It is shattered. Broken. The debris littering the floor, the desk, some had splintered off onto and under the couch. She can't see the Aurora anywhere, just these remnants of a ship that she knows he had poured himself into, had given so much time and love to, so much dedication. Now it is in ruin. The wreckage of a ship (of his heart) laid bare for all to see. His daughter is dead, his family broken once again. She feels a sob build in her own chest, swallows it, forces it back down. She will not break, he can't afford for her to.

The fragments lay there for days, as time continued (in horrific, unpitying forward motion, refusing to stand still for grief) and extended into a week, the pieces eventually relocating from where they had scattered to the desk, to lie with the bulk of the ship. But he is not repairing it. Simply keeping the pieces together, but not rebuilding. She sees that in him, too.

She has no idea how to build a model ship. It is not a hobby that has ever appealed to her. But she had loved seeing him work on the ship. The sporadic (but more frequent) days when he would work on it in her presence, when work was light enough to permit the time or she was simply... there, with him in the quiet time.

She would watch his hands moving expertly over the framework, the bow, the mast, the decking. Every detail perfect and precise, time dedicated to making it so (he would never settle for anything being out of place when he could take it in his hands and make it better). She loved how much he loved it, was completely enamoured with the happiness (gratification, rapture, peace) that it brought him.

Now it lies battered, destroyed in (with) grief - this part of him no longer being graced with his time, his love. He can barely stand to look at it. But it was part of him. It was (it is, it will be again).

She knows there is a consanguinity between him and the ship, to heal one she must repair the other. But she cannot reach her hands into his chest, cannot open the seam of his scar to plunge in and hold his heart in her hands, to salve it with love until it is whole again.

She must work with the pieces of his heart that she can hold in her hands.

She does not know how to build a model ship. But a teacher must be willing to learn, too. There was a book in his collection that she borrowed silently (breaking their own rules when she returned it - he never even noticed its absence), reading it, trying to decipher how the pieces slotted together, how to take all the elements and frame them into something new (or something old, rebuilt).

Nobody questions the President's movements on Galactica. Nobody blinks when she spends time in the Admiral's quarters when he is in CIC. Nobody dares imagine that her time and body is now spent hunched over the broken bow of boat. Unrelenting in her goal to put it back together. She will not allow his grief to keep him or it (or them) broken. She simply cannot permit it. She loves him too much for that (she dares not examine the truth of this in her own heart, even as she bleeds her love into mending his).

He does not even notice at first - or if he does he gives no indication. She thinks that he has blinded himself to it, seeing Kara's death (its presence is her absence) whenever he sees the shattered ship. It breaks her heart (as she reconstructs his). But little by little the pieces are becoming less scattered, more and more and more are being reattached, repaired. She is fixing his model ship. She is mending him in the process. He just doesn't know it yet.

It is in his peripheral vision now. The boat, his pain, his hurting, she knows he can see it from the corner of his eye but never looks at it directly - he would let it rot and fester and infest the rest of him. But it is changing slightly, slowly, day after day, not enough for him to notice immediately. Not enough to make him look at it full on.

She had not known how to build a model ship; it is taking longer than she hoped. He is still aching. He will always ache - there will always be this wound, this scar that Kara's passing has carved into him. She thinks she knows how to fix the bow (the mast had been surprisingly easy, the sails slightly tricky - she'd had to find someone who could stitch new ones) but it is trickier than she imagined. She does not quit.

She works on it in now in his presence. She has work to do, but she has work to do, and the quiet time is now oppressive silence. This cannot go on.

"Oh frak it." She swears louder than she intended to, drawing his attention (more fully  the ship he ignores, but never her).

"What?" His voice a tired rumble.

She waves her hand accusingly at the model. "Splinter, the damn boat…" (and your damned heart)

"It's a ship. Just... you should just leave it." She will not permit this. She will not.

"No. You should help me." She stresses every word, her eyes drilling into him.

"Laura." Her name (his plea) settles over her heavily. The weight of his pain on her shoulders (pieces of his heart in her hands).

"Help me put this ship back together, Bill. I... can't. I don't know how to finish this, and it won't be right. It needs to be put back together. (I need you back together.)"

"I can't."

"You won't. Frak it." The splinter stings. She tries to pull it free from under her skin - his grief imbedded in her skin - but cannot do it on her own.

He is beside her before she realises he has moved. "C'mere." His fingers close around her palm as he pulls her hand to his, examining her finger. She watches him reach for the tweezers and pull the splinter free. He raises her hand to his mouth and kisses where the skin has been punctured. As he tries to let go, she ties her fingers through his and leans her forehead against his temple. She whispers her thanks to him, squeezes his fingers tighter. She is achingly sad in this moment. She thinks it would have been easier to open up his chest. She has never chosen the easy path.

She reaches towards the tools, picks one at random as she loosens her grip on him, replacing her hand with it. She closes his fist around it and stands, lowering back briefly to run her fingers through his hair, placing a kiss and a please onto his scalp before she leaves.

It is two days before she reappears in his quarters, stepping through the open hatch. She does not knock (Laura never does).

If a heart could expand with love (and hope and longing) so fully as to burst its stitches, then hers would do so now. He is seated on the couch, the ship on the table in front of him (glasses on his nose, the Aurora in his hands). She takes her place beside him (his focus still on the ship, but she knows she has his attention) and slips an arm across his shoulders, wrapping herself around him as she presses her lips against his temple.

Her eyes caress the model as she takes in its state. It is not as good as new. It is something different now. It is fixed, but it had been broken (its current state not negating the old). It would never be quite as it had been, between pieces that had not mended just so and by virtue of the fingerprints that marked it now. Her work and his. She is unsurprised to feel the tears on her own face. She wipes them lightly before reaching out to delicately touch the figurine in his grasp.

"Where did you find her?" (She had searched for days.)

She feels a current move through his body as an admission flows forth "She wasn't missing." She squeezes his shoulder softly in encouragement when he pauses. "She was in the box on the desk. I… put her away." (Kara's gift. Hidden, safe, protected. Not like Kara.)

She tightens her hold on their knot of fingers and figurine and guides it towards the stern of the ship. She moves their mass of skin and gold along the lines of the ship - gently gently gently she navigates them along the bow, along this beautiful ship (his beautiful heart) and steers them to the prow. Together they slot the Aurora in place.

A fresh start.