Variation 4: For The People

“Tory, would you excuse us?”

Laura Roslin seethed silently as her aide exited the Ward Room through the door Tom Zarek had just been escorted by marines. Zarek. Frak. Frak. Frak. She had not seen it coming. She should have, but she hadn’t. The Circle. A secret tribunal. Vigilante justice. It was so … Zarek.

The second Tory shut the hatch behind her, Laura tossed the folder she’d been holding onto the table with an angry flick of her wrist. Hand on her hip, she stripped off her glasses and took several deep breaths, trying to get a grip on her fury before turning around and facing Bill Adama.

Laura knew he was as appalled as she was. One person from his crew was dead and The Circle members were also from his crew — his best friend, Saul Tigh, and his surrogate daughter, Kara Thrace, among them. They’d met in remote areas of the ship and passed judgement on people who’d collaborated with the Cylons. It’s not that she didn’t understand their fury, because she did. The list the Circle was working from was one that she and Tory themselves had assembled. But to just try someone summarily and toss them out an airlock … it wasn’t right. Laura understood it, but it just wasn’t right.

“I should have known.” Laura shook her head. “I should have seen this coming.”

“We.”

That Bill put himself beside her in this, blaming himself for not foreseeing this scenario, didn’t surprise her. Since Kobol, he had never let her stand alone, even if they didn’t entirely agree on whatever the matter might be.

Turning, Laura found him walking toward her, head tilted back just the slightest bit to peer through the lower part of his glasses lens. It’s the posture he always adopted when he was ready to put down any forthcoming argument, or dig in for a fight. She didn’t get the sense a fight was in the cards, so she figured he was going to set her straight on taking responsibility for the mess by herself.

She waved him off. They had bigger issues at hand than accepting blame for someone else’s actions. They had to figure out how to deal with the mess Zarek had made and what to do to prevent the scenario the bastard had laid out for them. It was one that Laura couldn’t ignore because, as much as she hated to admit it, Zarek was right. They could not afford for their people to dwell on the horrors of New Caprica, let bitterness, pain and anger consume their lives in the days to come. Justified though the feelings might be, their people needed hope. Dozens of trials would not bring the healing her people needed. But neither would the secret executions that Zarek had authorized. Neither could the human race afford the loss of numbers, something she was sure Zarek had never considered. But she had to, along with everything else.

“Want to borrow the airlock?” If it had been said with another tone, Laura might have laughed but all she heard in Bill’s voice was seriousness, the perfect inflection for the situation they were facing.

Laura folded her glasses. “I’m furious, but I think there’s been enough use of the airlock.”

“Yeah,” Bill agreed though it was incredibly tempting to lock Zarek in it to stew for a while — or the brig. He simply could not be trusted. That the man had ensnared Galactica’s crew in his under-the-table plan sickened Bill. The manipulative bastard had taken advantage of a group of hurting people, twisting justifiable emotions to fulfill his personal agenda.

Oh, Zarek might say it was for the greater good, about justice for those lost and hurt on New Caprica, or even that he was trying to save Laura the trouble of a messy batch of trials and executions, but it had a lot more to do with Zarek’s personal coda than any of those in reality. He was a zealot of the worst sort, the kind who had seemingly reasonable ideals but who pursued them to the exclusion of rationality using methods that were not ethically or morally sound. For Zarek, the ends always justified the means and collateral damage was ultimately inconsequential so long as his own causes and ambitions were achieved. That is exactly why Bill had refused to let Zarek retain the presidency and why he’d been prepared to declare martial law had Laura not…

Bill shoved that thought away vehemently, refused to entertain it even though it was no longer a possibility. She was here and they were going to deal with this and if Zarek got in the way … Bill would deal with it, swiftly and decisively. That’s why it infuriated Bill to admit that some of Zarek’s observations were legitimate, particularly about the trials.

“I’d rather put myself out of an airlock than put stock into anything Zarek says…” Bill trailed off, unable to complete the thought aloud.

“But he had some valid points,” Laura finished for him, which didn’t come as a surprise. He’d seen the looks on her face and the one she shot him during Zarek’s diatribe. She’d picked out the grains of truth amidst Zarek’s propaganda. She wasn’t any happier than Bill was to admit she’d recognized them. The frown of disgust on her face said it all.

Bill broke off eye contact with her, pulled off his glasses, studied them absently. “How do you want to handle it?”

Deference to her authority. She wasn’t even sworn in and he was deferring already to her when it came to the political and civilian arena. Laura didn’t know whether to kiss him for his blanket support for whatever she decided or to choke him for handing her the bag. She settled for laying a hand on his arm, knowing that he would listen and offer advice to help her arrive at a choice, which meant she wasn’t really alone in holding the bag.

Blue eyes fastened on hers. “I need to think,” she told him, which earned her a nod of acknowledgement. She then asked, “What are you going to do about the colonel, Starbuck and the others?”

He looked away again. “I don’t know,” he confessed, his voice a crackling rasp. “They were working under presidential orders, and it doesn’t seem right to…”

“Punish them for perfectly understandable feelings,” Laura offered when he stopped talking and sighed heavily. She gave his biceps a caress, slid her hand down to his forearm, let it linger there in unspoken understanding of what she knew he hadn’t voiced — he was troubled because his people hadn’t come to him. Laura understood why they hadn’t and she suspected Bill did as well. Their secrecy hadn’t been because they didn’t trust him or that they didn’t respect him or the command structure. Rather, it had been a result of four months of life under cylon rule, when they’d only been able to trust one another and had to operate covertly. Zarek had obviously exploited that.

Knowing that, though, didn’t ease Bill’s worry for his people. They were his family and their “old man” didn’t like it when he couldn’t protect them, even from themselves. The love he had for his crew was one of the things she most admired about him. That love was undoubtedly the glue that held Galactica’s family together. It was a powerful, amazing thing, wrapped around a person without suffocating them, bound them to him and yet was liberating. It commanded trust and loyalty, which he readily returned, and could completely disarm the unsuspecting — even the suspecting — person.

Leaning in, Laura touched her lips to his cheek in a whisper of a kiss then met his gaze. “Our people need healing,” she said softly.

Bill Adama could not help the swell of pride and love he felt at Laura’s words. They were exactly why he wanted her back in office. She was the leader her people needed because she unerringly saw exactly what they needed, before they even saw it themselves. Healing, not the temporary satisfaction that revenge would give them, but true healing, that’s what the people needed. And so did she.

That night, laying behind her, Bill had it confirmed when he was awoken by her restless shifting. He remained still a few moments as she sporadically clutched his hand and mumbled unintelligibly in her sleep, hoping she would settle. She didn’t and seemed to grow agitated the longer it went on so he decided to wake her, gently.

“Laura.” He pitched his voice as softly as possible and carefully tightened his hold on her, hoping to reassure her with his presence. She didn’t respond so he tried again, his tone a little firmer. This time she started in his embrace then went stark still, fingers tightening on his hand hard enough for him to feel the bite of her nails. “You were dreaming,” he soothed, stroking the side of his thumb against the swell of her breast.

A few slow, measured breaths later and she relaxed, tension drifting away from her like a feather on a breeze. She fell back against his chest and rubbed the back of his hand. A few more breaths and she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Bill murmured, pressed a kiss to her shoulder. Her skin was smooth and warm. He kissed her again, lingered, nuzzling. When she began caressing his fingers, he ventured a question to which he already knew the answer. “New Caprica?”

Her fingers stilled for a moment then resumed stroking his. “I rarely slept through the night the last four months,” she began, her voice strong but Bill heard the undercurrent of emotion in it. It softened when she continued. “After the last two nights, I had hoped … not very realistic, huh?”

Bill shifted and took hold of Laura’s hand, cradled it gently, spoke softly, “It’ll just take time.”

Laura smiled slightly then sighed. She knew it would take time, healing always did. She just wished there was something that would speed it along, for all of them. The wounds left by New Caprica were not going to be easily mended. There was so much fear, hurt and anger, the result of oppression, terror, and enduring the wholesale slaughter of friends and family, and for it to have come within so short a time after the destruction of the Twelve Colonies… It was a fresh wound upon one that had barely begun to heal, one that was bound to fester if the people dwelled on it, herself included. They needed to look forward but to do that, they had to stop looking back. That wasn’t something that was going to be accomplished in a day — nor with a couple nights rest under Bill Adama’s protection again. It was going to take time and Laura might not be able to speed that as much as she’d like, but she could put the people on the right path.

Bowing her head, Laura kissed Bill’s hand then eased out of his embrace. He let her go, but only after a squeeze to her hand. Once sitting on the side of the bed, she looked over her shoulder at him, felt more than saw his eyes on her.

“May I borrow a pen and some paper?” she asked.

His answer came in the form of a question. “Know what you want to do?”

Laura smiled at him, not surprised that he’d known where her thoughts had gone. Leaning down, she pressed a kiss to his lips, her fingers finding and skimming along his jaw as she did so. When she drew back, she met his glittering eyes in the darkness, whispered softly, “I just have to find the words.”

The admiral of the Colonial fleet flashed a gentle smile, whispered, “You will, Madam President.”

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