When Colonial One touched down on Galactica's hanger deck, the festivities quieted down immediately and a hush fell over the crowd that had been rowdily celebrating their liberation from Cylon occupation just moments before. Relief had been etched plainly on battle worn faces as each successive transport had touched down and more people streamed into the hangar bay. Adama had personally greeted as many people as possible, had let them hoist him on their shoulders in victory. Lee and Dee were safe and sound. His people were back, Starbuck, Tigh, Gaeta, Tyrol and Cally and their little son, all the other men and women of the fleet he'd abandoned on that rock. Their whoops and cheers had rung loudly in the empty spaces of his heart. He'd felt hollowed out; barely able to breathe for all those months he'd been gone. He'd sworn to protect these people and he'd failed. The sight of Tigh's scarred face, the look in his one remaining eye, had brought the message home. He may have rescued them, but he'd failed to protect them.

Protect her.

Laura Roslin. He hadn't been able to protect her and that, above all other things, shamed him so profoundly that all he wanted to do was hide in his cabin and howl until he couldn't howl anymore, rage until all rage left him.

Laura Roslin; the woman they were now al waiting for in a silence so profound he felt as if he were back in those holy places of old, the temples of his childhood, the ones his parents dragged him to until he was old enough to deny them.

When the hatch finally opened and he caught a glimpse of auburn hair, he let out a breath he's been unaware he'd been holding and some of the tightness in his chest loosened. He heard a rustle behind him and beside him and noticed several people had knelt down, fingers to their forehead in a show of respect and devotion, others, among them Kara and Lee, Dee, Gaeta, Tigh – of all people – stood at attention, saluting their rightful President as she stepped out onto the hanger deck.

The heartbeat it took for her gaze to sweep over the people massed before her and unerringly lock in on him, seemed like a lifetime to Bill and in those precious moments before her eyes alighted on him, he drank her in.

She looked like hell.

Her hair was longer then it had been and it was a mess, standing out in all directions. She was wearing a dirty blue windbreaker, her face was smudged and her glasses askew. He noticed she held herself stiffly, as if feeling the weight of her years, and there were a few more lines around her eyes and mouth, the familiar ones just a little bit deeper.

She looked altogether beautiful to Bill.

There were tears in her eyes, those seascape eyes that had haunted his dreams these months past. As her gaze locked with his he crossed the space dividing them in four long strides.

"Madam President." His salute was crisp as ever and his gaze never wavered from her face as he offered her his arm, gave her a small smile, gave her what was left of him.

She glanced at him, at the use of her former title, but did not even try to correct him. It was hers by right. She'd earned it with every impossible decision she'd had to make during their flight from the Cylons, with every tortured breath she'd drawn when she was close to death's door and still fighting to attend to the duties of her office. If he knew the people she'd so fiercely tried to protect ever since the holocaust at all, she had become their president again, the moment the Cylons showed up and Baltar surrendered to them. If he knew her at all, she'd taken up that role again with grace, even though more than half those people had voted her out of office to follow Baltar's delusional pipe dream.

"Admiral." She rested her hand on his arm. The weight of it hardly registered and he noticed her cheeks were less full, gaunt almost, and the veins on the back of the hand resting on his arm stood out more prominently. She'd lost weight, quite a bit of it if he judged correctly.

She had yet to look up at him, avoided looking him in the eye for more than a fleeting second. She seemed to be almost hiding from him now that they were standing so close, toe to toe, and he ducked his head, searched out her eyes. What he saw in them shocked him like bullet to the gut. She looked crushed, deflated. Laura Roslin, invincible leader of men, prophet, warrior and teacher, looked up at him, not with joy, relief, or any of the myriad other emotions he'd seen wash over the faces of the colonists as they once again set foot on the deck of his ship, but with utter defeat.

Oh sure, she had her president strapped on, and to anyone not looking too closely she was smiling, appeared just as happy as the people surrounding them, but Bill was looking closely, and what he saw troubled him. Deeply. Her seascape eyes had always told him exactly how she felt at any given moment and right now they were a murky grey, shot through with green, the hue the seas took on, back on Caprica, just before a storm hit.

A small, sound growing exponentially louder drew him out of his contemplation and when he looked up he saw someone - he could swear it was one of Tyrol's men - had started clapping. As he watched, one by one, every person in the hanger deck joined in until the small, lonely sound had become a deafening roar.

Laura turned away from him, raised the hand that had looked so at home on his arm and after a moment the noise once again quieted down. She smiled her singular smile and Bill could see it was genuine this time, but there was a sadness behind it that he couldn't fathom.

"You do us too much honor, "she said. Her voice was a scratchy whisper at first, but it grew in size and volume until it rang out loud and clear against the metal bulkheads. "This applause is for us all, the people of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. We have all faced terrible loss, stood together against an enemy that seemed wholly indefeasible, and we prevailed."

At her words, the crowd surged forward, cheering and whooping once more. They seemed about to hoist Laura on their shoulders, as they'd done Bill only minutes earlier, and he saw her wince, saw her take a step back, and stepped out in front of her, held them back.

"As sorry as I am to break this up, "he said, his voice easily carrying to the back of the hanger deck, "we need to get gone. We don't know if there are any Basestars within jumping range."

At his words, Tyrol snapped to attention, gathering the deck crew around him. Lee and Kara, still looking dazed and vaguely out of place in her civilian attire, started rounding up pilots. Dee and Gaeta hurried in the direction of CIC. One look at Helo was enough for him to start organizing the refugees. Adama looked around at his people, his family, and felt a surge of pride; that they'd survived so much and were still capable of so much, of becoming more than they were, was a blessing and a balm to him. It gave him hope.

The small, familiar, weight of her hand on his arm shook him from his reverie.

"Laura?" Now that everyone had dispersed there was no-one but her to hear him use her name in such an intimate way and he infused the one word with everything he hadn't been able to express until now. His relief, his pride, his shame.

"Admiral," she said, her tone as formal as if she were still addressing him before the crowd. His heart broke a little further, cracks spreading out like fault lines.

"I don't …"

She stopped him with an almost dismissive wave of her hand. "You're probably needed in CIC," she said.

"Yeah." He wanted to touch her, to shake her out of the seeming fugue state she appeared to have fallen into, wanted to make her look at him, acknowledge him, forgive him. He knew he didn't have the right, so he took a step back, stood at attention.

"Okay then," she said, nodding to herself as if she'd won an argument. She wrapped her arms around her midriff, hugging herself, and took a few steps away from him, moving stiffly, then with more confidence.

"Madam President," he said, saluting her, then turning on his heels.

"Bill." Her soft voice stopped him in his tracks. He held his breath, didn't dare turn around and look at her. It was the first time she'd called him by his name since they were reunited, the first time he'd heard her voice speak his name in months. "We do need to talk," she said, "and we will. Just not right now, but soon."

"Okay then," he breathed.

"Would you mind if I used your cabin to freshen up a bit?"

The question surprised him, until he remembered that Colonial One had been Baltar's lair for months. She probably didn't want to be spending her nights there until the place had been put to rights, until she was reinstated.

"Of course," he said. "You're more than welcome to use my quarters for however long you need." He tried for a little levity. "Your old place needs fumigating, huh?"

Her faint chuckle carried him all the way back to CIC, but Saul's absence, Kara's dazed look and the defeat in Laura's eyes was what stayed with him while he led them all to safety, away from that Gods forsaken rock they'd hopefully named New Caprica.