Don't blame me—blame the evil heretherebeangst for thinking "Let's see who can come up with the saddest AU" was a good game to play, and the people on tumblr who begged to read this one. You are all getting what you deserve. Title borrowed from the Florence + The Machine song.
Ship To Wreck
"That's a beautiful ship."
Bill grunts in reply. Nearly a year since he opened this little shop to sell his model ships, and he still hasn't gotten the hang of how to respond to compliments with anything but discomfort.
But the lanky kid in the pale blue scrubs isn't dissuaded by Bill's lack of enthusiasm. He comes to stand at the cash register, where Bill is still seated behind the counter, a book open on his lap.
"I thought I read that you'd retired from military service, but your sign just says 'Adama's'...were you in the navy? Your work is so detailed, you must have spent so much time on ships..."
It's a common mistake, but it bothers him every time.
"I was a commander in the Colonial Fleet," he replies, without lifting his eyes from his book. "I spent my life in space, not on the seas."
"So you've never been on a ship like these?" the kid presses.
Bill hates the ocean.
Maybe it would have been different if he were here by choice, and not a direct order, or if he were on vacation, and not bereavement leave. Maybe if he'd been able to close his eyes in months without picturing Zak's Viper exploding, if being left alone with his thoughts were anything but an opportunity to rehash his guilt and his sorrow, over and over again...
But he's here on the Scorpian Queen sailing the South Scorpian Sea alone, and he's seasick everywhere below decks, and everyone on the damn ship seems to be having a better time than he is.
He grips the rail harder and leans farther overboard, taking a deep inhale of the salty air.
"Planning to jump?"
He turns to find a woman seated on a deck chair behind him, a blanket across her lap and a book in her hands, looking at him over the top of her glasses.
"I don't see the point in being on the ocean if you're not going to appreciate it," he says, staring pointedly at her book.
She smiles wryly. "I'm inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately-" she indicates her hair, "-wigs and sea breezes don't mix."
Until she'd said it, he hadn't noticed...but there is something a trifle too neat, too even about her dark red hair to be real.
Guilt washes over him, quickly replaced by irritation. Why is she bothering him? He's done nothing wrong. He's just here on his damn vacation, minding his own business.
"Then why are you here?" he asks, refusing to care if he sounds rude. If she doesn't speak to him again, so much the better.
Her smile twists. "My fiancé is running for mayor of Caprica City," she says. "Wigs and political campaigns really don't mix."
There's something about the way her voice lilts when she says it, the weary mischief in her green eyes, that brings him to the vacant deck chair beside hers.
He holds out his hand. "Bill Adama. I didn't want to come on this cruise, either."
Her hand feels good in his, and if he holds on for just an instant longer than necessary, she doesn't complain.
Her smile widens. "Laura Roslin," she says. "It's a pleasure to make your unwilling acquaintance."
"Once," Bill says. "Years ago."
The kid glances around the shop, filled with ships, large and small, dinghies and galleys and cruise liners, not a single space vessel among them. "You must have enjoyed it."
She's newly in remission, just finished with a brutal round of doloxan and radiation, he learns over the next few days, as they meet on the deck each morning in a tacit arrangement. She tells him about her life back in Caprica City, the endless dinner parties and fundraisers and politicking that go with being the future wife of the would-be mayor. It sounds exhausting to Bill, and she sounds tired when she tells it. He tells her about his life in space, about the wonder of it, and the boredom, the loneliness. From her avid questions, he can tell that she's never traveled the way she would have liked to, and he finds himself wishing, more than once, that he could be the one to show her the universe.
He can't believe that he never noticed her before she spoke to him that day on the deck. She's the most beautiful woman on the ship, clearly, even with her wig, and the ever-present weariness in her green eyes. One day he points out some dolphins frolicking in the waves, and her gasp of wonder lights up her pale, drawn features. When he hears her laugh for the first time, his chest aches, and he wonders what Richard Adar did to be lucky enough to hear that sound for the rest of his life.
She brought a stack of paperback thrillers on this voyage, and even though Bill hasn't read a mystery since he was eight, he finds himself offering to read to her. It keeps him from his thoughts, he tells himself. It's a useful distraction.
By the time they start the third book, Bill finds that his thoughts are filled with something new, now.
Over dinner one night-when did they start sharing their meals together? Bill isn't sure-she asks him about his family.
He reacts badly, blustering and evading and stumbling all over himself in an effort to avoid his divorce, Zak's death, his surviving son who doesn't return his calls.
Laura makes an offhanded comment about the wedding ring still on his finger, six years after his divorce. He snaps back, asking why a woman who's supposedly in love doesn't wear her engagement ring.
They don't stay at the table long after that, and he doesn't see her the next morning.
He holds out until evening, when the prospect of a night without Laura after a day without Laura smothers what's left of his pride.
She opens the door to her stateroom wrapped in a white robe, a scarf covering her bare head. It's too intimate, he knows that, he can hear the voice of caution in his head, but when she invites him in, he doesn't hesitate.
Sitting beside her on her bunk, his voice choked with tears, he tells her about Zak.
Her fingers find his, and she is silent for the longest time.
Her fiancé is a decent man, she says at last. He paid for her treatments at the finest hospital in Caprica City. He cares about her. He depends on her.
And she has known for some time that she doesn't love him.
This time, Bill is silent.
He gets to his feet, lets go of her hand. He asks if he'll see her tomorrow.
There's regret in her eyes, but she nods.
He presses his lips against her cool cheek. It's an apology for his earlier harsh words, nothing more, but he knows the moment it's happened that he's gone a step too far.
He doesn't stay. He doesn't tilt her chin up with his fingers to find her lips with his. He doesn't slip his hands under the scarf to trace her scalp, or hold her close enough to feel the beat of her heart against his.
Alone in his cabin, staring up at the ceiling, he knows that it doesn't matter.
Two days later, on a day trip ashore, they wander away from the group, find a deserted little strip of beach. They abandon their shoes and wander the shore barefoot, Laura's arm through his. Later, they curl up together on the sand, watching the sun set over the water. There's only the barest chill in the air, but they cling to each other like they're huddling together for safety, for warmth.
"I've been thinking about retiring," he says, staring up at the stars where he's spent his whole life.
Laura's fingers smooth his chest. Her sigh brushes his cheek.
"I can't leave Richard in the middle of a campaign," she says at last. "It would ruin him, make him the laughingstock of Caprica City. He doesn't deserve that."
He lets out a breath, hoping the darkness masks the pain on his face. He shouldn't be surprised.
"Bill..." She hesitates. "Would you wait for me? In six months, the election will be over, win or lose. If you still want me then-"
For the first time, he allows himself to touch her lips. He traces the shape with his fingers, then his mouth. He wants to go slowly, to remember this, the happiest moment of his life.
He would wait for all eternity.
The kid points at the ship in the display case behind Bill. "How much for that one?"
Bill doesn't look up. "It's not for sale."
He hands in his resignation the day he returns to his ship. His superiors are shocked. Bill is, too, a little. But he thinks about the happy flush to Laura's cheeks, the musical sound of her laughter, and he doesn't hesitate.
He gets himself a little apartment in Caprica City. It won't be anything like what Laura's used to; his Fleet pension isn't much. But it makes him happy to fix the place up for her, to find rugs to warm the wood floors, to paint shelves to hold her books, to buy fresh new sheets to cover their bed. Every day, he ticks another check mark on his mental calendar, counting down the days till they'll start their life together.
One day, in a tiny antique shop, searching for a night table for her side of the bed, he spies a model ship kit. The ship in the picture isn't anything like their cruise liner, not really, but he knows she'll understand, anyway. He's never done one of these before, and this is far from beginner level, but he works around the clock, wanting it to be ready in time. He paints Laura on the side, in bold script. On the tiny deck, with an even tinier brush, he paints LA, for Laura Adama.
On the night before their reunion, he sets the ship, varnish finally dry, on an empty shelf of the bookcase he built for her.
He wants it to be the first thing she sees when she steps into their home.
"That's the one I want."
"It's not for sale," Bill repeats. "You can have anything else in the shop. That's a display item."
The kid persists. "You don't understand. I need the Laura one. That's her favorite. It even has her initials."
They agreed to meet down by the docks. She doesn't know anyone there, and he knows that's part of it, but it seems like a fitting place for their reunion, too: the seagulls, the salt in the air, the scent of far-off worlds, of possibility.
He finds a bench with a good view of the harbor, and he waits.
At first, he thinks she's just been held up. Then he thinks maybe he got the time wrong-but they'd been so clear.
But Laura wouldn't be late if she could help it, he tells himself. He keeps waiting.
Surely, any moment, he'll hear footsteps, and she'll be behind him-
When he watches the sun go down over the water alone, he knows Laura really isn't coming.
He walks home, slowly, ignoring cab after cab. Something must have happened, he tells himself. An accident, an emergency. She doesn't have his new number. She couldn't get in touch with him. Maybe, if he waits there tomorrow-
It isn't until he gives in to his exhaustion and sits down at a bus stop that he sees the day's newspaper, left behind on the bench.
Mayor-Elect Weds Longtime Fiancée.
The air goes out of his lungs at the picture beneath the headline. Laura, in a white suit, on the steps of City Hall, her hand in Adar's and a bright smile on her face.
He can't remember how to breathe.
He staggers into the nearest bar, still clutching the paper.
He won't be sober again for weeks.
Eventually, with enough ambrosia in him, he pieces it together.
She never loved him. She never meant any of it. He was just a fling, an ego boost. He was just a fool who thought a woman like that would give up the best of everything for a rattrap apartment with an old man.
When he stumbles back to his apartment (not their apartment, not anymore) he sees the ship, just as he wanted Laura to.
Without thinking, he smashes it against the wall.
The pieces lie on the floor for days, and he can't bring himself to throw them out.
Eventually-after days, or weeks, he isn't sure-Lee shows up, cleans him up, gets some real food into him, throws out the bottles.
Bill stops him before he can sweep away the pieces.
It's all he has left of her, the only tangible proof that they ever knew each other at all.
He's going to rebuild it, he tells Lee. He's thinking of going into model ship building.
The relief lights up Lee's face, and Bill can't stand to disappoint him. Not again.
He rebuilds the ship, no kit this time. He buys wood, sands it and shapes it himself. He keeps the original piece with her name, and the deck that holds her initials-for Laura Adar, now, he thinks bitterly.
He builds more ships, from scratch. It gives him something to do with his days, something to do with his hands. He starts selling them in a little shop down the street. A friend of Lee's photographs them for an article on art in Caprica City, and soon he can afford his own shop.
None of the ships he ever builds mean as much to him as the one puts in the glass case.
Bill rubs his eyes. "Look, I'm sure your girlfriend would be happier with-"
He's shaking his head impatiently. "Not my girlfriend. I'm a home health care worker. I took care of Laura Adar. I need this for her."
The book falls out of Bill's lap as he scrambles to his feet. "You work for Laura Adar?"
The kid nods eagerly. "For the last eighteen months. She loved your work so much-there was an article on you in Caprican Home magazine, and she would pour over it, day after day...and this one, the one with her name on it, was her favorite."
Bill grips the counter. He cannot bear the thought that he meant so little to Laura that she could see this ship in a magazine, and feel nothing.
"I wouldn't have thought model ships would be Mrs. Adar's taste," he says cooly.
The kid shrugs. "She said it reminded her of some trip she'd taken once, some man she'd known...a sailor, I think." He pauses. "You don't know her, but she was so self-possessed, so contained...but when she would talk about him, she would light up. It was like watching her come to life. I used to beg her to let me contact him, to have him come see her...but she said she wouldn't let him see her until she was better." He trails off, biting his lip.
The room is spinning. "Better?"
He nods. "She hired me to take care of her after her cancer came back."
Bill can't breathe. "I didn't know she was sick," he manages.
The kid's face twists. "You wouldn't know it by Mayor Adar." He lets out a breath. "I don't mean to speak ill of him. I know he cared about her-I mean, he married her after she got sick, and he always made sure she had the best of everything...he just never seemed to have much time for her."
Bill's stomach rises in his throat. "They were married after her cancer came back."
"A few days after she got the test results. That's why it was a City Hall wedding. She didn't want to waste any time." He hesitates. "It's not my place to say anything. But I was with her every day...and I never saw her light up with Adar the way she did with your ship."
Bill's eyes close. He can picture it perfectly, Laura's cool calculation, the weighing of her private scales. Her treatments would run through his savings and his pension in no time. And if she didn't get better...he'd been so raw back then, his grief for Zak still fresh. If he'd lost her, too...she'd have left him debt-ridden and destroyed. She wouldn't have risked that.
And so she'd made her choice. And she'd married Adar, married him on that day, so Bill would think he understood, so he'd be too full of bile to come looking for her.
All this time he'd told himself that she walked away from what they had...and he was the one who lost faith.
"About the ship..." the kid begins.
"Give me her address," Bill says urgently. "I'll bring it over right away. Myself. She can even commission her own model, if she wants."
He won't leave until they let him see her. He won't blame her. He'll tell her he understands. The last eighteen months don't have to matter. They can start over, now, today. If she's sick, they'll get through it together. He just needs to see her, to bury his face in her lap, to let her know he's here now...
The kid's face clouds. "I'm sorry. When you said her name, I thought you knew...Laura died this morning."
The earth drops out from underneath him, and Bill knows he will never stop falling.
"That's why I wanted the ship," he continues. "Laura wanted to be cremated, and to have her ashes scattered in the Scorpian Sea. But Adar doesn't think it looks good to have the mayor's wife laid to rest off-planet, so he's having her ashes interred here. I thought, if she at least had the ship..."
This morning. All this time, and he only finds out now, when it's too late.
He unlocks the cabinet and holds out the ship, letting his eyes rest one final time on those letters he'd inked on the side those months he'd been so happy, so hopeful. A thousand times, he has stared at this ship, full of bitterness and resentment...and all along, Laura was staring at it, too, taking comfort from it.
If it were possible for him to forgive himself, maybe that would be a start.
"Take it," he says when he can speak. "No charge."
The kid lights up. Bill is glad, faintly, that Laura had someone like this with her, when her husband abandoned her, and the man who was supposed to love her did, too.
"Are you sure?"
Bill nods. He can't possibly have this anywhere near him, taunting him with his stupidity, his regret.
He wraps up the ship and follows the kid out of the shop in a daze. He doesn't bother to lock the door. He can't imagine he'll be making much of a profit after he's put in prison for stealing the mayor's wife's ashes.
Maybe they'll let him build ships there.
Maybe, this time, he'll build a ship she really would have been proud of.