Slide 36: Living

When Laura Roslin had begun her day, the last thing she’d expected she would be doing that afternoon was playing triad in the pilot rec room. But that’s exactly what she was doing — along with thanking the gods that her father had taught her the game when she was a girl and for those late nights at university when a deck of cards had provided a distraction for overwhelmed students — and having an absolute blast.

Peering over the top of her cards at her opponent, Laura sized up the blue-eyed, blonde viper pilot with her politician’s eye, keeping her exhilaration in tight check. The young woman was good, very good. Her confident smile displayed only that — confidence. Her keen gaze revealed nothing and her features were cast in a haughty smirk that hinted at, well, nothing definitive. No, what gave her away was the one little gesture she’d made just thirty seconds ago — tucking a strand of long hair behind her ear — right before going all in.

Laura had her. The famed triad champ of Galactica, Starbuck, aka Kara Thrace, was about to go down.

Taking a sighing breath, Laura dropped her hand to the table, paused a few moments as if indecisive, then casually pushed all her chips forward. “I’m in,” she said, “Let’s see ‘em, Captain.”

Starbuck grinned, let out a cackling laugh as she spread out her cards on the table. “Read ‘em and weep, Madam President,” the pilot quipped.

Calling upon years of stoic reserve to keep from shouting in victory, Laura just raised an eyebrow and replied, “I don’t weep, Captain.” She then laid down her hand. “Full colors.”

Thrace’s jaw dropped. “Frak me!” Then came another laugh, louder than the first.

The rest of those gathered around the table joined in, as did Laura, unable to contain her humor any longer at besting the brash Thrace at her own game. Someone sat a large stein — emblazoned with the words Galactia’s Top Gun — in front of her and began pouring alcohol into it.

“Anybody who beats Starbuck at triad gets to drink from the big cup,” explained Hot Dog, as he pulled up a chair and sat beside Laura. Thrace punched him in the shoulder in retaliation.

“Exactly how many people have beaten her?” Laura asked, eyeing the steadily filling stein with a measure of trepidation. She didn’t drink often and the thought of guzzling that amount in front of this rancorous bunch and not being able to hold it was a matter of pride.

“Just you and Baltar,” another of Galactica’s pilots answered. It was Racetrack.

Trepidation became nausea. Nodding to the cup, Laura stated, with no attempt to hide her revulsion, “Please tell me you’ve washed it since then.”

Thrace laughed so hard she nearly fell out of her chair while Laura waited for someone to answer her. She was not going to drink after Gaius Baltar. No way. No how. Not even if it meant the restoration of the 12 Colonies to their former glory and the end of the cylons forever. There were just some things she was not prepared to do, even for the sake of her people.

Okay, well, that was probably a stretch, Laura admitted. If it could secure the safety and security of humanity, she’d probably do it, but being as that was not only unlikely to happen, but downright impossible, she wasn’t going to do it unless someone assured her the stein had been washed, repeatedly, since Baltar’s drank from it.

Thankfully, someone did — Thrace herself, in fact, when she finally got her laughter under control. Only then did Laura pick up the stein by its handle, keenly aware of the expectant faces around her. She lifted the glass in salute to them and took a swallow, proud of herself when she didn’t burst into a coughing fit or spit it back out, both of which were strong urges upon tasting the concoction in the cup. It wasn’t fit to be considered alcohol. Drain cleaner was more like it. Or paint thinner. It had to be some of the moonshine that was brewed somewhere aboard the ship.

Dear gods, how do they drink this? she thought as the lining of her throat threatened to burst into flames and/or completely dissolve; either was a possibility. It was horrible, but she held her own, taking several more swallows much to the surprise, delight and respect of the pilots around her. Propriety prevented her from finishing it off, though. That and the fact she hoped to one day speak again, not to mention eat, drink and breathe.

As Laura sat the stein back on the table in triumph, a hush fell over the room. She wondered why until she heard a familiar voice ask a stern question.

“What the hell is going on?”

“The president beat Starbuck at triad, Admiral,” someone quickly offered.

There was a pause then Laura heard the shuffling of feet and looked back over her shoulder to see Bill moving through an opening in the crowd that had gathered, one that she hadn’t realized was there until now. He nodded to her with a respectful “Madam President” as he stepped up beside her. His eyes fell to the cards on the table then moved to Starbuck. His expression was indescribable.

Starbuck shrugged, challenged him, “I’d like to see you do better, boss.”

Bill just looked at her through the lenses of his glasses, a smile slowly emerging. He lifted his chin, told Starbuck, “I’m smarter than that.”

The room broke out into a howl of laughter, Starbuck laughing loudest of all.

Later that evening, after supper, Laura and Bill sat on his couch, nursing tea and ambrosia, respectively. They had talked for a while about different things then drifted off into silence. Laura had eventually picked up the book she’d been reading and opened to the page she marked. Before she could digest any words, Bill turned to her, leveled her with a smile.

“Triad?”

Laura shrugged, lips quirking.

He chuckled, shook his head then took another sip of his drink. He was still chuckling when he pushed up from the couch a few moments later and wandered to his closet. Laura watched him slip out of his uniform jacket, then sit and doff his boots. Trousers and socks followed. Clad in his underclothes, he made his way to the lavatory.

Hearing the water switch on in the shower, Laura turned her attention to the book and read. For a total of two minutes, maybe, before thoughts of Bill standing in the shower, that lush hair of his wet and tousled, those arms and hands flexing as he bathed, had her setting the book aside. And her temperature rising.

Laura laughed at herself, at how she couldn’t seem to have enough of him. At their ages, it seemed ridiculous that they’d be so … insatiable … but it was also incredibly delightful. More importantly, it was fulfilling. Because it was about more than the release of sexual tension, or slaking of lust and physical need. There was a bond with Bill. She felt connected when she was with him, engaged on so many levels with him, giving what was between them a richness she had never truly known before, with anyone else.

Laura liked that, how it made her feel, how it made her heart race and swell to bursting at the same time, how it made both her body and mind come alive with equal measure. She liked him, talking with him, listening to him, sitting next to him, touching him, kissing him … making love with him.

The latter was foremost on her mind at the moment, a torrent of images that should have made her blush with their vividness, probably would have if he’d been in the same room with her. As it was, she was growing steadily warmer, want becoming need as she considered that she would be leaving for New Caprica in the morning. She didn’t want to go, preferred to stay up here with him, warm and dry and, she admitted, happy. But the children waited, Baltar and Zarek lurked, and the cylons…

Laura didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think, period. She just wanted to feel and, hearing the shower shut off, she made a choice.

Rising from the couch, Laura shut off the lights in the main room of his cabin and caught up with Bill as he emerged from the lavatory wearing only a towel around his waist. There was something decidedly sexy about him as he stood there in front of her, middle-age paunch, scars and all. His skin was still covered in a sheen of moisture from the shower, his arms hung at his side, his eyes … they searched hers, curious, understanding and then incredibly tender.

Laura curled her fingers around his hand then slid then up the length of his arm, spoke softly as she enjoyed the contours of muscles and bone, “I’ll need a ride in the morning.”

“I’ll see to it.” His voice was soft, raspy, making her shiver.

She moved her hand away from him, smiled gently then turned and walked over to his rack, her fingers rising to undo the buttons of her shirt. Behind her, he shut off the lamp in front of his closet then the one on the desk, leaving only the one over his bed illuminated. Then his hands were helping her out of her shirt, her bra, her jeans, her panties. Every stitch of her clothing fell away from her in quiet succession, disappearing somewhere as her mind surrendered to the sensation of fingers and palms smoothing over her skin, tracing the line of her spine, lifting her hair so warm, delicate kisses could be planted to her neck and shoulders.

Laura hummed softly as he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned her head back on his shoulder as he hooked his chin over hers. She rested her arms over his, hands finding hands, fingers aligning just as the rest of their bodies did. His arousal was unmistakable and growing, but he made no move to do anything other than hold her.

Laura shut her eyes, content in the incredible intimacy of just standing in his arms, both of them bare in every respect. They might have stood there for minutes, hours or days. Laura did not know or care as tears welled and slipped unheeded down her face in emotional release, something she didn’t allow herself often but could not stem in this moment, even if she’d wanted to.

Bill felt them. She knew he did when he brought a hand up to her cheek, turned her head to him and gently kissed the salty drops away. He didn’t say a word, didn’t ask why, didn’t do anything but brush his lips over her cheek, and then her mouth. It was barely a kiss and yet it rendered her breathless and wanting … gods, did she want.

Turning slowly in his arms, hands sliding to his hips, one detouring to take him in hand while the other glided up his back. She just held him, as he’d held her moments ago, as they kissed softly, the muted smack of lips slowing as their kisses slowed, deepened.

For Laura, everything beyond Bill’s quarters, beyond where his skin touched hers ceased to exist. There was only this connecting with him. Where they were connected now. Where they would soon be connected. Where they would always be connected.

When he eventually turned them and sat on the edge of the bed, Laura climbed astride him and sought his mouth out again. He lay back and she followed, lips moving over his in sleek, sensual caresses, humming as his hands moved over her body, front and back — so careful with her breasts — before sinking into her hair.

Laura kissed and kissed him until she was trembling with the need for more, for the feel of him inside her, moving with her in the timeless dance of lovers. She sat up slowly, grasping his hands as they fell away and guiding them over her chest to her breasts. He was still so careful, but she pushed into his touch, moaning at the mixture of pain and pleasure, head falling back as she rocked her hips against his, feeling his body respond eagerly.

Blindly, she ran her hands down his arms, squeezing, stroking, as another part of her anatomy longed to do to another part of him. She groaned at the prospect, raked her fingernails down his chest to his belly, felt his body rise under her, undulating with need. She heard his moan, the wondrous rasp of her name in that impossibly deep baritone.

Thick fingers slid into wetness, fondled, caressed, penetrated. She stilled then fell into his stroking rhythm, aching for more and yet greedily unwilling to give up this connection for the other. Not yet. Soon, soon. But this, now. This. She wanted and, laying her hands on his chest, thumbs rubbing his nipples as her fingers splayed against his skin, took, just as he gave it. So generously.

Gazing down at him under her, she felt both powerful and powerless, neither negating the other. She was both, at once, and so was he. A balance, like the professional one they’d found after Kobol. Only deeply personal. Both giving. Both taking. Symmetry. Equality. Unity.

“Bill,” she breathed, her hand finding the one he had between her thighs. She caressed him, gripped him as she moved frantically against him, wanting to… and then she was there, crying out as he plucked a nipple in conjunction with a sudden upward push of his fingers.

Then she was on her side in the bed and he was hooking her leg over his hip and sheathing his need in her. “Gods, yes,” she breathed … panted … moaned as he sank deep. She wrapped her arms around him, clutched him close, never wanting to let him go as he rocked into her.

Her mouth found his, then his neck and shoulder. She kissed, licked, sucked and scraped her teeth over his slick skin, making him shudder and moan. She was hungry, so hungry for him.

A hand on his shoulder, she urged him onto his back again, rising over him as he went then bowing to lay claim to his chest, kissing and biting, marking him as hers. And he let her, hands on her head, following her every move, thrusting up into her in a rhythm based entirely on when her teeth grabbed his flesh.

Soon, it was too much and not enough. For either of them.

Sitting up, Laura caught his hands with hers, held onto them tightly as she sought their common goal. Her eyes found his in the lights and shadows as they moved together, hips colliding hard and fast, bodies straining, straining, straining until spasms overtook them with the wash of pleasure.

A little while later, pleasantly tired, freshly showered and undeniably sated, Laura slipped back into bed with her dozing lover. He woke when she lifted the covers and welcomed her to snuggle against him with an outstretched arm and a smile. He pulled her close, kissed the top of her head as she rested it on his shoulder, not caring that her mass of hair was still damp.

Running her hand across his chest, she sighed happily and traced her fingers over one of the bite marks she’d made. She hadn’t broken his skin, but she’d left an impression, literally. He flinched at her caress. “Sorry,” she whispered, lightened her touch, “I guess I got a little carried away.”

Bill’s body shook with a silent chuckle as he ran a hand over her arm. “It’s okay,” he said softly, kissed the top of her head again. “I’m glad you did,” he confessed, warm breath caressing her scalp.

Laura smiled, turned her head and pressed her lips to his chest, began giggling as she thought about what Cottle might say if he saw the love bites she’d left on Bill tonight. She shared her thoughts with her lover, who laughed out loud.

When silence eventually fell between them, Laura’s thoughts turned introspective, her mind refusing to still even though she was truly tired. They weren’t bad thoughts or worries, just thoughts, reflections really, on the last couple of days, the last few months, about she and Bill and how things had changed for them, between them. It had been a natural transition, so natural that Laura had never really stopped to truly think about why it was or to question how right it felt. She still didn’t, but she did wonder…

“What are we doing, Bill?” she whispered as she rubbed her hand over his heart.

A broad hand covered hers, pressed it closer to him. Then came another kiss to the top of her head and a low rumble in the darkness, strong and sure, words that warmed and comforted her to the depths of her soul.

“Living, Laura,” he breathed, “Just living.”

< Slide 35: Good Morning, Good Night 

AUTHOR’S FINAL NOTE: Well, folks, this would appear to be the final slide in this series — my muse told me so when I wrote the final paragraphs. Thank you all so much for reading the story. I hope you continue to enjoy it in the days to come, and do check out the sequel series, Occupations.