Sweat was pouring off his brow and back as he started losing it, one hand gripping the headboard and one clenching the pillow by her head. A defeated groan pushed past his gritted teeth as electric heat spooled up and shot out his body, pleasure and shame fighting in the marrow of his bones.

Soft hums finally became audible over the drumming of his pulse in his ears.

"Gods, Bill, that was…."

"Laura, please…don't." He ignored the last shudders racking him, urging him to keep thrusting, to get that last bit of sensation inside her warmth. Rolling off her pliant body, he turned on his back, wiping sweat off his face and covering his eyes.

Long silky auburn hair spilled over her shoulder as she propped herself on one elbow. "I don't know what you're acting apologetic for. That was lovely." Her features were composed in a serene smile.

He could remember when her face would be blotchy and hot, after. She'd have swollen lips from biting back screams. She'd be exhausted, not wanting to move at first, then curling against him, ready for a quick, necessary nap.

He could remember when she'd felt like he did.

Managing a weak smile, he brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. "I think I had a better time than you." He turned towards her, sliding a sweat-slicked hand down to her sex. "I can try again."

"It was fine, Bill. It was good." She trailed a finger down his smooth tanned chest, past his navel, and toyed with the thick black curls around his half-flaccid length. She cupped him lightly in her hand, like she was holding something fragile.

"I did come, you know. It's just…different. They said there would be changes."

He rested one wide hand on her hip, stroking lightly. "Doesn't seem fair." He made himself grin. "We should've done this a lot more when we had the chance." He knew the grin didn't reach his eyes.

"Mmm..I was up for that, I seem to remember. Then somebody had to go all 'responsible' on me." Her tone was teasing, but he could see a hint of regret in her eyes.

"I didn't know…oh, hell, there's no excuse. I was an idiot, didn't see what I had."

She shook her hair back and sat up, drawing her knees under her chin and clasping her hands together.

"I swear, Bill, if there's anybody who could keep beating themselves up even after they're dead, it's you."

His eyes opened wide, hope shining in their depths. "Are you getting mad at me?"

Laura cocked her head, as if listening for her feelings. "No, not…exactly. A little annoyed, maybe a touch of…chagrin? Yeah, chagrin." She stretched and leaned back against the headboard.

"Frak." He rolled away from her, hand over his eyes again. Even with his eyes closed, he could picture their room.

Their changing, fading room.

It had been opulent at first, rich silks and too many pillows...she had already decorated it by the time he arrived. The posts had been heavily carved with erotic Scorpian figures in infinite pairings that changed every few days. Fine oil artwork had been on every wall, rotating through every piece she'd seen in a lifetime of museums and art galleries. Life-size marble sculptures had depicted lovers at the edge of a cobalt-blue pool fed by a waterfall fountain.

He looked around the room, noting that the last primitive carving had faded on the posts, leaving only the smooth grain of pine for decoration. A lone watercolor…lilies in a pond, maybe…was the last piece of art on the walls. A stone obelisk stood watch over a claw-foot bathtub.

He didn't want to think about what the next changes would be.

"What does it feel like?" he whispered, watching her brow wrinkle the tiniest bit as she listened to him. He wondered if he sounded the same as he used to.

"It's not bad, really. Everything's a little…muffled, like I'm wrapped in cotton or something. Like there's some kind of cushioning between me and everything else."

Fading.

Something about her was fading. He supposed he was fading, too, but the year's gap between them kept them both on different timetables.

Everyone had looked so alive at the Shore when he got there. At least a couple of generations back, both sides of his family had been arrayed at the place when the grassy field met the sand that led into the water. It had taken him weeks of adjustment to notice some of his more irascible family members seemed much more pleasant, slower to anger…like all their sharp edges had been weathered away, leaving them smooth and easy to be around.

It had taken months to begin missing their natural abrasiveness, the contention that had been a cherished part of the Adama family experience. Maybe it wouldn't have shown up as much in some families…probably not in the Roslin family. He smiled at that. Laura's parents had buffed away their rough edges in life, to hear her tell it. They had been polished by love, though. This felt different. He hadn't felt it himself, he didn't think.

But he sensed it in her. Towards what he thought of as his first year this side (although it could have been one year or ten…time seemed to flow differently here) he began noticing his angel was becoming a little too angelic.

The changes in their surroundings started some time after that.

"So, how do you feel about it?" He rolled onto his stomach, propping his chin and cheek on her thigh as he looked at the even-pored skin in front of his eyes. Had she always been this smooth, her flesh this silky? Or was this another change?

She reached down and wove her fingers into his hair. It was back to the salt-and-heavy-pepper shade it had been when they'd started their long slow fall into love. He didn't mind that part. He'd not had a mirror around in his last days, but he could tell from the hairs left on his rough pillow that he'd gone completely white. He would have hated to have shown up like that.

"I wish things were different." Her tone was mild, almost uninterested, like she wished there was chocolate instead of strawberry cake for dessert. There was a preference, perhaps, but nothing to get excited about, one way or another.

"Look at me, Laura."

He moved up on the bed until he could look into her sea-green eyes. He used to be able to see storms in there, and depths that sparkled and glowed. He'd been the subject of a few glares that had turned her pupils almost black with anger, and for a second, he wished she'd look at him like that again, just to see a change in the calm, placid green. He was close enough to breathe in her scent, sweet-salty and with a faint note of something tart in the background. It was the scent she had after they'd spent extra time dozing in the aftermath of body-rocking lovemaking.

The stronger notes had faded along with everything else. He supposed the day would come when their frakking would leave them smelling of cotton candy, if they felt inspired to frak at all.

"I think I want to talk to the Elders about going back."

It was a relief to finally say it. To put the reincarnation option right out there. Once, they had argued about it. No guarantee that they'd be together, no memories (that anyone knew of, anyway), no idea what they'd be born into or how they'd live.

But they'd be alive again. Their senses would be taking in every touch, every taste, every sound, sharp and clear. Of course, as she had pointed out once, that might include things better left to the imagination or happily forgotten.

He turned on his back and ran his fingers down his smooth chest. Getting shot at point blank range, healing from open-heart surgery…he wasn't excited about going through those sensations again.

But to feel, really feel her lips again, her breath on his cheek, the full effects of her tightness grabbing, pulsing around his cock...to see her lose her mind at the sensations his tongue drew from her trembling clit…he'd go through a lot to let them experience a lifetime of those feelings. To let them both go through that maddening wanting, yearning for each other when apart, the bursting-heart feelings when they came together again. He was greedy, he knew, but having had too scant a taste of her in life, he ached for more.

"You're sure? Really sure, with all the risks?" she asked.

Her gentle curious interest was killing him. Her faint wrinkles around her eyes, the ones that made her look like herself, hadn't faded, and they deepened as she smiled with an overly tranquil smile.

He cupped her face briefly before resting his head on her breasts, still high and firm, with no hint of the death the left one had once carried. He knew what he was asking her to give up. She'd had so much terror, so much pain in life. He felt a surge of guilt at what he was asking, and loathed his selfishness that drove him to drag her back with him onto the human plane.

He watched the one tear he could muster over his actions trickle down onto her nipple and bead up before rolling down the side of her breast, leaving a shimmering track. He reached out and lapped at the dampness, caressing her flesh with the point of his tongue before answering.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I can't explain it, but"—he broke off to give her a kiss that he had intended to be quick but turned more thorough than he had planned—"I have faith, I guess, that we'll find each other, know each other, no matter what."

Her belly twitched as she gave a subdued laugh. "If Bill Adama feels so strongly about this to talk about faith, I guess there must be something to it."

He smiled sadly. He could still remember when she could laugh at the silliest things hard enough to shake his head off her body, then double over trying to get herself under control, tears running from her eyes as she gasped that she really was trying to stop.

"It's fine, Bill. We can talk to the Elders tomorrow." Her eyes still shone with love when she looked at him, but it was like a huge column candle had been replaced with a birthday taper. He kissed her again and pulled up the plain cotton sheet that was starting to feel a bit threadbare.

He wasn't sure what color the robes were that the Elders wore. They seemed to shift through a pastel rainbow of soft tones, almost too subtle to notice. There were few distinctions between male and female, as if gender was one more characteristic subject to erosion.

"We can provide some guidance, but there are no guarantees, you understand. And it may take you a lifetime to find each other." A fleeting twinkle flashed in the Elder's eyes. "Although I understand you're familiar with that course."

"Will we know each other? How does that work?" Laura asked. They sat in front of one of the Elders, side by side on a white-painted bench in a modest garden. Laura's fingers turned a white-petaled flower over and over in her lap as she loosely held Bill's hand with her other.

"Not so different as the last time. Something will nudge you towards each other when the time is right. Your spirits will recognize each other, and hopefully, your conscious minds will accept what your hearts already know."

"Hopefully?" Bill's voice squeaked mid-word. The idea that they could be alive, walking the Earth at the same time, and miss each other was unbearable.

"If it helps, William, a great many souls here will be hoping on your behalf." The Elder nodded towards a few members of the Roslin and the Adama families strolling the gardens at a respectful distance.

A week later, Laura Roslin and William Adama walked into the distance, away from their tiny log cabin and up a sloping hill outside of town, until their figures were swallowed by the wavering clouds scudding along the crest. Those who had been watching later reported seeing a split-second flash of golden light, and when it faded, so had they.

She opened her eyes to shimmering gold light everywhere, sunlight reflecting off hammered gold collars and bracelets. Almond-shaped eyes lined in black filled her field of vision as a soft voice whispered words she didn't yet understand.

My daughter. Child of the Gods. God's Wife.

The gentle heat of a sun-warmed gold circlet felt soothing on her brow, and soft linens were swaddled snuggly around her. Witnesses to her birth whispered that the tiny royal daughter's eyes seemed to search the room, looking for something that she couldn't find.

Her wet-nurse would secretly call her by her own daughter's name, missing her child who had died of fever that summer, shortening "Layla" to a sing-song nonsense word…La'ra.

Others called her "Hatshepsut." Later, she would give the world names of her own choosing. She would be called "Lady of the Two Lands" by some, and would be called "Pharaoh" by all.

He opened his eyes to shimmering gold light everywhere. Sunlight poured into the simple mud and limestone house, shining off the sands that disappeared into the distance. A scribe's wife whispered words of welcome to her sturdy olive-skinned baby, already frowning impatiently as she brought him to breast. A man's voice laughingly teased the woman holding the newborn child.

You've given me a little bull, my love. He'll lead others to create great things.

His first toys would be models of boats and temples. He would craft a miniature house from scrap stone and leftover mortar for his sister's dolls.

He would be the first of his family to attend the school within the great city, impressing his teachers with his rendition of the heavens, all the stars in their places. His broad hands would use hammer and stone to meld the earth and sky together in imaginative model temples.

He was named "Senenmut" by his parents. The day would come when Pharaoh would give him other names:

Royal Architect.

Steward to God's Wife.

And the most cherished name of all…Beloved.

Sweat was beginning to trickle down the back of her neck under her heavy black wig and ceremonial striped headcloth. She thought again about having her head shaved as most of the royal ladies of the court did. She glanced around the chamber without moving her head, hiding a prickle of resentment at the others' apparent comfort under their neat swaths of tiny braids. There was something about that contemplation, though, thinking of razors skimming over her scalp and the hair of others resting against her skin that gave her deep feelings of unease, bordering on quiet dread.

Her dark brown-black hair, touched with glints of red, would be soaked by day's end, springing into barbaric curls as it dried after the day's wig was removed and placed on its stand. The weighty jeweled collar would come off, the gilded flail and crooked scepter would be put away, and she could have a few hours as a woman before the demands of the next day began.

Now, though, her work was before her, and the stacked scrolls of plans and proposals were beginning to run together. She figured she had about one more interview in her before she cleared the throne room and sent for a cup of iced sherbet and a plate of fruit and almonds. Thank Ra, there was no banquet tonight.

She thought longingly of a cool stroll in the gardens after the heat of the day had diminished, as she waved away the fat sweating architect kneeling in front of her. He was trembling as he rolled up his offered plans for a temple to her father's memory. Tired and trite, the design was no different from the last fifty she'd seen.

"One more, Chamberlain," she murmured to the jeweled noble to the right of her throne. "I feel as though I've seen the exact same designs presented by a dozen different men today. Original thought seems to have passed by the architectural classes entirely."

The chamberlain smiled thinly. "As Pharaoh wishes. This last one is not known to me and I cannot say I've seen his works, but your father's chief architect mentioned him before he went to dwell in the land of the dead." He pursed his lips. "Promising…not of high birth, but a good eye and a quick mind."

Hatshepsut raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "And you've saved him for last, while the higher-born dolts show me their scribbling?"

He inclined his head, then made a deeper bow at the waist. "Protocol, your Majesty, dictated it be so."

She wondered if there was a way to throw "Protocol" to the royal crocodiles. If any human had caused her as much discomfort as "protocol" they would have been dead a thousand times over.

"Bring me this unknown with a 'good eye' and let's get this over with." She straightened her back against the gilded throne, feeling her linen dress stick to her skin as she moved. Her jade-green eyes scanned the crowd for the subject of her last audience. Falling on the man walking with almost unseemly confidence down the mosaic tiles to her dais, her eyes widened.

Good eyes, indeed.

Under an ebony wig and a wide bronzed brow were the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

And for a moment, before he cast his eyes down, as he surely had been told to before entering the throne room, he had looked at her as if he could see her ba, as if she had no secrets within her soul that were unknown to him. A shiver ran through her. She was turning to her chamberlain to have the disrespectful oaf removed, then changed her mind when she caught a glimpse of those eyes again.

Not the blue of newborns, or of the occasional barbarian of the far North…this was the shade of the day's sky turning into night. The shade of the hour when Ra's chariot is almost at the end of his journey and Nuit stands ready to swallow him whole.

The man before her stood in a formal posture, almost military in his bearing, before kneeling with surprising grace. His features were as craggy as unpolished stone fresh-cut from the quarry. Definitely not the product of generations of the highborn…his shoulders were too broad, his chest too deep, his arms too corded with muscle. The hands holding a set of scrolls were blunt-fingered and strong, and her right palm twitched as if part of her wondered what they would feel like against her skin.

Lady?" the chamberlain prompted.

She blinked. "I've become a bit light-headed. Send for my midday meal, Chamberlain. And ask this one his name."

Before the chamberlain could open his mouth, the man in front of her raised his head and met her eyes with a disconcerting boldness. "I am called Senenmut, your Majesty. I am your architect."

His words are as bold as his eyes. She spoke with false coolness. "That is far from determined, Senenmut. What do you have for me?"

He handed the first scroll to the chamberlain, who fixed him with a disapproving glare before handing the papyrus to Hatshepsut, unrolling it as he handed her the ends.

Ten minutes later, the chamberlain gave the order for the throne room to be cleared and a study table and two chairs to be brought in. Hatshepsut, Pharaoh, Lady of the Two Lands, and God's Wife…had seen something she liked in the scrolls.

And something she liked very much in the man who had brought them.

Two kas, floating on their own hazy plane, shared a frisson of amusement as they watched.

"Oh my Gods, they don't know what's hit them, do they?"

"Hey! He's fine…she's the one getting all flustered and distracted."

"Well, that's different. I was cool as a cucumber they day we met. You were the one having a hissy fit because I mentioned networking."

"I was not having a 'hissy fit.' I was explaining why you couldn't have things your way."

"Good thing Galactica didn't have any crocodiles handy." A faint giggle floated to the ceiling.

"You think I might have over-steered on the confidence attribute? I don't want him to get thrown out on his ear before they even get to know each other."

Laura's ka gave a contemplative hum. "No…I don't think so. She's very intrigued, although she can't show it. Not just yet. But she didn't want to meet privately with anyone else to look at sketches."

Their spirits touched, their essences flickering against each other.

"I'm glad we decided to do this." Even as an immaterial ka, his voice (or what she perceived as his voice) still held a husky timber that she loved.

"So am I…although I could have done without that disturbing marriage to her half-brother." Her ka seemed to shudder for a second.

His tone turned sympathetic. "The Elders said there were bound to be parts we didn't like. And it gave us a few years to get to see Earth."

"I still knew what she was feeling, though, as soon as we got back. Good thing she conceived so quickly—a little Thutmose II goes a long way, as far as I'm concerned. I think I was as happy as she was when he took up with his concubine. And that poppy tincture for childbirth…that was a relief."

"We could have gone somewhere else, Laura. That northern region, where it snows most of the time, the rain forests to the west…"

"No, I wanted to be around for the birth. I never got to do that in life."

She felt a ghost of a kiss against what would have been her hand, if she still had a physical form.

"I liked seeing you with a baby."

"I liked that part, too." Her ka made a satisfied hum. "What about you? Favorite parts so far?"

"I liked the studying, believe it or not. The principles and physics of design…I enjoyed that. It's amazing what they're able to do with no machinery. And the astronomy, the star maps…" he trailed off, lost in thought.

"Was that you, Bill? Did you put that in Senenmut's mind?"

His ka seemed to pulse in rhythm to what would have been his heartbeat in life. "I'm not sure. The self-confidence was just a guess, actually. I still don't know how much input I have into his…inner being, soul, or whatever."

"Oh, Bill…even non-corporeal, I can tell you just rolled your eyes."

"Well, I'm still not completely used to it, even after thirty years. What about you? Do you think you're doing a lot of guiding?"

"I'm not sure…maybe some. You have to admit she's a great administrator. Even her father thought she would be. He could have named a male relative as successor, but he picked her."

"Oh, I agree. But she's got a huge standing army that's getting bored, with generals who don't have enough to do. Maybe you could nudge her to do something about that."

"Hmm…maybe I will. Oh, look at that! Their arms are practically touching. They look like they've both forgotten rank and position." Her ka seemed to shimmer. "I think they're adorable."

"Yeah. Wonder how long it'll take for them to start frakking." A deep chuckle seemed to roll in the mist.

"Oh, Bill. You never change, do you?"

"When it comes to you, in whatever incarnation you might have? No. And I never will."

The two shades fluttered together, as if stirred by an unseen breeze.

TBC

A/N: I've taken a few liberties with Hatshepsut and Senenmut's histories, and that of their families, (which takes place in the 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Egypt) for the sake of the story.