Have yourself a merry little Spaceparents Christmas AU. :) No beta, so all mistakes are mine.
Thank you to all who take the time to read and review—your support is invaluable.
Curled up in her window seat, Laura circled yet another incorrect citation with a sigh. Four months teaching eleventh graders how to write a literary analysis, and they still couldn't grasp the concept of parenthetical citation. She scribbled a note on her legal pad and underlined it thrice: Assign more frakking citation exercises in the spring. Setting the papers aside, she reached down to cover her toes with her mother's Christmas quilt that covered her legs. Her fingers lingered on the edge of the blanket, where her youngest sister's initials were stitched under a square filled with snowflakes.
Time for a break.
Laura called for Bill's dog, Prima, whose golden fur rolled in waves as he bounded toward her. The massive retriever almost knocked Laura back into her nook of pillows and blankets, but she caught herself on the adjacent wall and scratched Prima behind the ear. Looking down into that dopey face reminded Laura for the millionth time that Bill had been right to fight her on getting a dog, even if the condo's pet fee was preposterous.
"Come on, out we go," she cooed, moseying through the living room and toward the front door, where the coat closet and leash awaited them. Just as she'd latched the leash on Prima's collar, the front door opened in the middle of her back, an apologetic Bill on the other side.
"And here I was just going to take your dog on a w-a-l-k," Laura muttered, rubbing the small of her back with her thumb.
Bill dropped his armful of groceries, brushed a few snowflakes off his jacket, and took the leash from Laura. "I owe you a massage." He kissed her cheek and held tight to the leash, knowing Prima would go for the lunch meat. "How's the grading?"
When Laura looked at Bill as if he'd asked her for another puppy, he chuckled and guided her back into the living room. "How about you sit down, I'll put the groceries away and make you some tea, and you can read a real book while I take Prima out?"
"Maybe you should get me an ice pack, while you're at it," Laura teased, bumping her hip against Bill's. She giggled when Bill pinched her side. "Why don't you make that tea a glass of pinot noir, and we'll call it a deal?" She plopped down onto the gray couch and curled her feet under her legs, gazing up at Bill expectantly.
Bill leaned down, the hand holding the leash resting on the arm of the couch and the other behind Laura's head. "So needy," he groused, before kissing her just the way she liked, slowly and with an intensity that Bill Adama can't exist without.
After a few seconds of indulgence, Laura nipped his lip, pulling away just enough for her breath to ghost against his lips when she spoke. "Why don't you take Prima out before he pisses on the new carpet?"
"God, you know just what to say to me." Bill pecked her lips and freed Prima from his leash. Lunch meat forgotten, he immediately jumped on the couch and curled up next to Laura. "You two snuggle, and I'll be right back to take him out. Let's hope he doesn't pee on you."
Laura ignored him, focusing on placating the dog's constant need for affection. In the three years she and Bill had been married, neither their banter nor their love had waned. Listening to Bill putter around in the kitchen, Laura reached for the book on the glass table in front of the couch. She had a list of books she read every Christmas, and only eight days into the month, she was already behind. She and Bill often read Love and Bullets together; he would read to her after long days at school, and she would take over when he'd spent too many hours training pilots to keep his eyes open. Today, however, Laura's melancholy required solitary reading.
Despite his experience with loss, Bill loved Christmas. Laura couldn't understand it. Sure, she could love Christmas with Lee, Kara, Billy, Dee, and the Tighs crowded around their dining room table, laughing and telling stories and drinking. Lily, Lucy, the baby, her father and mother—they crept into her thoughts in the silent days leading up to the raucous Christmas dinner, in Judy Garland's empty promise of those dear to us being near to us once more, in opening Christmas cards, in Lucy's birthday on the seventeenth. Of course, some days weren't easy for Bill, but after years of intimacy, he had finally learned to communicate his feelings.
Laura was still learning.
"Laura?"
Bill's voice jolted Laura out of her telling introspection. Love and Bullets lay on her lap, unopened, and Bill stood in front of her, holding a glass of wine and staring down at her with those analytic eyes. She plastered on a smile to extinguish his smoldering concern. "Thank you, my love," she whispered, taking the offered glass.
Bill did not move, even as Prima leapt off the couch to lap at the hand that should have been holding his leash. "I picked something up at the store that I thought you and I could make together." His tone was lighter than his gaze. "Thought it might cheer you up."
Staring at the blood red surface of her wine, Laura nodded. "That was thoughtful." She swallowed the lump in her throat and peered up at him. "Do I get any hints?"
Bill's lips quirked up. "Let's call it… preliminary floor plans for our cabin." Before Laura could retort, Bill pulled the leash out of his coat pocket and laughed at Prima's enthusiasm. "It's too frakking cold for a walk, but I'll take him out downstairs to make sure he doesn't piss on the carpet."
Laura gave Bill a tight smile and raised her glass to him. "Your selflessness is noted, Mr. Adama. I'll be here if you survive the cold." Once again bathed in silence, Laura opened Love and Bullets, under no illusion that she would read any words she saw.
Their dream initially served as an incentive they both thought would fail. Nine months before Bill and Laura got married, Laura found the lump. When her candid oncologist confronted her about the gaps between breast exams, Laura didn't have an answer for him. She never wanted to die like her mother had, but on the occasional bad day in the months following the slaughter of what remained of her family, she begged for death. Of course, her wish did not materialize until she had found someone to add laughter and love to the life she'd chosen.
"I'm getting tired of the apartment." Bill sat next to Laura's hospital bed, holding her hand as the chemotherapy worked as objectively as the cancer, without distinction between the healthy and the sick, the adored and the despised.
Laura's eyelids fluttered, but she couldn't open them. "Hate to break it to you, honey, but I don't have another move in me right now."
"We have to wait until you're better."
His naivety gave Laura the strength to open her eyes. "Bill—"
"No, I'm serious," Bill said, leaning forward in the plastic chair. "If we could move anywhere, retire anywhere, where would you want to go?"
Laura sighed, her eyelids drooping again. Dr. Cottle had given her three months, and Bill wanted to talk about retirement. Some days it hurt her to think about what she would miss, but today, it hurt more to think about Bill being deprived of what was supposed to be the rest of his life. He'd proposed to her not a week before the diagnosis. A week of unadulterated happiness in exchange for a lifetime of heartache.
"When I was little," she began, her voice scratchy and thick, "my grandparents had a cabin in Oregon, by Crater Lake." Laura could give him this, rely on the past to build their fantasy. "Until my sisters were born, my parents and I would spend whole summers there. Lily hated the water, you know." She paused to catch her breath and give Bill a small, reassuring smile. "I'll never forget the first time I saw the lake, when my father taught me to swim. I was only six years old, but the memory is as clear as the water—water so clear it's like looking through glass." When she opened her eyes, she found Bill's watery ones on her, unwavering and devoted. She knew he'd want to take her there, even though it was impossible in so many ways. "My father sold the property after my grandparents passed, but . . . I'd love to build a cabin there."
"We will." Bill's voice proved steadier than the tears teetering on the edge of his eyelids. Taking her hand in both of his, he kissed it, and only then did the tears fall onto her skin.
Dr. Cottle's experimental treatment enabled their dream. After the cancer went into remission, Bill and Laura did move, but only out of Bill's small apartment near Andrews Airforce Base, where Bill was contracted to train pilots, and into a condo closer to Laura's school. The cabin became their retirement plan, and they weren't ready for that yet. Drumming her fingernails on the worn pages of Taylo's art, Laura had to remind herself that she was not on borrowed time. They had time to wait.
Bill and Prima burst back into the condo, both shivering and shucking snow off their backs and out of their hair.
"Snowball fight?" Laura teased, draping one arm over the back of the couch. She wrinkled her nose at Prima, who would undoubtedly leave a trail of melted snow all over the carpet.
"Snow plow," Bill grumbled, freeing Prima from her leash.
Laura's hand failed to stifle her giggles. "I'm sorry, Bill," she managed when Bill glared at her through snowy locks.
Bill could only scowl in the face of Laura's giggles for so long. "Not sorry enough, apparently," he teased, moseying toward the couch.
Laura was too hysterical to notice Bill slipping off his knit gloves. By the time Bill moved her wine to the adjacent table, it was too late. He stuffed his freezing hands underneath Laura's burgundy sweater and tickled her until she lay flat on the cushions. When she squealed, Bill pulled one of his hands off the skin of her stomach and covered her mouth. "You're gonna get the cops called on us." His sparkling eyes and soft chuckles betrayed his mock sincerity, and Laura only pried his fingers away from her mouth and punched his chest.
"And whose fault is that?" Laura shoved at Bill. "Get off me, before I knee you right in the balls."
Bill leaned down for a quick kiss before complying. "Come to the kitchen, and I'll make it up to you," he promised, holding out his hand to help her up.
Laura blew wisps of red curls out of her face and slapped her hand into his, allowing him to tug her upright. "This better be good. I have work to do." Still, she didn't let go of his hand on their way to the kitchen.
"Thought we could do some amateur planning," Bill explained, gesturing to the gingerbread house kit waiting on the kitchen island. "Make some modifications to the architecture as we go."
Running her free hand up Bill's arm, Laura sighed. "You're so good to me." Days like today almost put her to shame. When was the last time she thought of something like this to make Bill smile?
Bill shrugged. "I just know you'll let me suck icing off your finger."
This time, when Laura laughed, its timbre was nowhere near a giggle's. "Only my finger? I'm disappointed."
"Let's see how much is left over," Bill said, opening the box. "I've never built one of these before."
Laura's jaw dropped. "Never?" When Bill shook his head, Laura rubbed the back of his neck. "My poor, deprived husband. Why don't you on some dry clothes and leave the setup to the more experienced architect."
Bill hooked his finger into Laura's belt loop and tugged her close to him. "You know how much I love it when you teach me new things." His kissed her neck before rushing out of the room, leaving Laura to sort the pre-made ingredients and marvel at her luck. Even with her struggle to communicate her darkest feelings, Bill knew what to do, and he would be there when she learned to put her grief into words.
Dressed in sweatpants and a sweater warm from the dryer, Bill slid his hands down to her hips and rested his chin on her shoulder. "What first? Porch swing, library, bedroom?"
Laura kissed Bill's forehead. "I love your initiative, Bill, but let's start with the foundation."