Fic: Foundations Chapter 3: Lady Laura
Title: Foundations 3/?
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica/A Song of Ice and Fire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,848
Summary: Basically a space parents story set in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: This takes place somewhere during a Dance with Dragons. So there are spoilers to those who haven't gotten that far into the books yet.
Previous: Chapter 1: Lady Laura, Chapter 2: The Admiral
Laura sat in front of her vanity wearing nothing but a long white shift that was just far enough unlaced to show her ample cleavage, but Laura hardly noticed. She didn’t notice anything at all, not even that Tory had entered with a few men, carrying buckets of hot water for Laura’s bath. She simply sat in front of the mirror staring into nothingness as she traced the shape of her lips with her finger.
She could still remember how he had felt, the admiral. No, Bill, how Bill had felt when she so clumsily tripped and fell into his arms. She remembered his large hands at her waist, holding her, their warmth seeping through the fabric of her dress, warming her skin. She could still remember his heart beating so fast and so loudly that she had felt it against her palm. His body has been so solid, so warm, so protective.
She had almost kissed him. Almost. She didn’t know if it had been because of the weirwood, or the sudden light feeling she had had in her head. Or possibly because his incredibly blue eyes had betrayed his thoughts and Laura had been able to see his desire for her. He’d wanted to kiss her as much as she had wanted to kiss him.
“Milady, your bath is ready,” Tory said, rudely interrupting her thoughts. Laura turned away from the vanity and saw that there was indeed a tub filled with steaming water, the scent of the foreign oils Tory always added already filling the air. Sighing, she stood, swiftly pulling the shift over her head, leaving her skin bare to the cold air. Goosebumps appeared and involuntarily her nipples turned into stiff peaks.
Quickly she crossed the small distance to her bath and stepped into the hot water. It was a little too hot, the water turning her skin slightly red, but Laura ignored the pain and emerged herself in the water with a satisfied moan. Her skin tingled as it got used to the water and she flexed her fingers before running them over her legs.
“Does milady want me to stay and wash your hair?” Tory asked from the corner. Laura turned around in the tub and watched her handmaiden for a moment. She had changed a lot since crossing the seas and Westeros to come work for her. She had gone from a cool, sometimes rather obstinate girl to a polite, but still strong-willed woman who knew what her Lady needed before Laura had realized it herself.
“Yes, I would like that,” she replied before sinking down into the water, completely submerging her hair and head until her lungs started to burn and simply had to go up for air. Her hair was heavy and stuck to her back as the warm glided down her skin.
Tory was already there when she opened her eyes, holding a bottle that held a mix of precious oils and herbs, and soap. It was the only thing that Laura could use for her hair that wouldn’t dry it out or make it just a mess of tangles. She knew that her supply was running low and with the winter and the wars, chances of restocking were slim, but she continued using it, just in smaller amounts. Maybe she’d just have to start wearing her hair in a braid.
Tory poured a small amount of the mixture into her palms before slowly starting to massage it into Laura’s hair. The scent of the herbs and oils filled the air and Laura breathed in deeply. She always loved the smell. It was something so unlike Westeros, unlike the North. Whenever she imao, notgined what the Free Cities would be like, she thought that they would smell like this, warm, exotic, soothing.
“The admiral and I will be having dinner together tonight,” Laura stated as Tory started rinsing out the oils. She could sworn she heard Tory suck in her breath, she knew how much Laura had been avoiding William Adama. “I will require that the table in my chambers will be set for two.”
“In your chambers, milady?” The handmaiden couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. If the scandalous tone in Tory’s voice was to be believed, she might as well have informed the Braavosi that she had invited the Admiral into her bed, instead of just her chambers to have dinner.
“Yes, in my chambers. I would like some privacy with admiral Adama. Is that a problem?” Laura turned around and looked at Tory, eyebrow raised. There were times when she appreciated Tory’s smart mouth or her sarcastic tone, but at other times, the girl just really didn’t know yet when to keep her mouth shut. Tory bent her head.
“No, not at all, milady,” she said softly. Laura sighed and sat back, letting her shoulders submerge as she wrapped her arms around her knees. A sharp pain shot through her left breast. Laura had to clench her teeth to stop herself from betraying the pain she felt.
“You can go, Tory,” she said quickly. She needed a moment to herself. “I can handle the rest myself. Could you send the Maester to my room?” Tory nodded and made her exit. With a shaking hand, Laura reached up and softly touched her breast. The pain was slowly subsiding. Her fingers easily found the small lump that was hidden underneath the soft flesh. It felt bigger, as if it had grown. She felt as if it was draining her of her life, of her will to live.
Placing her hands on the edge of the tub, she pushed herself up, the water running down her body. The air had been cold before she went into the bath, but now it felt icy. Shivering she quickly wrapped a large piece of cloth around her body and went to sit by the fire place, drops of water falling from her hair onto her shoulders as she stared into the fire. She didn’t even noticed that the Maester had arrived until he was standing in front of her.
“M’lady, Tory told me you wanted to see me.”
“Yes, I do. The pain is getting worse. So are the dreams.” What first had been mere vague images that she couldn’t comprehend, had become vivid nightmares or realistic dreams that haunted her even during the day.
“May I,” he asked, gesturing towards her breasts. With a resigned sigh, Laura opened her towel. The first he had requested, she had felt awkward, ashamed, baring herself to a man she hardly knew, but despite his grumpy attitude, Maester Cottle had been shockingly nice and gentle as he was now. His fingers were cold, but his touch was soft as he sought out the lump. The expression on his face was blank, but Laura could see the flicker of worry in his eyes.
“I sent ravens to a few other Maesters. Only one seemed to know this disease.” Maester Cottle never sounded happy, but the tone in his voice told Laura what she already knew in her heart. But she needed to hear him say it. She needed it to become real.
“And?”
“I’m afraid it’s not good.” He paused and clasped his hands together. Laura held his gaze. He had to say it. She didn’t want to say it herself or ask it. “You’re dying. There is no known cure.”
Laura closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. There it was, finally. She was dying. She had felt it ever since she had discovered the lump, since she saw the ill-masked clueless expression on Maester Cottle’s face and now she had heard the actually words. Dying. No known cure. Without even thinking about it, her hand went up to her breast. How could something so small and invisible be the end of her?
“So,” she said and her voice cracked. Laura swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry. “Where do we go from here?”
“Extract from the weirwood seems to help. And when the pain gets worse we can start with milk of the poppy. And I’d seriously consider prayer.” Prayer. Laura nodded, but felt tears starting to burn in her eyes. When the ever skeptic Maester Cottle suggested prayer, she knew it was going to get worse, a lot worse than what she had already been feeling.
“And the dreams I’ve been having?” she asked. She wanted to know about them, if there was anything that could be done about them or if they had any meaning at all.
“The disease nor the extract should be giving you dreams like the ones you’ve been having.”
“What are they, if not side-effects?”
“A message from the Gods?” Maester Cottle suggested with a shrug. Which left Laura even more clueless than before. Cottle didn’t believe in the Gods. It seemed so out of character for the Maester to suddenly offer that her dreams came from the Gods. At the same time it terrified her. If the Maester resorted to suggesting prayer as an option, her dreams and her disease had to truly be something that horribly incurable.
***
Laura smiled when the admiral, Bill entered her chambers, wearing dark grey clothes that made him look even more handsome than his usual dark blue ones. When he returned her smile, she got up to greet him. She wished she could understand why she suddenly wasn’t so apprehensive about the Ironborn admiral. Maybe he had finally shown a human side she hadn’t seen yet.
“Good evening, m’lady,” he said as he took her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. Laura felt a blush creep up on her cheeks and chastised herself for being so ridiculous. Dozens of men had kissed her hand and Bill had been one of them numerous times. This wasn’t the time to suddenly feel affections for him, even if she had trouble trying not to imagine what it would have been like if they had kissed in the godswood.
“I thought we’d agreed to call each other by our given names, Bill,” she said, carefully enunciating his name, reminding him of the little trust that they had built this day. Bill smiled, still delicately holding his hand.
“So we did, Laura,” he replied, his voice soft, his expression gentle, and Laura could see him as the man who had raised two sons, as the man who just wanted to save his crew from getting caught up in a power struggle. He was honorable.
“Please, sit.” She pulled her hand out of his grip and sat down herself. Bill kept his eyes on her the entire time as he sat down, his gaze intense, as if he was trying to see right pass her skin and into her soul. It was unsettling. Consciously she ran her hands over the moss-green fabric of her dress, straightening the invisible wrinkles.
Bill was still watching her, a curious look on his face, when the food was brought in. During winter she couldn’t afford to make an extravagant dinner. The broth was simple with meat that had probably been caught by the admiral’s men and vegetables from the last harvest, still reasonably fresh. Laura knew it would taste good, but the mere smell of the meal made her nauseous and she pushed the bowl away, blaming the weirwood extract that the Maester had forced her to take.
“Is something wrong?” His voice is laced with concern and Laura could have sworn she saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“I’m not feeling well,” she said curtly, but smiled anyway, hoping to divert attention from her. She didn’t want to talk about her mysterious illness. About her impending death.
“I noticed. Is there anything I can do?” And there his hand was again, covering hers, his warmth seeping into her skin, into her blood, spreading throughout her entire body, all the way to her toes.
“You - -” She swallowed, a sudden lump in her throat, almost stopping her from talking. She felt uncertain. No man, save for her father, had cared enough about her to be able to notice it whenever she took ill. How could this man, this foreigner, this rough, burly admiral care about her that much. “You noticed?”
“Yes,” he replied so incredibly sincerely. Laura had to look away from his face. Opening up to other people, showing her emotions, her vulnerabilities, had never been one of her strong suits. Her mother had always told her it was one of her biggest weaknesses. Bill’s soothing voice carried through her thoughts. “You can talk to me, if you feel the need to.”
It would be so easy to open up to him, to confide in him, to share her burden. He made it so easy with his unguarded blue eyes, his comforting touch. She took a shaky breath, trying to collect her remaining strength. She looked at their hands, tanned, weathered skin against her white, pristine fingers. Such a large contrast. She ought to tell him about her illness, about everything. She felt that he deserved that, but could she put that burden on his shoulders?
“I’m ill, dying.” It slipped out before she had had a proper chance to decide whether or not she should tell him. Laura had no idea what kind of reaction to expect from him. His jaw set and for the first time he turned his gaze away from her face as if suddenly hurt to look at her. Laura kept looking at him, at the small changes in his face, the pain that was suddenly etched onto it.
“Do you, uhm, do you know how long?” he asked. He sounded choked up, like unshed tears. It made Laura feel her own tears, threatening to fall.
“According to Maester Cottle, a year at the most, but months is more like it,” Laura heard herself say. Her voice sounded detached, like it wasn’t her own. It sounded cold, lifeless, like she wished she could feel. It would make this, dealing with all of this, easier.
“And the illness?” The strong man that she had come to know sounded small, defeated as if her news had drained all of the fight out of him. She couldn’t look at him as she relayed the information Maester Cottle had given her.
“It’s rare, almost unknown and incurable.”
“I see.” Laura withdrew her hand from his grasp and got up from the table, turning her back towards Bill. She needed a moment to recollect her emotions. Telling Bill, his reaction, they were both much more difficult than hearing the words herself. She took a deep breath, hoping to expel some of her misery before she turned back around. Bill was looking at her and Laura could see the unshed tears in his eyes.
“I apologize. This was not what I had planned when I invited you for dinner,” she said, trying to sound as normal as possible, but she could hear her voice shaking.
“Laura, don’t apologize, please,” he said as he got up and took a few steps towards her. “You don’t have to apologize, not for this.”
He was standing so close, she could smell him, hear his breathing. She could see the lines on his face, the lines of grey in his blue eyes. Laura held her breath. This wasn’t the time, the right moment, to feel the desire to kiss him again, to decide that the admiral was handsome. She couldn’t be attracted to him right now, not with all of this.
It was Bill who moved first, softly, nearly imperceptibly placing his lips against hers, his hand warm against her shoulder. Laura closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation. He was kissing her. Admiral William Adama, the man she had disliked and distrusted less than a week ago, was kissing her and she was letting him. She had wanted him to kiss her.
When she felt him pull back, Laura instinctively put her hand on the back of his neck and stopped him from stepping back. She wasn’t ready for it to end yet. She wasn’t ready for this carefree moment to pass. She moved closer, pressing her body against his as she kissed him harder, daringly running her tongue over his bottom lip.
Bill hesitated before he put his hands on her waist, pulling her hips flush against his before he slowly parted his lips. Laura moaned when their tongues touched. She could never have imagined this. Being so close to him, touching him, kissing him, it felt good. It felt right. Like they belonged. It made her forget.
Until they broke the kiss and Bill rested his forehead against hers. That brief moment of peace and tranquility dissolved right in front of her eyes and reality came crashing back. Bill sighed and Laura looked up. A small smile was playing on his lips, but there were tears in his eyes. And Laura knew, just knew that he was seeing the hopelessness of their situation too. Where would they go from here?
To be continued
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica/A Song of Ice and Fire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,848
Summary: Basically a space parents story set in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: This takes place somewhere during a Dance with Dragons. So there are spoilers to those who haven't gotten that far into the books yet.
Previous: Chapter 1: Lady Laura, Chapter 2: The Admiral
Laura sat in front of her vanity wearing nothing but a long white shift that was just far enough unlaced to show her ample cleavage, but Laura hardly noticed. She didn’t notice anything at all, not even that Tory had entered with a few men, carrying buckets of hot water for Laura’s bath. She simply sat in front of the mirror staring into nothingness as she traced the shape of her lips with her finger.
She could still remember how he had felt, the admiral. No, Bill, how Bill had felt when she so clumsily tripped and fell into his arms. She remembered his large hands at her waist, holding her, their warmth seeping through the fabric of her dress, warming her skin. She could still remember his heart beating so fast and so loudly that she had felt it against her palm. His body has been so solid, so warm, so protective.
She had almost kissed him. Almost. She didn’t know if it had been because of the weirwood, or the sudden light feeling she had had in her head. Or possibly because his incredibly blue eyes had betrayed his thoughts and Laura had been able to see his desire for her. He’d wanted to kiss her as much as she had wanted to kiss him.
“Milady, your bath is ready,” Tory said, rudely interrupting her thoughts. Laura turned away from the vanity and saw that there was indeed a tub filled with steaming water, the scent of the foreign oils Tory always added already filling the air. Sighing, she stood, swiftly pulling the shift over her head, leaving her skin bare to the cold air. Goosebumps appeared and involuntarily her nipples turned into stiff peaks.
Quickly she crossed the small distance to her bath and stepped into the hot water. It was a little too hot, the water turning her skin slightly red, but Laura ignored the pain and emerged herself in the water with a satisfied moan. Her skin tingled as it got used to the water and she flexed her fingers before running them over her legs.
“Does milady want me to stay and wash your hair?” Tory asked from the corner. Laura turned around in the tub and watched her handmaiden for a moment. She had changed a lot since crossing the seas and Westeros to come work for her. She had gone from a cool, sometimes rather obstinate girl to a polite, but still strong-willed woman who knew what her Lady needed before Laura had realized it herself.
“Yes, I would like that,” she replied before sinking down into the water, completely submerging her hair and head until her lungs started to burn and simply had to go up for air. Her hair was heavy and stuck to her back as the warm glided down her skin.
Tory was already there when she opened her eyes, holding a bottle that held a mix of precious oils and herbs, and soap. It was the only thing that Laura could use for her hair that wouldn’t dry it out or make it just a mess of tangles. She knew that her supply was running low and with the winter and the wars, chances of restocking were slim, but she continued using it, just in smaller amounts. Maybe she’d just have to start wearing her hair in a braid.
Tory poured a small amount of the mixture into her palms before slowly starting to massage it into Laura’s hair. The scent of the herbs and oils filled the air and Laura breathed in deeply. She always loved the smell. It was something so unlike Westeros, unlike the North. Whenever she imao, notgined what the Free Cities would be like, she thought that they would smell like this, warm, exotic, soothing.
“The admiral and I will be having dinner together tonight,” Laura stated as Tory started rinsing out the oils. She could sworn she heard Tory suck in her breath, she knew how much Laura had been avoiding William Adama. “I will require that the table in my chambers will be set for two.”
“In your chambers, milady?” The handmaiden couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. If the scandalous tone in Tory’s voice was to be believed, she might as well have informed the Braavosi that she had invited the Admiral into her bed, instead of just her chambers to have dinner.
“Yes, in my chambers. I would like some privacy with admiral Adama. Is that a problem?” Laura turned around and looked at Tory, eyebrow raised. There were times when she appreciated Tory’s smart mouth or her sarcastic tone, but at other times, the girl just really didn’t know yet when to keep her mouth shut. Tory bent her head.
“No, not at all, milady,” she said softly. Laura sighed and sat back, letting her shoulders submerge as she wrapped her arms around her knees. A sharp pain shot through her left breast. Laura had to clench her teeth to stop herself from betraying the pain she felt.
“You can go, Tory,” she said quickly. She needed a moment to herself. “I can handle the rest myself. Could you send the Maester to my room?” Tory nodded and made her exit. With a shaking hand, Laura reached up and softly touched her breast. The pain was slowly subsiding. Her fingers easily found the small lump that was hidden underneath the soft flesh. It felt bigger, as if it had grown. She felt as if it was draining her of her life, of her will to live.
Placing her hands on the edge of the tub, she pushed herself up, the water running down her body. The air had been cold before she went into the bath, but now it felt icy. Shivering she quickly wrapped a large piece of cloth around her body and went to sit by the fire place, drops of water falling from her hair onto her shoulders as she stared into the fire. She didn’t even noticed that the Maester had arrived until he was standing in front of her.
“M’lady, Tory told me you wanted to see me.”
“Yes, I do. The pain is getting worse. So are the dreams.” What first had been mere vague images that she couldn’t comprehend, had become vivid nightmares or realistic dreams that haunted her even during the day.
“May I,” he asked, gesturing towards her breasts. With a resigned sigh, Laura opened her towel. The first he had requested, she had felt awkward, ashamed, baring herself to a man she hardly knew, but despite his grumpy attitude, Maester Cottle had been shockingly nice and gentle as he was now. His fingers were cold, but his touch was soft as he sought out the lump. The expression on his face was blank, but Laura could see the flicker of worry in his eyes.
“I sent ravens to a few other Maesters. Only one seemed to know this disease.” Maester Cottle never sounded happy, but the tone in his voice told Laura what she already knew in her heart. But she needed to hear him say it. She needed it to become real.
“And?”
“I’m afraid it’s not good.” He paused and clasped his hands together. Laura held his gaze. He had to say it. She didn’t want to say it herself or ask it. “You’re dying. There is no known cure.”
Laura closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. There it was, finally. She was dying. She had felt it ever since she had discovered the lump, since she saw the ill-masked clueless expression on Maester Cottle’s face and now she had heard the actually words. Dying. No known cure. Without even thinking about it, her hand went up to her breast. How could something so small and invisible be the end of her?
“So,” she said and her voice cracked. Laura swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry. “Where do we go from here?”
“Extract from the weirwood seems to help. And when the pain gets worse we can start with milk of the poppy. And I’d seriously consider prayer.” Prayer. Laura nodded, but felt tears starting to burn in her eyes. When the ever skeptic Maester Cottle suggested prayer, she knew it was going to get worse, a lot worse than what she had already been feeling.
“And the dreams I’ve been having?” she asked. She wanted to know about them, if there was anything that could be done about them or if they had any meaning at all.
“The disease nor the extract should be giving you dreams like the ones you’ve been having.”
“What are they, if not side-effects?”
“A message from the Gods?” Maester Cottle suggested with a shrug. Which left Laura even more clueless than before. Cottle didn’t believe in the Gods. It seemed so out of character for the Maester to suddenly offer that her dreams came from the Gods. At the same time it terrified her. If the Maester resorted to suggesting prayer as an option, her dreams and her disease had to truly be something that horribly incurable.
***
Laura smiled when the admiral, Bill entered her chambers, wearing dark grey clothes that made him look even more handsome than his usual dark blue ones. When he returned her smile, she got up to greet him. She wished she could understand why she suddenly wasn’t so apprehensive about the Ironborn admiral. Maybe he had finally shown a human side she hadn’t seen yet.
“Good evening, m’lady,” he said as he took her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. Laura felt a blush creep up on her cheeks and chastised herself for being so ridiculous. Dozens of men had kissed her hand and Bill had been one of them numerous times. This wasn’t the time to suddenly feel affections for him, even if she had trouble trying not to imagine what it would have been like if they had kissed in the godswood.
“I thought we’d agreed to call each other by our given names, Bill,” she said, carefully enunciating his name, reminding him of the little trust that they had built this day. Bill smiled, still delicately holding his hand.
“So we did, Laura,” he replied, his voice soft, his expression gentle, and Laura could see him as the man who had raised two sons, as the man who just wanted to save his crew from getting caught up in a power struggle. He was honorable.
“Please, sit.” She pulled her hand out of his grip and sat down herself. Bill kept his eyes on her the entire time as he sat down, his gaze intense, as if he was trying to see right pass her skin and into her soul. It was unsettling. Consciously she ran her hands over the moss-green fabric of her dress, straightening the invisible wrinkles.
Bill was still watching her, a curious look on his face, when the food was brought in. During winter she couldn’t afford to make an extravagant dinner. The broth was simple with meat that had probably been caught by the admiral’s men and vegetables from the last harvest, still reasonably fresh. Laura knew it would taste good, but the mere smell of the meal made her nauseous and she pushed the bowl away, blaming the weirwood extract that the Maester had forced her to take.
“Is something wrong?” His voice is laced with concern and Laura could have sworn she saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“I’m not feeling well,” she said curtly, but smiled anyway, hoping to divert attention from her. She didn’t want to talk about her mysterious illness. About her impending death.
“I noticed. Is there anything I can do?” And there his hand was again, covering hers, his warmth seeping into her skin, into her blood, spreading throughout her entire body, all the way to her toes.
“You - -” She swallowed, a sudden lump in her throat, almost stopping her from talking. She felt uncertain. No man, save for her father, had cared enough about her to be able to notice it whenever she took ill. How could this man, this foreigner, this rough, burly admiral care about her that much. “You noticed?”
“Yes,” he replied so incredibly sincerely. Laura had to look away from his face. Opening up to other people, showing her emotions, her vulnerabilities, had never been one of her strong suits. Her mother had always told her it was one of her biggest weaknesses. Bill’s soothing voice carried through her thoughts. “You can talk to me, if you feel the need to.”
It would be so easy to open up to him, to confide in him, to share her burden. He made it so easy with his unguarded blue eyes, his comforting touch. She took a shaky breath, trying to collect her remaining strength. She looked at their hands, tanned, weathered skin against her white, pristine fingers. Such a large contrast. She ought to tell him about her illness, about everything. She felt that he deserved that, but could she put that burden on his shoulders?
“I’m ill, dying.” It slipped out before she had had a proper chance to decide whether or not she should tell him. Laura had no idea what kind of reaction to expect from him. His jaw set and for the first time he turned his gaze away from her face as if suddenly hurt to look at her. Laura kept looking at him, at the small changes in his face, the pain that was suddenly etched onto it.
“Do you, uhm, do you know how long?” he asked. He sounded choked up, like unshed tears. It made Laura feel her own tears, threatening to fall.
“According to Maester Cottle, a year at the most, but months is more like it,” Laura heard herself say. Her voice sounded detached, like it wasn’t her own. It sounded cold, lifeless, like she wished she could feel. It would make this, dealing with all of this, easier.
“And the illness?” The strong man that she had come to know sounded small, defeated as if her news had drained all of the fight out of him. She couldn’t look at him as she relayed the information Maester Cottle had given her.
“It’s rare, almost unknown and incurable.”
“I see.” Laura withdrew her hand from his grasp and got up from the table, turning her back towards Bill. She needed a moment to recollect her emotions. Telling Bill, his reaction, they were both much more difficult than hearing the words herself. She took a deep breath, hoping to expel some of her misery before she turned back around. Bill was looking at her and Laura could see the unshed tears in his eyes.
“I apologize. This was not what I had planned when I invited you for dinner,” she said, trying to sound as normal as possible, but she could hear her voice shaking.
“Laura, don’t apologize, please,” he said as he got up and took a few steps towards her. “You don’t have to apologize, not for this.”
He was standing so close, she could smell him, hear his breathing. She could see the lines on his face, the lines of grey in his blue eyes. Laura held her breath. This wasn’t the time, the right moment, to feel the desire to kiss him again, to decide that the admiral was handsome. She couldn’t be attracted to him right now, not with all of this.
It was Bill who moved first, softly, nearly imperceptibly placing his lips against hers, his hand warm against her shoulder. Laura closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation. He was kissing her. Admiral William Adama, the man she had disliked and distrusted less than a week ago, was kissing her and she was letting him. She had wanted him to kiss her.
When she felt him pull back, Laura instinctively put her hand on the back of his neck and stopped him from stepping back. She wasn’t ready for it to end yet. She wasn’t ready for this carefree moment to pass. She moved closer, pressing her body against his as she kissed him harder, daringly running her tongue over his bottom lip.
Bill hesitated before he put his hands on her waist, pulling her hips flush against his before he slowly parted his lips. Laura moaned when their tongues touched. She could never have imagined this. Being so close to him, touching him, kissing him, it felt good. It felt right. Like they belonged. It made her forget.
Until they broke the kiss and Bill rested his forehead against hers. That brief moment of peace and tranquility dissolved right in front of her eyes and reality came crashing back. Bill sighed and Laura looked up. A small smile was playing on his lips, but there were tears in his eyes. And Laura knew, just knew that he was seeing the hopelessness of their situation too. Where would they go from here?
To be continued