Here's an angst-free shortie in honour of a request in that LJ that's long ago and far away...

As always, I'll admit they're not mine, but I like treating them as though they were, just for the sheer fun of it.

I hope you enjoy...

Brick Wall Surprises
By: Mariel

-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-

Laura Roslin hadn't fallen into love. Like a speeding car into a brick wall, she'd crashed into it before she'd even known it was there. One minute she'd been confidently driving along on a clear, open road, the next, huge chunks of her were inextricably entwined with the aforementioned brick wall.

Her heart was somewhere in amongst those pieces.

To her astonishment, it felt really good.

She lay quietly, feeling battered and deliciously well-used, then smiled as the brick wall moved against her back. She wondered if he'd feel the same surprise she had upon waking and fully realising what had happened.

She doubted it.

William Adama was rarely surprised by anything. She'd spent a lot of time watching him, and he had, she thought, an innate ability to accept whatever a moment held. He absorbed life and its events the way a sponge did water. No matter how messy things got, he soaked it up and put things back the way they should be without any outward change. It was an ability she found surprising in such a solid brick of a man.

Pondering the previous evening carefully, however, she strongly suspected that this time, his lack of surprise might be due to something more than just his nature... Bill was, after all, a man given to the making of plans. For all she knew, he had carefully mapped out the seduction she had run into the night before. She could imagine him, his face impassive, methodically plotting out his operation and then executing it with ruthless cunning when the time was right, her attention distracted, and her defences down.

Not that her defences had ever been too high where he was concerned.

She smiled in satisfaction. To give him his due, his approach had been flawless. Such orchestration couldn't have been by mere happenstance.

Stretching carefully, she took a moment to enjoy the feeling of having a body that ached in all the right places. Then she rolled over to look at Bill, who now lay flat on his back, an extremely content look gracing his rugged features. Sighing happily, she inched closer, wrapped an arm over his chest, and smoothly draped one slender leg across his waist.

Without opening his eyes, Bill adjusted himself so that his arm was around her and her head on his shoulder. His other hand moved to lay comfortably across her thigh.

"Good morning," he rasped.

"Good morning," she replied, planting a kiss on his chest. She noted how easily their bodies fit together and snuggled against him comfortably.

His voice rumbled again.

"Sleep okay?"

"Wonderfully."

Eyes still closed, he hugged her gently with the arm she lay on. "Good."

She paused a moment, then softly asked, "Bill?"

He slid his hand along her leg in a soothing manner. With a voice that still held the sand and gravel of sleep in it, he told her, "Shhh...We can deal with the shock and surprise later. Don't talk. Enjoy."

She frowned at his guessing her thoughts so easily, then asked, "So you do feel surprise?"

A small smile curved his lips and he shook his head slightly. "No. But you do." He opened one eyelid to look at her, then closed it again.

She waited a moment. When he didn't elaborate, she asked, "Care to tell me why you're not surprised?" Running a hand across his bare chest, she thumbed his nipple and noted, "This is a big jump from our arguing across your desk about stockpiling antibiotics."

Both his eyes opened. They glittered wickedly. "Our lying across my desk just seemed like a more enjoyable alternative," he said. Forestalling any comment she might make, he quickly continued, "Laura, we've frakked each other silly and gotten a good night's sleep. Now we're enjoying the pleasant experience of waking up together. For a moment, let's accept this without questioning it. This is good. We were good. Let's leave it at that for a while. Good is...good. Good is very good." He exhaled softly, and his body relaxed. The hand of the arm that encircled her lightly played up and down her arm rhythmically.

She shot him a look, which went unnoticed because his eyes were closed again. A smile curved the corners of his mouth.

He was definitely in a very self-satisfied, pleased mood this morning. She sighed and, though it went against her nature, decided to at least attempt to comply. She closed her eyes firmly and tried to shut off her thoughts.

-xxx-

They lay in silence a short while. Bill could feel the tension humming through her body and considered a number of ways he could reduce it without having to speak. His method of choice, however, would take more than the few minutes he had available to him before they had to get up.

He sighed inwardly. Might as well talk and get it over with. Laura was Laura, so talking was inevitable, anyways. She'd want to question this. Would need to question this, though he had no understanding as to why. After all, they'd agreed last night that there was love here somewhere - she'd said it and he clearly remembered his saying it - so why there immediately needed to be more discussion was beyond him. What more needed to be said?

The tenseness in the body lying beside him screamed there was plenty.

"You need to talk," he said in a resigned tone.

She nodded. "I'm afraid so," she said.

Enjoying the softness, he lightly stroked the skin of her thigh with the tips of his fingers. "Okay, then. I'm sorry. Enough savouring the moment. Talk away."

Ignoring the way her body was reacting to his touch, she spoke. "What the hell happened?" she asked. "How did we get here?"

Bill was in no mood for philosophical discussion.

"Cylons happened," he said gruffly. "Nasty bastards ruined everything. Nuked our world, chased us across the galaxy, and here we are." He tightened his hold on her in a warm squeeze. "It's nice to wake up beside you, though."

Wit wasn't what she was looking for. Slapping him lightly on the chest, she scolded, "Bill. Be serious."

"Sorry," he said in a not-very-convincing tone. "What was the question again?"

"You're not sorry, and you know damned well what the question was," she said in an exasperated tone.

He sighed. Maybe she just wasn't a morning person. Who'd've thought she'd be so bloody intense about this? She needed to relax and enjoy-

Abruptly pulling him from his thoughts, Laura rose up on an elbow and looked down at him. "Stop thinking and answer the question. What are we doing here? Look at us! How in gods' names did we end up like this? Have we both lost our minds?" She flopped her head back down on his shoulder and looked at the ceiling. "What were we thinking?"

He hugged her briefly, noting that she was making no movement to actually leave the 'here' she was so concerned about being in. "We're completely sane," he told her confidently. "The how we got here, I'll leave to your recollection of last night's very enjoyable events. And if we were thinking at all, I believe we were thinking that it was time we stopped skirting around what we wanted to do and actually did it."

She lifted her head again to stare at him.

He looked at her, his eyes wide. "What? You saying you didn't want to?

Her silence was all the answer he needed.

"So now," he said, "we've finally done it." He grinned wolfishly. "And if I remember correctly, we enjoyed doing it a lot."

It was true. They'd been pretty good together. For a first time, they'd been remarkable together.

And been remarkable more than once - which, she thought with a satisfied grin, was also remarkable, all things considered.

He felt the movement of her cheek against his body.

"You're smiling."

She nodded, unable to help herself from releasing a soft giggle. "The word 'remarkable' keeps going through my head," she admitted.

He chuckled. Maybe there was hope for her after all.

"You, me, or the whole thing?" he asked.

She smiled again, more broadly this time. "All of the above."

"So you're not unhappy."

"Not when I think about the actual event," she said, "It's just when I think about-"

"Then keep your thoughts on the 'event'," he suggested quickly. His hand slid down her thigh and his fingers began to caress the soft skin behind her knee.

She flattened her palm and stroked his stomach just above where her leg straddled him. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have to account for your actions to the Quorum."

"And you do?"

"Of course I do."

"All of your actions?"

"I'm their leader. I'm responsible to them for what I do."

He turned his head awkwardly to look at her, his face a study in humoured disbelief. "You mean to tell me you're going to stand up in front of the Quorum today and tell them, 'I frakked the Admiral of the Fleet last night; I hope you don't mind." Still looking at her, he asked, "What do you say after that? 'Any questions or comments?'?"

She chuckled. "Well, not exactly, but they'll have to know."

"Why the hell do they have to know?" he asked. He lay his head back down on his pillow with a soft thud. She was so linear sometimes it was painful.

"Because..." Her voice trailed off.

He grunted. "That's what I thought. What we do here involves only us. It's no one else's business."

"Until they find out what we're doing. Then it's very much their business," she said in a practical tone. "They'll make it their business."

She had a very good point, but he chose to ignore it. There were other, more pleasant things to consider: "From your wording, I can infer that you intend us to do what we did again. That's good. That's very good."

"I'm happy you're happy," she said, in a slightly disgruntled tone. She'd had no idea he'd be so damned happy with life after a good frak. It leant a whole new side to his personality. Still, there were serious things she had to get him to consider...

"I can see that perhaps we don't have to tell them, exactly," she told him, "at least not at first...but how in the names of all the gods are we going to manage to keep it a secret? Tory will know the minute she goes in to wake me up this morning. It's no secret where she left me last night."

"You need to learn to plan ahead more."

His voice was unconcerned.

She lifted her head and looked at him. She'd been right. The brick wall had justjumped out in front of her out of nowhere..

"So you did plan my seduction," she accused.

His eyebrows rose innocently as he turned his head to look at her again. "Me? What are you talking about? I thought it was you who did the seducing. I didn't know what hit me. I was just an innocent victim." He grinned, and admitted, "A happy victim, mind you - some might even say an enthusiastic victim - but innocent, definitely innocent. One minute I was enjoying a quiet evening at home, the next you're here and somehow you're suddenly crashed up against me and we're making out on my desk, and then my sofa and then in my rack..." He grunted. "You could give a man a little more warning about your intentions, you know. I'd have put away some of the breakables."

Laura bit her tongue. Bill was being funny. Let him. She needed to know why he was so confident that their night together wouldn't be headline news by lunchtime.

"So how is last night going to be kept a secret?"

"I took a moment during your trip to the head to send Tory the message that our meeting went overlong. Galactica provided you with quarters for the night. The usual ones, right down the corridor. The bed's already rumpled up. You will return to Colonial One after finishing over breakfast this morning what it was too late to finish with me last night." His arm tightened around her. "We are very hard working people."

"You don't think Tory'll be suspicious?"

He shook his head in disbelief. She was being hopelessly anal.

"Laura, this is where you're supposed to be thinking how ingenious I've been." he said patiently. "And no, why would she be suspicious? It's happened before."

She was still trying to adjust to this different, just-frakked personality of his. Gods. Women must have frakked him just to experience it...

If they hadn't wanted to kill him because of it.

Torn between thinking it cute and wanting to hit him, she said, "Yes, but-"

She stopped. Of course. It did make sense. Why should last night be perceived any differently from the other times she'd spent the night on Galactica in quarters provided for her? People were used to it happening occasionally.

"People won't accept it as an excuse if it happens too frequently," she warned.

"Hmmm...frequently." He paused, happily mulling the word over in his mind. "I like the sound of that, too," he told her with a smirk. When she looked at him warningly, he sobered, but the glimmer of humour in his eyes remained. "Laura, you've got to stop looking for problems. This will work because we want it to."

She had to admit he was confident. Maybe admirals were more used to things going according to plan than politicians were. Maybe brick walls were just more used to things adjusting to them as opposed to the other way around. Whatever the case, perhaps just for now it was safe to follow his lead and not worry.

He looked at the clock. They were soon going to be running late. "Time to rise and meet the day." He slid his arm from beneath her and moved so that she lay partly beneath him. Touching his lips to hers, he said huskily, "Good morning."

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, loving the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest. Skin-to-skin felt very, very good. "Good morning," she responded, moving slightly so that she could feel every bit of him against her she could.

He groaned and with his mouth doing delicious things to her neck, lay more heavily against her. She pressed against him and they moved together, enjoying the feel of their bodies sliding against each other. Slowly, he lifted his head. "We've really got to not do this," he said reluctantly. "I've a meeting scheduled. It's here, so they'll be at the door."

She knew her morning started early, too.

"Later, then," she promised.

"Later," he agreed. "Duty calls."

Waiting would just make it all the better.

He kissed her softly and then they both rose reluctantly, a lovely thrum of awareness accompanying them.

He looked at the clock and frowned. "We talked too long. I didn't factor that into my timing." Thinking, his frown slowly transformed into a grin. "We may need to indulge in another 'first'."

Looking up from bending over to pick up her clothing, Laura stopped when she realised what he'd said and accused him, "So this was all planned."

"Maybe," he admitted, his eyes twinkling.

She straightened and tried to glare at him. She knew she should have been royally ticked off at him, but to be honest, she found herself unable to work up much more than satisfaction that his plan had succeeded so well. Holding her skirt in front of her, she asked, "And our next 'first' will be what?"

"Showering together," he said lightly. "We've only time for one now."

His mood was infectious. Finally giving into it, she laughed. Who knew just-frakked brick walls had a sense of humour? That they could be so happy and so downright pleased with themselves? Dropping her skirt back onto the floor, she stepped over debris from the previous night's crash site and moved towards the head.

"Well, let's get going, then," she said. Tossing him a smile over her shoulder, she added, "I hope you factored in time for a long one."

She had a few surprises of her own for this brick wall. She grinned happily. William Adama would be smiling all day...

End
Brick Wall Surprises