Slide 2: The Disarming of Laura

“Laura?”

Someone said her name but she was warm and felt delightfully languorous and managed only a “Hmmm?” in response.

There was a chuckle. “Are you going to get up?”

She considered the question from her syrupy state of mind, as much as that was possible — which wasn’t much at all really — and decided she was quite comfortable where she was. Though, she vaguely recalled she had important things to do. She decided on a compromise, mumbling, “Maybe … not.”

There was another laugh, deep, rich and raspy. Then the scent of coffee.

“Breakfast is getting cold.”

Mmmm … breakfast, Laura thought, sighed then paused. Breakfast? Bill! Oh frak!

Opening her eyes, she saw Bill standing near her bed, partially dressed, holding a cup of coffee and grinning ear to ear. “Good morning, Madam President,” he teased.

Her eyes raked over him involuntarily, taking in that his hair was wet and he had a towel around his neck. Several smears of shaving cream graced his face and neck and his dogtags rested at the center of his broad chest, standing out against the drab olive of his regulation tanks.

Her brain was clearly still sleep addled because all she could think was how good he looked. Then he spoke, his words clearing away the haze and snapping her back to herself.

“You didn’t answer the door.”

Laura met his gaze, blushed at seeing the smile on his face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You needed the rest, obviously,” he replied.

Laura nodded. “But I usually don’t sleep so soundly,” she said as she sat up in the bed.

Bill offered her the mug of coffee and she accepted it.

“You relaxed,” he said simply then wandered back to the lavatory.

From her perch on the bed, Laura considered the truth in his observation as she watched him lean over the sink and rinse away the remainder of the shaving cream from his skin. When she’d gone to bed, she hadn’t worried about the lack of a proper door, whether Baltar or Zarek would drop by, or that the press corps was just a deck away. She’d simply gone to sleep and rested — thanks to Bill and the safety he and his ship afforded.

Sipping her coffee, she watched him dry his face with the towel from around his neck. When he was done, he folded the cloth neatly and laid it on the counter. He then picked up his uniform jacket, which lay next to the cloth, and shirked it on. He buttoned it with a quick efficiency that spoke to his years as an officer. When he began unbuckling his trousers to tuck in the tails of the jacket, she looked away,. He’d obviously forgotten she was there. Or he was just that comfortable with her presence. Or maybe it was just the level of modesty she should expect from a career military man.

Even as the last possibility surfaced, Laura dismissed it. Bill wasn’t a prude, but he’d always been a gentleman, making her suspect that one of the first two options was more likely. She knew it was the second when he came out of the lavatory and told her it was all hers. Something about that made her ridiculously happy.

Dragging herself from under the covers, Laura sat her coffee on Bill’s desk and slipped into the lavatory. When she stepped into the shower and turned the water on, she gasped in surprise. Gods, real water pressure! she mentally cheered and turned to let the jets beat over her back.

“You’re not getting this back either, Bill,” she decided as muscles unknotted in her neck. “Ever.” Then laughed aloud at how possessive she was becoming over his things. She could just imagine his face in the other room. He was probably grinning and shaking his head at her. That thought, too, made her happy, which she found pretty damned amazing considering she was about to be out of a job and moving to an inhospitable planet in the coming weeks.

Laughter dissolving into a sigh, Laura reached for her shampoo and lathered her hair. She washed and rinsed, then soaped her body. Once the suds were sluiced away, she shut off the water and grabbed a towel. She dried off then slipped on her robe before blow drying her hair.

Exiting the lavatory, she saw Bill sitting at the table looking over a report. His back was to her but he glanced over his shoulder at her and she saw the telling signs of a smile in the crinkles at the corner of his eye.

“Enjoy that, did you?”

Laura grinned. “Hell, yes. You have real water pressure.”

“Weak on Colonial One?”

“You have no idea,” she replied as she moved to the closet and retrieved one of her suits. Laying it over the chair beside her, she then fished out her undergarments from the drawer before taking it all to the lavatory to dress.

When she reemerged, she felt decidedly more presidential, her hair tamed into a semblance of order; her makeup, though minimal, just right; and every line of her tailored suit setting properly on her frame. And she was less happy for it, the weight of the office returning as she went through her morning ritual of preparing for battle with the quorum, and now Baltar and Zarek.

Maybe I can just go back to bed, she thought as she cast a longing look at Bill’s rack. Her frown became a smile, though, when she saw that he’d made it, not a single disturbance to be seen in the covers.

“Come eat,” Bill called out to her as she stepped toward the bed and her shoes.

“Coming,” she replied as she slipped her feet into the heels.

She then joined him at the table and saw that he’d retrieved her coffee and poured her a fresh cup. She sighed as she breathed in the rich aroma then took a sip. “This is good coffee,” she commented.

“Jaffee makes a good brew,” Bill said as he continued to look over the contents of the folder that sat next to his half-eaten breakfast.

Lifting the cover from her plate, Laura picked up her fork and set about eating her breakfast. She watched Bill peruse the papers and wondered what held his attention so thoroughly. “What are you reading?” she asked.

“The latest report on the surface conditions.” He then turned the folder so she could see.

Laura sat her fork aside and shifted the papers further, digging her glasses out of her pocket as she did. She put them on and began to read. After a few minutes, she began shaking her head and took her glasses back off. “They’re insane to think we can make a go of it there.”

“Baltar’s a sycophantic hedonist,” Bill replied. “He’ll do anything the people want simply because he needs the ego boost, never mind that what they want isn’t what’s best for them.”

“And Zarek’s a power-hungry, nihilistic philosopher who’ll go to any length to get what he wants … what a pair.” Laura rubbed her hand across her brow and looked wanly at her plate, her appetite having fled. “How did it come to this, Bill?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “But it won’t last.”

“You sound sure of that.”

Bill shrugged and laid his glasses beside hers as he deadpanned, “‘School teacher and admiral’ has better PR potential than ‘unstable scientist and convicted terrorist’.”

Laura threw back her head and laughed, loud and carefree. She enjoyed the moment, the camaraderie, and it was a good thing she did for the rest of her day turned out to be a test of her patience, and sanity. She was dead on her feet by the time she returned to Galactica that evening, her head pounding to the point she was seeing stars and felt queasy.

Bill, upon seeing her when she walked in, immediately reached for the handset beside his desk and called up Sickbay. Laura frowned at him but didn’t protest. If Cottle could do something to ease the pain, she’d be grateful. She didn’t want to fight any more today.

“That bad?” Bill asked as she dropped into the chair in front of his desk, her bag hitting the floor beside it with a thud.

“Do you have an airlock I can borrow?” she sighed as she leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, trying to shut out the light from the lamp. Its warm illumination was normally a comfort but at the moment it seemed more like a localized solar flare determined to blast a hole through her skull.

And then it ceased with a click.

Though her head still pounded, she felt immediate relief as Bill doused the light. “Thank you,” she groaned and sat up again.

She didn’t open her eyes, but heard him moving about, the click of another switch and the illumination in the room decreased again. He’d shut off the lamp over the bed.

“You should lay down,” he said as he passed by her.

Laura nodded but didn’t move. He returned a few moments later and touched her hand with a soft “Here.” She opened her palm and he placed a cool, damp cloth across her fingers. He then took hold of her other hand and drew her to her feet. She opened her eyes and looked at him in the shadows as he led her to his bed, found comfort in his quiet, steady presence.

Kicking off her shoes, Laura stretched out on the bed. Bill sat beside her and took the cloth from her, draped it over her forehead and eyes. Her skin felt desperately hot in comparison to the material.

“I get these from time to time,” he told her. “Cottle has something that takes the edge off.”

“So long as it isn’t one of his frakking cigarettes,” she grumbled, her stomach turning at the thought of how the doctor always seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of smoke, and when he wasn’t, he smelled of it, stale and bitter. The way her stomach felt, she didn’t know how she was going to respond when he arrived.

Bill chuckled. “No, but it is a shot.”

“Frak,” she groaned and pulled the cloth from her eyes. She looked at Bill in the shadows. “Where does he have to give it?”

“Your arm,” Bill laughed harder.

“Thank the gods,” she sighed and closed her eyes again.

“Do I want to know?” Bill asked as he took the cloth from her and put it back over her eyes.

“No,” she whispered.


She felt his fingers linger at her temples, just touching. There was a sense of hesitation from him and then he seemed to come to a decision and began rubbing gently, in slow circles. Laura moaned at the tandem touch. It was just right, enough to bring comfort without aggravating the soreness that came with the pounding.

“Hurt?” he asked, stilling.

“No. Good.” she replied and wondered briefly when her vocabulary had been reduced to one-syllable words. The matter became unimportant, though, when he resumed his ministrations. All thought fled as she concentrated on the gentle pressure of his fingertips then, when he changed his touch, the light, sweeping arcs his thumbs made from her cheekbones to her temples.

It was dead silent in the room except for their breaths, the shifting of fabric every now and then, and the steady, latent hum of Galactica. Had her head not been trying to explode, Laura was sure the moment would have been breathtakingly erotic. As it was, a web of intimacy had been spun between them. Recognizing it made her breath quicken.

How the hell Bill Adama had made a migraine sexy was beyond Laura, but he’d done it, with a tender, quiet efficiency that was simply extraordinary.

A banging on the hatch broke the spell and sent a jolt of pain through Laura’s skull. “Frak me,” she groaned, her hands coming up to cover Bill’s, moving them to cover her ears.

His voice was pitched low when he called for doctor to enter. Laura still winced and released his hands when he began to move away.

“Migraine,” she heard Bill tell Cottle.

“A doctor now, are you?” the physician muttered in response.

Laura’s stomach turned as she got a whiff of stale cigarette smoke. “Just give me the frakking shot,” she snapped, afraid she was going to embarrass herself if he didn’t get it over with and get out of her vicinity.

“Pleasant houseguest you have, Admiral.”

Under normal circumstances, Laura thought the doctor’s verbal cynicism and wit lent him a somewhat rough charm. At the moment, however, it was an irritant, like a grain of sand in the eye — and Laura’s whole head was hurting, including her eyes. She just wanted it to stop.

Placing her hands at her temples, she tried to replicate what Bill had been doing a moment ago as she pleaded, “Doctor, please.”

Cottle responded as the dedicated physician she knew him to be. He simply went about business, checking her pulse and then ordering her to remove her jacket. and roll up her sleeve. He moved away and she sat up, though it was the last thing she wanted to do, unbuttoned her jacket and then shrugged out of it. She opened her eyes when warm fingers brushed hers and took the jacket from her. She recognized Bill in the shadows as he sat beside her and helped her roll up her sleeve.

“Thank you,” she said, bracing herself on her other arm.

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before he drifted away again. It was odd not seeing his face and yet knowing that he was smiling at her.

Cottle came back over and she felt her stomach do another somersault. She held her breath and didn’t release it until he was done and several feet away. “You should start feeling that fairly quickly,” he said as he repacked his bag. He sat a small bottle on Bill’s desk. “Take those as you need, but stick to the dosage, young lady.”

“Okay,” she responded, having the sense to feel sheepish as she recalled what happened last time she’d disregarded his dosing instructions.

Cottle just looked at her and shook his head. He turned to leave them, grabbing Bill’s arm as he passed. “If she can eat, it’ll do her some good later,” she heard the doctor tell him.

Bill just nodded and saw Cottle out. He then turned out all the lights in the other room but one, which was out of direct line of sight of his rack.

“You heard him?” he asked softly upon reentering the sleeping area.

“Yes. But I can’t just now…”

“I know.” It was not an idle platitude. She heard the understanding in his voice, watched him go over to his desk. “I’ll go so that you can rest,” he said and fumbled in the shadows for the folders and pen he’d been using when she’d come in. She nodded but really didn’t want him to go. She wasn’t sure why. She’d never been clingy, even when sick, not even when she’d been dying. But for some reason, the thought of him leaving … it just wasn’t what she wanted.

“Stay,” she heard herself saying. When he stopped what he was doing and looked over at her, she continued, “At least until I fall asleep.”

He straightened and came over to sit beside her again, just at the edge of the bed. She could feel his eyes on her, searching even though she knew he couldn’t see her very well, if at all.

“Are you all right?” he asked, a hand brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear.

Laura nodded, trembled at the grazing touch.

“Sure?” he whispered.

Her eyes falling shut, she caught his hand and guided his fingers back to her temple. “Would you?” she breathed.

“Yes.” It was a gentle rumble in the darkness.

At his behest, Laura lay back down. She closed her eyes and sighed when his fingers again found their way to her temples. She steadily relaxed under his touch and the pain ebbed as the shot Cottle had given her took effect.

“Easing?” Bill asked when she hummed softly, welcoming the relief.

“Mmm-hmmm.”

It was the most coherent reply she could give him as the urge to sleep rushed over her unexpectedly. She fought it, for a few moments, until Bill issued a gentle command, “Sleep, Laura.”

She obeyed and was rewarded with the touch of his lips to her brow in a gentle kiss.

< Slide 1: Change of Address | Slide 3: Laws of Attraction >