Title: While She Sleeps
Summary: Bill watches Laura sleep. No plot. Angst and Fluff in equal measure. No specific episode.
Rating: T to be on the very safe side - panties are mentioned.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their stories. I'm not making any profit.
She has fallen asleep. He came in after his shift to find her like this, sheets of paper and open folders scattered on the floor and crunched under her body. She has obviously incurred in the fatal mistake of "making herself comfortable" while trying to work. That's why he only works sitting up at his desk, preferably in the most uncomfortable chair he can find. No one as chronically exhausted as they are can do "get comfortable" without instantly dozing off.
He doesn't bend down to pick up her scattered drafts of speeches, reports, executive orders. He doesn't go to fetch a blanket, and he doesn't wake her, either. He just stands there, watching her chest rise and fall. There are not many luxuries or pleasures in his life lately, after all.
Granted, he does get to see her almost every day, talk to her, listen to her laugh. That is pleasure and luxury enough, some would say. Sometimes, she will touch his chest briefly to make a point, and smile that private, mischievous little smile that he wants to believe is only for him. But during the day he is distracted. They both are. There are duties, annoyances, routines, other things and people that pretend to be more important, demanding attention.
Now he can take her in at his leisure. Her pale face. The soft skin that refuses proudly to sag. The thin lines etched around her eyes and mouth.
She is so beautiful that it almost hurts.
He sways a little on his feet, off balance. For he second, he feels dizzy. She moves and turns, sending more sheets to the floor with a papery sigh. As she raises her arm, her breast presses against the fabric of her blouse. Her skirt has moved up her thighs - if took just a tiny step, Bill is pretty sure he could catch more than a glimpse of her panties.
But to his own surprise he realizes he doesn't want to see her panties. He isn't even slightly tempted. Suddenly, he finds himself wishing very intensely that she would wake up. Now. Right now. Out of nowhere, he is breathing heavily, almost on the verge of panic. He wants, needs, to feel her eyes on him, first with the watery look she has when she emerges from the depths of sleep, then focused, sharp. Intelligent and ironic, compassionate and wise... all the things that she is, her essence, he wants that there, in that room, with him. He wants it very much.
When she sleeps, he doesn't know where she goes. Wherever it is, she is alone, away from him. Closed. It scares him, more than Cylon attacks, more than a mutiny, more than age or the distance from his son, more even than his own death. What if she doesn't come back? What if she finds comfort in that other dark world, more than he could ever offer her? What if one day (what if it's today, it could be today) she just gets so tired that she gives up, slips away, lets death finally claim her...
Death still hovers near her, wants her, beckons. Its first brutal and vicious attack was fended off with the aid of the miracle girl, but Bill knows that it is not yet satisfied. It will never be satisfied until it has her completely. It will come back. All he can do is hope that he will find the words to speak his heart before then. To whatever forces of nature or spirit are out there, he prays, this unbelieving man, watching the woman he loves draw one breath after another. Prays that his hand will find a way to touch her - before.