Another lovely prompt from okaynextcrisis: things you said too quietly.
I'm not sure if this is what you were looking for but it's what came to mind…I hope you enjoy :)
PS: I don't own anything but the story and reviews are love!
They had just arrived back on Galactica from their so called Earth. The planet was now a barren wasteland riddled with scrub brush and soil decimated by radiation. Nothing would ever become of the grey mass floating in space, at least not in their life time.
The dream that had kept them all going was just that, a dream, fleeting in the wind. He had always known it was to be a carrot for the fleet and in some capacity he had begun to believe it himself. After everything that had happened…finding Kobol, the eye of Jupiter, surviving New Caprica,Baltar's trial, Laura's abduction by the hybrid, and outrunning the Cylon fleet in general, he had begun to see a light at the end of the tunnel. He, Admiral Atheist, had begun to see what could be salvaged for their civilization.
Earth.
Until he had picked up the poisoned earth in his hands and watched helplessly as Laura became resolute and detached. Before the preliminary scans began flooding in he could see she was starting to give up and beginning to slip away. Never before had he felt the weight of the human species on his shoulders as he did that day…he could only imagine how she was feeling. All the words he had said to her in anger were beginning to circulate not only in his mind but surely hers as well.
You're afraid that you may not be the Dying Leader you thought you were.
The words said in an inebriated state haunted him still, even though he seemed to have been forgiven at her next diloxan treatment. He could still see her leant back against the elevated bed, breathing through her nose to stem the nausea. The silent smile on her face as he began to read was like a balm to his soul.
Or that your death may be as meaningless as everyone else's.
It wasn't meaningless…she was everything to him. He didn't know how he would move on without her if…and when the time came. As he stood inside the hatch to her quarters, ones she hadn't been to in weeks, and watched her burn the pages of her beloved scrolls, he knew. He knew that he had failed her in more ways than one. That she had finally given in and something was beginning to shift.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled softy, his voice breaking on the last syllable.
He shook his head dejectedly as he turned and shuffled into the hallway, spinning the wheel on the hatch to secure the lock.