The cough has gotten worse. He's trying to tamper it down for her, but his breath runs away from him and he knows that soon he won't be able to catch it anymore. His lungs burn and scream for the same air that keeps slowly ripping them apart. His breathing has grown ragged, as if the air itself refuses to part with him and hangs on desperately. He barely hears or feels any of it anymore, especially when she's sitting next to him and holding his hand. She looks better every day, while he gets worse. She hates it, that she has to see him wither like this while she feels like she is blooming once again. While the life siphons away from him, it gets restored to her. It's a cruel joke the gods play upon them, but then again; they never really were fair to begin with.
"How's the quorum?" he asks on a cough. She knows it's really his way of asking her about his son and carefully places her hand on his chest, as if her touch can lighten his pains somehow. She gives him a shadow of a smile.
"Moaning, as usual. I don't think they have anything to complain about though." He laughs at her, but it quickly morphs into a coughing fit. She grasps his hand and holds on tightly. She remembers how comforting it was for her when Bill held her hand before, when their roles were reversed. He was her anchor, her solid ground when everything around her simply crumbled away into dust and scattered among the stars. "Don't do that." She whispers on a breath. The couching fits are terrifying; she's scared that the next time he won't catch his breath again.
"I can't laugh? That's a rather strict policy you are imposing on me, Madame president." He manages to joke and it causes his eyes to crease in the way that makes her heart jitter. She chuckled softly and takes the plastic cup of water at his bedside.
"Well, the first time I met you I would have thought that wouldn't be so hard for you." She jokes back and he suppresses a chuckle, instead taking the cup from her and slowly sipping some of the lukewarm water.
"To be honest it probably wouldn't have been." He admits and it earns him a smile that tells a story somewhere between pity and understanding. She watches the pained look on his face as he suppresses a cough, knows the way his lungs burn with every breath he takes. He tries not to show it, but she has long since been able to see through the exterior of the indomitable admiral Adama.
"Can I get you anything?" she finally asks and he's silent for a while, before a small smirk graces his face and he turns towards her again.
"A new body." He rasps and she laughs at his words, truly laughs for a second and suddenly whatever heartbreak will follow in days to come doesn't matter anymore. He chuckles along with her and grasps her other hand in his own ones. "What would you like, Laura? Maybe a blonde?"
"I can't picture you as a blonde." She returns his own words back to him, both submerging themselves in the memories of times past. She had assumed that she'd die that day and had accepted it. It had been surprisingly easy in the end, with Bill holding her hand, to come to terms with her own death. Now that their roles were reversed, letting go like that was a lot harder. Losing him was a heavier burden on her soul than losing herself could ever be.
"You'd be surprised." He whispers and smiles at her. Her fingers trace the palm of his hand and find a trail towards his. Softly, almost without thinking about it, she traces the ring on his finger. She doesn't know who it was that he promised to love all those years ago, but she finds herself not caring. Whatever lives that lie in their pasts are gone forever. She won't spend her last days with him mulling over what could have been in the past. All there is, is the future. A little for them and a long stretch of time for her alone. She's good at being alone, but suddenly it terrorizes her, like her heart won't cope with being alone again after it has finally taught itself to love again.
"Laura?" He asks, shaking her from her thoughts. He looks down at her hands and sees how her hands tremble and take his hands with them in their nervous shaking. She clears her throat and quickly pulls back her hands. She tries to blink away the tears that have appeared in her eyes without permission, but feels a few of them escaping and streaming down her cheeks. It's then that she feels the soft touch of his hand taking the tears and wiping them away. She smiles sadly at him when he meets her gaze again and grasps his hand.
"We will find earth, Laura. You will. It's out there, and you will lead the fleet towards it." He promises her and she can't help but shake her head at it. She used to think of herself as the dying leader, the prophet, the salvation of humanity. In retrospect, it all feels like stories she told herself to overcome to overwhelming prospect of dying. Now that she's faced with the reality of death, the meaninglessness of it all, the stories seem nothing more than tales meant to lull an anxious child to sleep.
"A dying leader will guide the people to the … blah-blah." She shakes her head again and has to blink furiously against her tears again. She knows it's a bad time to lose faith, just when she's about to lose her love too, but it's like nothing in her life can exist without Bill Adama. It's like everything is somehow tied to him, like when he falls down, he will tear everything else down with him.
He grasps her hands with surprising vigor and pulls her towards him. She gasps as she is pulled towards him and meets his eyes again. The look in his eyes is the one he usually reserves for an unruly fleet or nervous pilots, it's the one that tells her to keep standing no matter how much the earth is shaking underneath her feet.
He squeezes her hands and emphasizes every word as if he's a prophet and she's the faithless beggar. "You will, Laura, I didn't believe in miracles and prophecies and gods before I met you, but you made me believe."
"You believe in the gods?" She asks, disbelieving, partially because had never piqued him for a religious man, but more because she herself has lost faith in the old names that no longer mean anything to half of humanity.
He nods. "I do." For half a second he seems to hesitate, but then he slowly strokes his hand over hers, a calming touch for both of them, a reassurance of life. "Because I prayed to them, and they answered my prayers."
"What did you pray for?"
He's silent for a while, the only sound between them his ragged breathing and the beeping of the heart monitor. It's become almost calming, like it has become the soundtrack behind the tragedy of their lives. When he suddenly launches himself into a coughing fit that takes him a long time to recover from, he resolves himself to answer her question. "I prayed to them when you were … dying. I prayed to them to save you." She smiles softly at him, stroking the hair plastered to his face. His jaw sets for a second as he hesitates, before he continues. "I prayed to them to swap our places. To take me instead."
Silence falls between them. Laura lets out a rushed breath at his admission, while his own stays calm, if ragged. She drops his heavy hands from her own and takes the glasses that she had placed on his bedside table. With shaking hands she puts them on and the word takes back it's sharp edges, the ones that cut her in her heart. She stands up and walks away from the bed until she can see the whole form on him lying in the hospital bed. All white sheets, tubes and ragged breaths. She wants to me mad at him, for making her go through this, for leaving his son behind, for making the fleet go on without him. She wants to be angry, but she can't, because she understands, because right now she'd do the exact same, given the chance. She would pray to every god, every deity, every prophet if that's what it would take.
"Okay." She simply says as she walks back to his bed, taking her place next to him again. He smiles at her in response in a silent thank you. He slowly takes her hand in his again, but this time she feels the soft warmth of metal pressing into her palm. When she slowly opens her hand the wedding ring is lying in the palm of her hand. He's still cradling her hands in his, smiling tearfully at her. She has to clear her throat to find her breath again, but can't stop her eyelashes from fluttering or the tears from streaming down her face.
He doesn't tell her anything, doesn't ask for something that doesn't mean anything any longer. He simply takes the ring and puts it in place around her finger. It's too big and doesn't fit around her lithe fingers, but somehow it fits perfectly. She smiles tearfully at him as he places a kiss on her hand.
"Will you wear it?" He finally asks her. She nods and can barely find any words to tell him, can barely keep herself from falling apart in that chair next to him. So she nods, she strokes his hands and lets the beeping of the heart monitor calm her own.
She sees his eyes flutter and knows that he's barely staying awake for her. Suddenly she realizes that he's still waiting for an answer and she smiles sadly at him, taking his hand and placing a soft kiss on it.
"Okay, I will, Bill. I will."
She can only whisper the answer to him and she's not even sure whether he hears it or not. But it's the best she can do.
It's all she can do.