Slide 18: The Admiral and The School Teacher

Laura Roslin pursed her lips and blew a stray strand of hair out of her face as she set a large stack of notepads on the table in front of her. The pads were remnants of the gift shop that would have occupied the Galactica’s starboard flight pod had the Cylons not attacked the Twelve Colonies. Emblazoned with the warship’s official seal, they, along with scores of other items, had been locked in a seldom-accessed storage compartment for the last year, out of sight and out of mind until her plans for a school had circulated the ship. Upon finding out about said plans, some of Galactica’s crew had taken it upon themselves to pull the items out for her.

Laura was grateful. The notepads, pencils and other stationery items were going to come in handy for her future students.

For the better part of the day, she’d been inventorying the contents of the dozens of boxes the crew had rounded up. Tory had helped for a while but was now off conferring with Col. Tigh on the matter of block captains, leaving her to finish up.

Laura didn’t mind the time alone. She’d had so little to herself in the last year that she found it refreshing to not worry about someone knocking on the door and wanting her to sign something or to see her — or, rather, to whine or complain to her about something utterly inane.

In comparison, this was just honest, physical labor and a task that made use of her mind without draining her. She’d gone about it happily, humming to herself, dancing a step or two when the notion struck her — which invariably made her laugh at herself. She did so now and could not help the giggle that burst from her.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Laura looked over at the doorway and saw Admiral Bill Adama standing there with an amused smirk on his face. He held his glasses in one hand while the other hung loosely at his side. The light glinted off the insignias on his uniform. He looked very … Bill.

“Very observant, Admiral,” she quipped, flashing him a teasing smile before plucking the pen from behind her ear and bending over her inventory list to add another entry.

As she wrote, he came to stand on the other side of the table. She glanced up at him, saw his eyes moving around the room, taking in the wealth of what his crew had found for her. She propped an elbow atop the stack of pads and rested her chin in her palm, pen held between her index and middle fingers as she eyed him

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I want to know where or how they found all of it,” he replied as his eyes met hers.

“I think most of it came from the gift shop inventory.” He winced at her reply and she gave him a sympathetic smile, knowing how he felt about his ship. She then offered, “I wish it had been under other circumstances, but I am glad she wasn’t turned into a museum.”

His smile returned, an adorable quirk at the corner of his mouth that inevitably lit his eyes. Gods, the man is frakking sexy when he wears that expression, she thought and felt herself flush. She wasn’t in the habit of thinking of him like that. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She did think about him like that, just not like that — wild random thoughts out of nowhere. She was generally more contemplative about Bill because, frankly, there was a lot to contemplate. He was a wonderfully simple man in many ways and yet intriguingly complex in others.

She was never more sure of that when, as she continued looking at him, he lifted a hand and tucked the errant lock of red she’d blown at moments ago behind her ear. What’s more, his touch lingered, his fingertip lightly tracing the rim of her ear then grazing the ultra-sensitive skin just behind the appendage before drifting away.

Laura could not stop the widening of her eyes or the various other responses her body had to the brazen caress. She watched his expression soften at her reaction, watched his eyes darken with … and then it was shuttered away behind that mask of military commander when someone called from the doorway. It took Laura a moment to realize the voice belonged to his son.

Laura glanced over at the younger Adama as Bill turned to face him. “Captain Apollo,” she greeted.

In response, Lee smiled with a “Madam President” and eventually looked away. It was similar to the way his father would do when something bemused him, and yet not. Lee’s reaction wasn’t one of amusement, bemusement or even shyness. Unlike his father and for all his assuredness when it came to being a pilot or officer, Lee seemed desperately uncomfortable in his own skin at times. He seemed that way now, though Laura knew not why. It’s almost as if he was searching for something.

“You wanted to see me before I returned to Pegasus, Admiral,” Lee said as he approached them.

“Yes, son,” Bill replied and Laura watched a smile find its way to his face, saw his features fill with what could only be paternal pride as he held out his hand to Lee.

Lee took it and smiled in return. The expression wasn’t without affection, but it wasn’t what it should have been either, Laura decided. The tension between the two men had lessened in the last year, but the younger Adama still noticeably held himself distant from his father.

Laura could see that metaphorical distance clear as day even as Lee clasped his father’s hand. She could see Bill’s disappointment as well at recognizing it, but he did not acknowledge it to Lee. Instead, he got down to business but kept his tone conversational, subtly inviting his son to close the gap. It was a tone she recognized well and one she’d never been able to resist, even in those tense early days of their professional alliance. Lee seemed not immune, but determined to fight it for some reason.

As Bill spoke to his son, bringing him up to speed on disaster preparedness plans and the surprising news of Lt. Gaeta’s defection to the Baltar camp, Laura moved around to stand beside him. She leaned back against the table and crossed her arms over her chest, interjecting points here and there as they occurred to her.
Lee took in the information as she’d expected, his expression serious and then shocked when the Gaeta bomb was dropped. He stammered for several minutes before finally running his hand through his hair.

“I would have never…” he began, his voice trailing off, unable to complete the thought. He tried a new one but couldn’t complete that one either. “He wouldn’t…”

“He’d better not,” was Bill’s reply and for the second time that day, Laura felt a shiver run down her spine. If Gaeta so much as breathed a syllable of their plans to Baltar and Company, Bill was going to be unequivocally pissed.

Lee looked at his father wide-eyed. “You didn’t threaten him, did you?” his tone half shocked, half accusatory.

Bill rankled at the latter. Laura didn’t have to look at him to see or confirm it. She felt it. Anger flared from him in an almost tangible wave. She looked over at him anyway, watched him shackle it with that iron will of his when he answered his son.

“It’s not my habit to threaten officers under my command, Commander. I prefer to trust them,” he replied. “You know that. Or at least you should.”

Laura watched Lee’s face harden with anger at being scolded. It was extraordinary how these two men, father and son, could so quickly rile one another, over practically nothing — though, admittedly Lee had insulted Bill. And both of them were stubborn as mules, too. They dug their heels in and tended not budge — at least not until they’d calmed. Of course, she couldn’t throw rocks. She was just as bad. But still…

“Gentlemen,” she interjected quietly and watched them both back down after a few more moments of posturing. Bill quicker than Lee, she noted. He sighed heavily and leaned back against the table next to her. He then put on his glasses and crossed his arms, matching her stance.

“We trust him for now,” Bill said succinctly, repeating to Lee what he’d told her earlier. “If anything comes up, I’ll deal with it.”

And that was that. Lee said no more on the subject, simply nodded in acquiescence. He might not be comfortable around his father, might not understand him or even the choices he made, but his father outranked him, had led them this far and he would trust his judgment.

The rest of the discussion was perfunctory. She, Bill and Col. Tigh had already debated extensively the merits of changing any of the disaster response plans they’d made in recent weeks and concluded that there wasn’t anything really to change.

Even if Baltar was to learn of Laura’s part in planning them, the plans were still valid and neither Baltar nor Zarek could honestly argue with the wisdom of having them. The plans addressing any potential, and likely, Cylon invasion on the other hand … that was a different story. She could easily see the duo protesting and suppressing those plans, and possibly crying treason, which is why she wasn’t privy to the details beyond the civilian side of things, which were basically tie-ins with the population evacuation aspects of the disaster response plans.

The specifics of the military plans remained between Bill and Col. Tigh. So far as she knew, no one else was in on those, not even Lee, though if he didn’t know about them now, she suspected he would at some point. It only made sense that he be brought into the loop as commander of the Pegasus, and possibly even Kara Thrace whose unorthodox stratagems had foiled the Cylons on a number of occasions in the past.

Laura trusted them to put their heads together to devise the best plans possible for as many situations as they could imagine. She was curious, of course, as to what they would come up with, but Bill believed it best she not know. Plausible deniability was her ally at this juncture, shielding her from any accusations that might be made against her thereby keeping her reputation untarnished for the future.

Bill, gods bless him, believed she would be president again, and she hoped he was right, not for pride or vanity’s sake but because she felt it was her mission to lead her people, to see them to safety. She couldn’t do that if she were brought up on charges of treason or conspiracy or anything of the like. So, for now, she was simply a school teacher who was developing lesson plans and organizing school supplies.

Bill, meanwhile, was admiral of the fleet, doing his job of protecting the people and preparing for eventualities. No one could fault him for that and Baltar sure as hell couldn’t fire him for it. The military — and probably the civilians — wouldn’t stand for it. They loved their Old Man and would not follow anyone else Baltar might appoint, and none of Bill’s officers would accept a position over him. Baltar was stuck with Bill no matter what, a fact that gave Laura great comfort. She trusted him as she trusted no other.

Once the briefing was concluded, Lee departed for his ship with a nod to her and a quiet “Dad” to Bill.

Laura looked over at her admiral, who still stood at her side, his posture an exact mirror of hers — except for his eyes, which were fastened on the hatch his son had just exited. His expression was gentle and affectionate, one of happiness. Dad … just that one word from his son had made him so, clearly washing away any residual anger that might have lingered from their earlier terse exchange.

Laura was happy for him. Unfolding her arms, she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, slid it down to his biceps, gave it a brief, gentle caress.

Blue eyes moved to her, flickered with a variety of emotions behind the lenses of his glasses. One corner of his mouth gradually turned up into a smile, which she returned, tilting her head. He looked at her for several moments then leaned toward her. Without hesitation, she moved to meet him and accept a kiss. It was soft and gentle, a brief pressing of lips that nevertheless made her delightfully giddy and her heart skip a beat.

When he pulled back, he was smiling again, and then he was laughing softly as he pushed away from the table. Laura hummed in amusement as he pivoted to stand in front of her. He held her gaze a moment then turned and headed toward the door, tossing a raspy “I’ll see you for dinner” over his shoulder.

“Yes, you will,” she replied breathlessly as she watched him go.

< Slide 17: Contact, Confess, Confide | Slide 19: Come Undone >