jump you’ll never see them again. If you stay put, you’ll give Adama a chance to save them.”
The silence that greets that statement merely encourages her to go on. “Put your ship in the middle of the Fleet. Use the Fleet for cover! Give Adama some time!”
Of course Tory has an objection. “But what if-” she starts to say, but Laura is on a roll.
“No! Gaeta won’t jeopardize the Fleet; he doesn’t have the guts! Now come on, do it!”
~~
A few minutes later, Bill tries to call Laura again. “Laura? This is Bill… Hello? Hello?”
He throws the phone down in frustration and then flips his cell phone open, dialing her number. “Laura?”
~~
Laura is frustrated again.
She’s sitting in the Raptor and trying to send a message to the Fleet. It isn’t working, though. “This is the President speaking-wh? Hello! Hello!”
It is futile. Galactica has jammed the frequency once again. “Godsdammit,” Laura curses.
Hours later, she is still working at it. “THIS IS THE PRESIDENT; THIS IS LAURA ROSLIN! HELLO! HELLO!”
She knows the Cylons are watching, and that puts her nerves on edge. Add this with that and the fact that she has no idea whether Bill is alive or dead, and it becomes clear that Laura is slowly becoming a nervous wreck.
“Godsdammit,” she hisses for the umpteenth time that day.
~~
Bill looks at the people filing into his office-Lee, Kara, Saul, Karl, and Athena. “Caprica Middle School has been taken hostage by armed intruders,” he states bluntly.
“And we’re going to show up to defuse the situation, right?” Kara asks, tilting her head to the side.
“Not quite. There are others already on the job. I want to hunt down those intruders and give them a piece of my mind.”
The others look at each other uneasily. “You’re out of your mind!” Kara declares. “Is this because Laura works there? Are you doing this because of her?”
“Yes I am,” replies Bill matter-of-factly. “I’m doing this for her.”
~~
“We’re sorry,” Tory announces, not sounding sorry at all.
Laura arches an eyebrow, daring her former aide to go on.
“It was a difficult choice, but we made our decision. We’re jumping away.”
Laura is stunned. She looks over at the others. Only Leoben looks back.
Tory steps forward. “We have a chance to survive,” she says, and Laura raises both eyebrows.
“I’m sorry; I would have thought that as one of the Final Five, you’d have a broader vision than that,” she retorts.
Six interjects with, “If he hasn’t done it already, Gaeta will airlock Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders. Then he’ll start with the rest: Kara, Helo, Ada-”
It has been her worst nightmare for days, and Laura doesn’t like to entertain the idea. “Don’t!” she exclaims hastily. “Stop!”
Trust Tory to press on. “His fate has been all but decided. Count on it.”
“Please, don’t,” Laura mutters.
Tory disregards that. “Ours isn’t yet.”
“No!” Laura exclaims, pauses, and then continues. “No one believed that we would survive the Cylon nuclear holocaust or the hell on New Caprica or the fifty thousand other crisis’s we’ve lived through, but we did. We’re here. We’ve made this veritable habit out of defying the odds, particularly William Adama. And he is alive…”
Her voice falters, but she believes in her words. He is alive. He must be. He can’t give up after so long. Laura feels tears coming into her eyes as she says, “He is alive and he will take command of this Fleet again. And when that day comes, he’s going to know who stuck with him and who ran!”
Sadness has passed, if only for the time being. Anger has replaced it, suppressed for so long. “Now who do you want to be? Who do you want to be?”
She stares at the Cylons defiantly, and all they can do is stare back.
~~
His cell phone rings, and Bill dismisses the others. Picking up the phone, Bill is overjoyed at the sound of Laura’s voice on the other end. “Laura,” he whispers, wanting to hear her voice instead of his.
“Bill,” she answers. “They’ve taken me hostage.”
With those words, Bill can’t even tell if he is sad or angry. He feels a strange mixture of both. “Hold on; I’ll be there,” he whispers. “I will come for you.”
He can nearly hear her smile. “Thank you, Bill,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”
~~
“This is President Laura Roslin, speaking from the Cylon Baseship,” Laura announces. She is pleased to see that no one has tried to stop her so far. “Felix Gaeta has seized Galactica by force. The Cylons are defending themselves. They will not harm you. I repeat: the Cylons will not harm you. I am asking all ship captains whose loyalty still show to not jump. Shut down your FTL drives!”
She ends the broadcast and smiles at Leoben. At that moment, she is so elated that she could hug him. “It worked. They couldn’t jam it!”
“I thought that this would do the trick,” Leoben replies smugly, gesturing to the little black device in his lap.
~~
When Laura calls him again, she is crying.
“They’ve found out, Bill. They’ve found out about us,” she weeps. “They know I’m your wife. I fear they’ll use this against you, against us. Don’t come, Bill; I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“It’s a little too late for that,” Bill replies. “I’ve made my decision.”
~~
Now that she can communicate with the Fleet unimpeded, Laura immediately goes on the offense by ordering the Baseship to begin arming itself. She herself begins warning the Fleet.
“Galactica! This is President Laura Roslin. Release all those being held against their will and return command of this Fleet to Admiral William Adama. Surrender.” She pauses, and then adds, “You have five minutes!”
~~
“What do we do?” Laura asks him. “I want to fight back. I want to get these people off of campus.”
“Then fight back,” Bill replies reassuringly. “Fight back and don’t give up.”
Once again, he can tell that she is smiling on the other end. “I love you,” she whispers.
~~
“This is Tom Zarek, President of the Twelve Colonies.”
Laura is shocked by his audacity, and she glares at the speakers.
“It’s over, Laura.”
The sudden gentleness of his voice does not convince her one bit, and Laura waits for the bomb he is certain to drop.
“Saul Tigh was killed attempting to escape.”
All around her, the Cylons are looking shocked. Laura herself feels her heart sink a few inches.
“Bill Adama was tried and found guilty of his crimes.”
Laura feels like shouting, “What crimes?” back at him, but she refrains.
“A firing squad executed him this morning.”
Her worst nightmare has come true. Laura closes her eyes, and feels the tears come. Bill is gone.
Gaius Baltar and the Eight lower their heads as well.
“You need to think about the people of this Fleet now and surrender.”
Bill might be dead, but Laura isn’t. Once again, she feels her sadness turn into anger.
“No.”
It is amazing how much motivation that little word can give her.
“Not now, not ever. Do you hear me? I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you; I swear it!”
Her anger seems to be contagious. Even the Six looks ready to attack.
Laura finds herself feeling oddly satisfied as she yells, “I AM COMING FOR ALL OF YOU!”
And as she says that, the Baseship’s guns come out, ready to fire.
~~
The next time his cell phone rings, Bill hears an unknown voice at the other end. “Who are you?” he demands.
“I’m your wife’s captor,” the voice replies with a hint of a sneer in his voice. “We’ve killed her.”
Had anyone else told him that Laura was dead, Bill would have been more sad than angry. But hearing this gravelly voice say smugly that he had contributed to her death only shoves anguish out the back window to replace it with anger. Bill glares at the phone, daring the speaker to go on.
“Give up.”
“Never,” he hisses. “I will personally hunt you down and give you a piece of my mind, do you hear? I am coming for all of you, and I will not stop until justice is served for what you have done.”
~~
Laura can almost imagine herself storming down the hallways of Galactica towards CIC. She can almost imagine herself taking down Gaeta and Zarek, if not for the command of the Battlestar then for revenge.
“Galactica! This is President Laura Roslin. Surrender.”
Laura closes her eyes. She is not physically marching down to retake CIC, but she is marching in spirit.
When she opens them again, she begins to the mental countdown.
~~
After hearing of Laura’s death, the others were more eager to join Bill in his mission.
But even as they speed down towards the school, Laura is leading what seems to be an army of students, teachers, and the police officers that had recently arrived to the front office of Caprica Middle School, intent on confronting the intruders.
They barge in to see the intruders, men wearing black ski masks, holding the principal at gun point. “Drop your weapons and put your hands where I can see them!” Laura yells in her best authoritative voice. “Surrender!”
~~
She is just about to fire when the speakers come on again.
“Madame President!” came the voice of someone Laura thought she’d never see again. “This is the Admiral. Stand down.”
Laura blinks, hoping it isn’t a dream. Across the table the Eight could be seen weeping in what Laura hoped was joy.
“I repeat: Galactica secure. Stand down!”
“Bill,” sighs Laura, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She turns to the Cylons. “He did it. I told you. He defied the odds once more. Stand down.”
~~
When Bill arrives on campus, the intruders have been arrested.
Laura is there to greet him, running like a child towards him with her arms open wide. They embrace, and much to the chagrin of the students, share a greatly prolonged kiss.
They don’t need words to express their thoughts. The look on her face clearly says, “I knew you’d come.”
“I thought I’d never see you again,” his own expression replies.
~~
It is a weary Laura who climbs down the ladder into Galactica in a way reminiscent of her first time aboard the Battlestar so many years ago.
She turns around, and sees him standing there. The ghost of a smile flits at his mouth, and Laura feels all the emotion that she had carefully bottled up since their parting rise up in what seems to be a standing ovation in her mind.
For the third time, tears threaten to come. This time they are tears of joy, and they succeed in spilling out.
Bill walks towards her, and she continues to weep with what she knows is happiness. She smiles at him through her tears, caressing his face and patting his shoulder.
When Bill pulls her into his arms, she clings on as if he would disappear if she let go.
~~
“So why did they take Caprica Middle School hostage in the first place?” Bill asks as he massages Laura’s shoulders. They’re at home now, sitting on the couch with two glasses of fine red wine in celebration.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she replies. “Though Tory says that those people are former students.”
“But you can’t trust Tory,” he points out. “She doesn’t teach creative writing for nothing. That woman can spin up the wildest stories.”
“I wonder how she managed to land that architect.”
“Galen?”
“Yes, him.” Laura sighs. “Mm, that feels good, Bill.”
He smiles, and kisses her cheek. “I love you, too, Laura.”
~~
“Laura, I need to go,” Bill whispers into her ear, but she looks at him imploringly. “There’s an execution detail I need to carry out.”
“Can’t that wait?” she asks coyly, sliding her hand down his bare chest, tracing his scar with a finger. “We’ve been separated and I’ve been worrying about you, thinking that you’re going to die the next minute-Zarek nearly had me convinced that you were lost, you know. Now we’re back and we have some time alone…” her voice trails off as she kisses him all over, trying to memorize the contours of his face with her lips.
Bill closes his eyes. “I have three minutes,” he says after a while.
Laura smiles. “That’s all I need right now,” she whispers, and slides down onto him.
When Bill Adama executes Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek, his hair is mussed and his duty uniform covers up a brand new hickey.
And over in the Admiral’s Quarters, Laura Roslin is cooking supper.
Once again, let's slow clap laurawillows for her part in beta-reading this. :]
Title: Defying the Odds (Once More)
Author: Lily Winterwood
Rating: T (or M, if you seriously count the end scene)
Fandom: BSG
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama, Earth!Bill and Laura
Pairings: A/R
Summary: This is "Blood on the Scales" from Laura's point of view. Meanwhile, a group of people on Earth have taken the school where Earth!Laura works hostage...
Disclaimer: I wish I owned BSG.
Defying the Odds (Once More)
“Narcho, Galactica. Hostile Raptor outbound bearing 634N2. Order your flight to engage the target and destroy.”
Laura Roslin’s heart is pounding as she hears that message. “Oh gods,” she murmurs to herself, praying that she (and Bill Adama, who’s trapped in an auxiliary airlock with Colonel Saul Tigh) would be able to evade death once again.
The Viper pilots are chasing them now; one of the pilots is clamoring for them to identify themselves while the other insists on just destroying them first and asking questions later. The Eight coolly sitting in the cockpit exudes confidence, but Laura feels the exact opposite. Behind her, Gaius Baltar is silent.
“Hotdog, Narcho. Destroy the target or disengage. I repeat: destroy the target or disengage!”
At that, Laura loses it and scrambles into the co-pilot seat to find the headset. “This is President Laura Roslin aboard the Raptor. Do not fire!”
~~
Bill sits in his office at the police station, mentally debating whether or not to give his wife Laura a call.
A few moments earlier, Saul had dropped by and notified him that he couldn’t do night patrols anymore. Bill had questioned his colleague and friend extensively on it, but all he got is “Ellen wants me to spend more time with her”.
He sighs, and the phone rings. It is Laura, and she sounds worried.
~~
The frequency is jammed, and Laura feels like yelling in frustration.
“Sit down and hang on!” the Eight exclaims, and Laura does so, albeit reluctantly. A few moments later, even more bad news come. “They’ve got a missile logged onto us!”
Narcho fires and the Eight manages to maneuver the Raptor out of harm’s way and into the Baseship. Laura lets go of the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. They are safe for now.
~~
“Bill,” she whispers urgently. “The school’s in a lockdown right now. There are armed intruders on campus; I think they’re planning to take us hostage. I just wanted you to know so that-” she is suddenly cut off.
“Hello?” Bill asks. There is no reply. “Hello? HELLO?”
It is then he realizes that the phone has lost connection. “LAURA!” he shouts, but this time he knows it’s fruitless.
~~
Tory Foster is the first one of the Cylons to demand an answer. “Why are we under attack?”
The Six is next. “Colonial Vipers are firing at our ship.”
“You’re not under attack. They’re firing at us,” Laura answers. That made the Cylons look even more agitated.
“What did you do?” Tory asks in a voice that sounds more like a mother berating her daughter than a former aide questioning her former employer.
“The government has lost control,” replies the Eight, and Laura finds herself mildly annoyed at that statement, even if it is true.
“The government has not lost control,” she growls, but Baltar quickly shoots that down.
“Excuse me, but how would you describe it, Madame President?” he demands. “Adama’s a fugitive, Gaeta has an army, and Zarek has control of Colonial One.”
Laura finds it ridiculously hard to grasp the fact that Bill was no longer in power. “Bill-er, I meant Admiral Adama is free!” she insists.
Of course Gaius Baltar would have something to say to that. “When I last saw Adama, he was cornered up in an airlock with Colonel Tigh.”
“If you were forced to escape, then Gaeta and Zarek must have substantial support,” Leoben points out as soon as Baltar finishes.
Laura feels like she is at a press conference. “They don’t,” she snaps. “In fact, we’re here because a pilot refused to shoot us down.” Turning to the Eight, Laura adds, “Tell them.”
“Yes,” replies the Eight, “but the other one had no qualms about shooting down the President of the Colonies, if they’re willing to do that.”
Tory cuts her off. “It’s not safe. We have to jump.”
That stings. Laura feels her anger beginning to boil. How dare they think about escape! “No,” she insists.
“I have to agree,” the Six adds.
“But what about the Final Four?” Leoben asks, and Laura sees a card to play. “Tyrol, Anders, and Tigh? They’re still over there; what about them?”
Laura decides to play the card Leoben offers. “If you jump you’ll never see them again. If you stay put, you’ll give Adama a chance to save them.”
The silence that greets that statement merely encourages her to go on. “Put your ship in the middle of the Fleet. Use the Fleet for cover! Give Adama some time!”
Of course Tory has an objection. “But what if-” she starts to say, but Laura is on a roll.
“No! Gaeta won’t jeopardize the Fleet; he doesn’t have the guts! Now come on, do it!”
~~
A few minutes later, Bill tries to call Laura again. “Laura? This is Bill… Hello? Hello?”
He throws the phone down in frustration and then flips his cell phone open, dialing her number. “Laura?”
~~
Laura is frustrated again.
She’s sitting in the Raptor and trying to send a message to the Fleet. It isn’t working, though. “This is the President speaking-wh? Hello! Hello!”
It is futile. Galactica has jammed the frequency once again. “Godsdammit,” Laura curses.
Hours later, she is still working at it. “THIS IS THE PRESIDENT; THIS IS LAURA ROSLIN! HELLO! HELLO!”
She knows the Cylons are watching, and that puts her nerves on edge. Add this with that and the fact that she has no idea whether Bill is alive or dead, and it becomes clear that Laura is slowly becoming a nervous wreck.
“Godsdammit,” she hisses for the umpteenth time that day.
~~
Bill looks at the people filing into his office-Lee, Kara, Saul, Karl, and Athena. “Caprica Middle School has been taken hostage by armed intruders,” he states bluntly.
“And we’re going to show up to defuse the situation, right?” Kara asks, tilting her head to the side.
“Not quite. There are others already on the job. I want to hunt down those intruders and give them a piece of my mind.”
The others look at each other uneasily. “You’re out of your mind!” Kara declares. “Is this because Laura works there? Are you doing this because of her?”
“Yes I am,” replies Bill matter-of-factly. “I’m doing this for her.”
~~
“We’re sorry,” Tory announces, not sounding sorry at all.
Laura arches an eyebrow, daring her former aide to go on.
“It was a difficult choice, but we made our decision. We’re jumping away.”
Laura is stunned. She looks over at the others. Only Leoben looks back.
Tory steps forward. “We have a chance to survive,” she says, and Laura raises both eyebrows.
“I’m sorry; I would have thought that as one of the Final Five, you’d have a broader vision than that,” she retorts.
Six interjects with, “If he hasn’t done it already, Gaeta will airlock Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders. Then he’ll start with the rest: Kara, Helo, Ada-”
It has been her worst nightmare for days, and Laura doesn’t like to entertain the idea. “Don’t!” she exclaims hastily. “Stop!”
Trust Tory to press on. “His fate has been all but decided. Count on it.”
“Please, don’t,” Laura mutters.
Tory disregards that. “Ours isn’t yet.”
“No!” Laura exclaims, pauses, and then continues. “No one believed that we would survive the Cylon nuclear holocaust or the hell on New Caprica or the fifty thousand other crisis’s we’ve lived through, but we did. We’re here. We’ve made this veritable habit out of defying the odds, particularly William Adama. And he is alive…”
Her voice falters, but she believes in her words. He is alive. He must be. He can’t give up after so long. Laura feels tears coming into her eyes as she says, “He is alive and he will take command of this Fleet again. And when that day comes, he’s going to know who stuck with him and who ran!”
Sadness has passed, if only for the time being. Anger has replaced it, suppressed for so long. “Now who do you want to be? Who do you want to be?”
She stares at the Cylons defiantly, and all they can do is stare back.
~~
His cell phone rings, and Bill dismisses the others. Picking up the phone, Bill is overjoyed at the sound of Laura’s voice on the other end. “Laura,” he whispers, wanting to hear her voice instead of his.
“Bill,” she answers. “They’ve taken me hostage.”
With those words, Bill can’t even tell if he is sad or angry. He feels a strange mixture of both. “Hold on; I’ll be there,” he whispers. “I will come for you.”
He can nearly hear her smile. “Thank you, Bill,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”
~~
“This is President Laura Roslin, speaking from the Cylon Baseship,” Laura announces. She is pleased to see that no one has tried to stop her so far. “Felix Gaeta has seized Galactica by force. The Cylons are defending themselves. They will not harm you. I repeat: the Cylons will not harm you. I am asking all ship captains whose loyalty still show to not jump. Shut down your FTL drives!”
She ends the broadcast and smiles at Leoben. At that moment, she is so elated that she could hug him. “It worked. They couldn’t jam it!”
“I thought that this would do the trick,” Leoben replies smugly, gesturing to the little black device in his lap.
~~
When Laura calls him again, she is crying.
“They’ve found out, Bill. They’ve found out about us,” she weeps. “They know I’m your wife. I fear they’ll use this against you, against us. Don’t come, Bill; I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“It’s a little too late for that,” Bill replies. “I’ve made my decision.”
~~
Now that she can communicate with the Fleet unimpeded, Laura immediately goes on the offense by ordering the Baseship to begin arming itself. She herself begins warning the Fleet.
“Galactica! This is President Laura Roslin. Release all those being held against their will and return command of this Fleet to Admiral William Adama. Surrender.” She pauses, and then adds, “You have five minutes!”
~~
“What do we do?” Laura asks him. “I want to fight back. I want to get these people off of campus.”
“Then fight back,” Bill replies reassuringly. “Fight back and don’t give up.”
Once again, he can tell that she is smiling on the other end. “I love you,” she whispers.
~~
“This is Tom Zarek, President of the Twelve Colonies.”
Laura is shocked by his audacity, and she glares at the speakers.
“It’s over, Laura.”
The sudden gentleness of his voice does not convince her one bit, and Laura waits for the bomb he is certain to drop.
“Saul Tigh was killed attempting to escape.”
All around her, the Cylons are looking shocked. Laura herself feels her heart sink a few inches.
“Bill Adama was tried and found guilty of his crimes.”
Laura feels like shouting, “What crimes?” back at him, but she refrains.
“A firing squad executed him this morning.”
Her worst nightmare has come true. Laura closes her eyes, and feels the tears come. Bill is gone.
Gaius Baltar and the Eight lower their heads as well.
“You need to think about the people of this Fleet now and surrender.”
Bill might be dead, but Laura isn’t. Once again, she feels her sadness turn into anger.
“No.”
It is amazing how much motivation that little word can give her.
“Not now, not ever. Do you hear me? I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you; I swear it!”
Her anger seems to be contagious. Even the Six looks ready to attack.
Laura finds herself feeling oddly satisfied as she yells, “I AM COMING FOR ALL OF YOU!”
And as she says that, the Baseship’s guns come out, ready to fire.
~~
The next time his cell phone rings, Bill hears an unknown voice at the other end. “Who are you?” he demands.
“I’m your wife’s captor,” the voice replies with a hint of a sneer in his voice. “We’ve killed her.”
Had anyone else told him that Laura was dead, Bill would have been more sad than angry. But hearing this gravelly voice say smugly that he had contributed to her death only shoves anguish out the back window to replace it with anger. Bill glares at the phone, daring the speaker to go on.
“Give up.”
“Never,” he hisses. “I will personally hunt you down and give you a piece of my mind, do you hear? I am coming for all of you, and I will not stop until justice is served for what you have done.”
~~
Laura can almost imagine herself storming down the hallways of Galactica towards CIC. She can almost imagine herself taking down Gaeta and Zarek, if not for the command of the Battlestar then for revenge.
“Galactica! This is President Laura Roslin. Surrender.”
Laura closes her eyes. She is not physically marching down to retake CIC, but she is marching in spirit.
When she opens them again, she begins to the mental countdown.
~~
After hearing of Laura’s death, the others were more eager to join Bill in his mission.
But even as they speed down towards the school, Laura is leading what seems to be an army of students, teachers, and the police officers that had recently arrived to the front office of Caprica Middle School, intent on confronting the intruders.
They barge in to see the intruders, men wearing black ski masks, holding the principal at gun point. “Drop your weapons and put your hands where I can see them!” Laura yells in her best authoritative voice. “Surrender!”
~~
She is just about to fire when the speakers come on again.
“Madame President!” came the voice of someone Laura thought she’d never see again. “This is the Admiral. Stand down.”
Laura blinks, hoping it isn’t a dream. Across the table the Eight could be seen weeping in what Laura hoped was joy.
“I repeat: Galactica secure. Stand down!”
“Bill,” sighs Laura, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She turns to the Cylons. “He did it. I told you. He defied the odds once more. Stand down.”
~~
When Bill arrives on campus, the intruders have been arrested.
Laura is there to greet him, running like a child towards him with her arms open wide. They embrace, and much to the chagrin of the students, share a greatly prolonged kiss.
They don’t need words to express their thoughts. The look on her face clearly says, “I knew you’d come.”
“I thought I’d never see you again,” his own expression replies.
~~
It is a weary Laura who climbs down the ladder into Galactica in a way reminiscent of her first time aboard the Battlestar so many years ago.
She turns around, and sees him standing there. The ghost of a smile flits at his mouth, and Laura feels all the emotion that she had carefully bottled up since their parting rise up in what seems to be a standing ovation in her mind.
For the third time, tears threaten to come. This time they are tears of joy, and they succeed in spilling out.
Bill walks towards her, and she continues to weep with what she knows is happiness. She smiles at him through her tears, caressing his face and patting his shoulder.
When Bill pulls her into his arms, she clings on as if he would disappear if she let go.
~~
“So why did they take Caprica Middle School hostage in the first place?” Bill asks as he massages Laura’s shoulders. They’re at home now, sitting on the couch with two glasses of fine red wine in celebration.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she replies. “Though Tory says that those people are former students.”
“But you can’t trust Tory,” he points out. “She doesn’t teach creative writing for nothing. That woman can spin up the wildest stories.”
“I wonder how she managed to land that architect.”
“Galen?”
“Yes, him.” Laura sighs. “Mm, that feels good, Bill.”
He smiles, and kisses her cheek. “I love you, too, Laura.”
~~
“Laura, I need to go,” Bill whispers into her ear, but she looks at him imploringly. “There’s an execution detail I need to carry out.”
“Can’t that wait?” she asks coyly, sliding her hand down his bare chest, tracing his scar with a finger. “We’ve been separated and I’ve been worrying about you, thinking that you’re going to die the next minute-Zarek nearly had me convinced that you were lost, you know. Now we’re back and we have some time alone…” her voice trails off as she kisses him all over, trying to memorize the contours of his face with her lips.
Bill closes his eyes. “I have three minutes,” he says after a while.
Laura smiles. “That’s all I need right now,” she whispers, and slides down onto him.
When Bill Adama executes Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek, his hair is mussed and his duty uniform covers up a brand new hickey.
And over in the Admiral’s Quarters, Laura Roslin is cooking supper.