A/N: I became addicted to BSG a few months ago, devoured the whole thing in 2 weeks & it was only a matter of time before Laura Roslin and Bill Adama inspired me to write. So here you go, my first attempt. Set at the end of 2x16 Sacrifice. Big thanks to Manon, Lolymoon here for her beta work.

Not worth it

The Old Man felt each and every one of his years as he stood in front of the refrigerated table, looking down at the mutilated corpse of the Cylon he had once fondly called Boomer. He was waiting for Laura. He'd went down to the morgue as soon as he heard her shuttle was leaving Colonial One. He knew she had waited to see Billy until after the press conference, and he was also aware that he was the last person she wanted to set eyes on at the moment, but he couldn't let her face this alone. She had said earlier that Billy was the closest she had left to a family, and unfortunately, Bill was all too familiar with the heart-wrenching pain of losing a son.

Her entrance was quiet, he barely heard the whoosh of the swing door, but her presence filled the room immediately. He turned his head towards her, their eyes locked for a moment before she looked at where Billy's body was laid out and then away, tears brimming in her jade eyes. She couldn't look at what remained of the shy young man who had been by her side since the attacks, and Bill found he couldn't look at her. The grief on her face was overwhelming. There were very few people around whom Laura Roslin could truly be herself and show her emotions; one of them was lying on a slab a few feet away, and the other had all but put him there.

She focused on the decoy Sharon Valerii, taking a few steps further into the room.

"This is what you gave them?" She asked him, a hard edge in her voice, her tone as cold as the controlled atmosphere of the room.

"It was a calculated risk," he answered, his jaw clenching, ever the military man, giving the only kind of diplomatic response they were taught to reply in the academy when an operation didn't turn out as well as they would have hoped.

She wasn't in the mood to hear this kind of bullshit though. "It wasn't worth it," she all but snarled, and really what could he say when his son had survived while hers had paid the ultimate price?

"Was it worth it, Bill?" Carolanne had once wondered, standing in a room just like this on the military base where Zak had crashed his bird, their son's broken body covered by a sheet in front of them. "Are you proud of him now? Is he finally up to your impossible standards now?" She had seethed, her voice echoing in the usually quiet room.

He hadn't replied, and it had only enraged her further.

Laura was sitting by Billy's side now, desperately trying to contain her grief between shaky breaths and swallowed sobs. He kept his back turned to give her the space she needed to express her anguish. Bill understood he had just lost the right to see her sorrow, when barely a few weeks before he was holding her hand as she struggled to breathe.

When Carolanne had punished him with her fists, hitting his arms and chest as hard as she could, screaming and hurling insults as he had stayed stoic and unmoving, Laura was punishing him with her silence and avoidance, and somehow it felt much worse.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched as she gently rearranged a strand of Billy's fringe.

"That's better," she whispered in a shaky voice. "That's better," she repeated, and he wondered who she was trying to convince. "He was so young," she gasped in a heartbreaking sob that she couldn't contain, and he had to clench his fists to stop himself from going to her.

It soon became an impulse impossible to resist when she turned around, ready to walk out, and her legs buckled under her. She grabbed the door handle with one hand, and he threw his arms around her waist, bringing her against him. She covered her mouth with her other hand, and her whole body trembled with her attempt at concealing her cries.

"Let it out, Laura, just let it out," Bill murmured in her ear and she shook her head, struggling for breath.

"It shouldn't have been him," she panted. "Why did it have to be him?"

"It should have been you," Carolanne had hatefully said. "Why couldn't it be you instead of him?" She couldn't have known that Bill had been wondering the same thing ever since two soldiers had given him the news.

"What was the point of saving me if a young, abled man like him had to die? It was my time, it wasn't his." Laura was spent in his arms, tears slowly falling along her cheeks, and he buried his face in her hair.

If she heard his thoughts she would surely hate him. If he told her that he would sacrifice a hundred Billys just to keep her by his side, she would never let him close again. His son was going to recover, Laura was alive and breathing in his arms, and though her pain broke his heart, he couldn't help but be selfish in this moment. The choice was an easy one for him, but she could never know that.

Thoughts?