Whatcha thinking, Madame Prez?"
Laura dropped the pot she was washing in the sink at the sound of Ellen's voice and cursed under her breath when the resulting splash doused the front of her white dress in soapy water.
"Oh, Gods, I'm so sorry, Laura," Ellen said from somewhere behind her. Laura heard the screen door slam and the click of Ellen's heels as she fully entered the room.
By the time she'd managed to get the pot back in the sink without causing another mini flood the other woman was at her side with a dish towel and a remorseful look on her face.
"Thanks," Laura said, as she took the towel and started dabbing at the thin fabric. "I was just thinking that the worlds can end and men, both human and Cylon, will still gather around a barbeque pit and argue about the best way to light a frakking fire."
Ellen laughed and cast a glance out the window. Bill, Saul, Lee, and Doc Cottle had gathered in a circle around the firepit in the front yard. The breeze carried the bravado laced notes of their discussion through the screen and it did, indeed, sound like a stereotypical pissing match.
"Gods, all I know is Saul's trick involves a half pint of rot gut and a match," Ellen said with a shrug of her shoulders. Laura turned just in time to see the wince that passed across her pretty features as she realized what she'd said and to whom.
Ellen's presence here, in the home Laura shared with Saul and Bill, was still new and so was the unlikely friendship they'd begun to navigate. It was still a source of pain for Ellen that Saul had divorced her to marry Laura and Bill but she'd handled it with surprising grace. She'd busied herself with her research, an expansive study on the cure she'd designed that saved Laura's life, and made a home for herself in the main settlement a few miles away from the cabin shared by the former leaders.
Laura couldn't imagine being friends with the old Ellen but this woman, the genius scientist with a quick wit and infectious laugh, was day and night different from the one she'd met on Galactica all those years ago. She found herself increasingly delighted that Ellen had started visiting more often and was determined to make sure the other woman knew it.
"I can see Bill and Doc going right along with that plan," Laura said with a reassuring smile. "Luckily Lee's out there or we'd have to go supervise."
Another slam of the screen door cut off any response. Both women turned to see Layne Ishay balancing a tray of freshly slaughtered meat between the wall and her heavily pregnant belly.
Laura smiled brightly and walked the few steps to take the main course from her daughter-in-law.
"Here, let me get that," she said with a note of disapproval in her voice. "You should be sitting down with your feet up, young lady. That's my grandchild you're carting around in there."
Layne rolled her eyes but relinquished the bloody burden anyway. It was only in Laura's hands for a second before Ellen grabbed it and quickly set it on the cluttered counter.
"You shouldn't be working this hard either, Laura," she said in a stern voice. "I happen to know you've been on your feet all day."
Laura raised an inquisitive eyebrow and Ellen burst into laughter.
"Your husbands told on you, dear," she explained. She pulled out two chairs from the table at once and motioned for both Layne and Laura to sit. "Both of you, rest. Doctor's orders. Laura, tell me what I need to do so we can actually eat something before midnight."
The side dishes came together under Laura's watchful eye as the women chatted about nothing and everything. Laura laughed at Layne's vivid depiction of Lee's most recent tangle with the quorum and she and Ellen both listened with no small measure of wonder as the younger woman detailed last week of aches, kicks, and cravings.
By the time the men finally got the fire roaring the brilliant red and purple sunset was taking a final bow and the stars were just flickering onto the scene. The flames cast dancing shadows across the yard and Laura found herself having to clench back tears as she settled herself against one of the large logs rimming the pit.
She felt Bill plop down beside her and his arm snake around her shoulder. She waited, eyes still closed, for Saul to take his position on her other side.
"You ok, love?"
She opened her eyes and glanced to the left, to where Lee and Layne were cuddled together on another log, her cheek resting on his chest and his on her stomach. Directly across from them, Ellen and Jack Cottle were arguing animatedly and Laura thought, not for the first time, that the two scientists' antagonistic friendship might be turning into something more.
She was alive, on Earth. That in itself was more than she ever dared to hope for. To be surrounded by her family, held close by not one but two husbands who loved her, doing something as normal as having a weekend barbeque was so perfect it was almost dizzying.
"Yes," she said quietly, "I'm good." She found Bill's hand and the Saul's and squeezed them both. "I'm very, very, good."