Okies, here we are with the second installment. I'm glad nobody was like 'WTF you doing making them younger??' coz i thought at least one person would object. :D
Anyways, this is part two, another five chapter story. This first chapter is more to establish what's changed and how exactly. I realised after i'd written this chapter that Bill and Laura weren't in it all that much, but fear not, there's plenty more of them in the chapters to come.
And they get to see more of each other too *nudge nudge-wink wink*
Enjoy. Reviews are love.
Chapter 1: Well, THAT'S Different
"Colton, I'm not continuing this conversation with your ass." Edric told Colton's rear end.
A devious little chuckle echoed from within the depths of the…thing she had been working on for the past couple of days. Apparently it was going to be very useful, though useful at what, everybody had yet to figure out. At the moment she was hooked over the lip of the thing's hatch with her torso, arms and head ensconced inside. Edric had been trying to have a conversation with her.
Unsuccessfully, it might be added.
Something oddly shaped and mechanical was tossed out of the machine over Colton's shoulder and her hand appeared after it.
"Pass me the sonic screwdriver will you?" She grasped at thin air until Edric rolled his eyes and passed her the small silver tool.
"Thank you!" Her voice sounded tinny and echoed faintly from within the depths of the machine.
"You can't put this off forever, you know." Despite his promise not to, Edric continued the conversation with her backside. It was a very fine backside, he was man enough to admit, but that didn't mean he was going to let her know that any time soon.
"Don't have to." She wriggled her hips and squirmed a little further into the machine. Edric firmly looked away from what that movement did to her slim curves. "Just have to put it off long enough for you to get fed up waiting for me to do it and end up doing it yourself." She grunted and slipped an extra couple of inches inside. "C'mere ya naughty plug!" She squirmed again and there was a clicking sound from inside the cavernous body of the hodge-podge invention.
Colton was still for a moment.
Edric arched an eyebrow at her now (oddly) perplexed looking ass. How anyone's ass could look perplexed, he didn't know, but if anybody could manage it, it was Colton.
"Hmm." She ruminated and he figured it out.
"You're stuck, aren't you."
"I am not stuck. Geniuses do not get stuck." She was quiet a moment further. "Though I may be slightly puzzled as how exactly I am to extricate myself from--yipe!"
Edric had solved both their problems by reaching into the machine, grabbing her by the hips and bodily hauling her out of it. He held her in one of his massive arms like she was an unruly kitten whose behaviour he was curbing and she scowled at him.
"Yes, yes, you're a manly man and we're all very proud of you for it." She folded her arms over her chest. "Now put me down."
"Not until you listen to me."
"I'm all ears." She wriggled and kicked a little, trying to get free, but he just shifted his grip and held her up off the floor with ease. She huffed a sigh. "Okay, what?"
"We need to tell them."
"No we don't."
"They should at least have a little warning."
"Nobody ever warned us. I think it all went rather smoothly."
"We broke the lab."
"Well…we'll move some of the breakables then. Ship like this has got to have insurance."
"I don't think their policy includes the end of the world and…"
"FINE then! You tell them if you're so anxious for them to be so bloody well informed." Colton wriggled harder until she tired herself again. It was one of the few advantages he had over her and Edric wasn't quite ready to give it up yet. "Can you stop being so obdurately…dominant now?"
"You sure you want that?" His voice had lowered and Colton turned to look at him sharply.
"Edric." She warned.
"Dana." He grinned back at her.
Great, just great. NOW he was playful.
"Don't call me that."
"It's your name isn't it?" He flipped her around in his arms so fast that she squeaked in surprise and her front was crushed against his. She gripped his shoulders and her bare feet dangled several inches above the deck. Like this, they were eye to eye and very, very close to one another. He freed an arm to reach up and pull off her glasses. The entire shape of her face changed when freed from their shielding presence and he grinned showing off a lot of white teeth. She had a streak of grease at one temple, her hair was screwed back in that lopsided knot of hers and her cheeks looked flushed. "You know what? You're almost pretty like this."
She looked at him for a long frozen moment, her lips pressed together, and then patted his shoulder with a little more force than was friendly. "And you, Edric, I almost didn't recognise you this close." He tilted his head, she couldn't be serious…"It's amazing what a good embalmer can do." She wasn't.
"Ugh." He dropped her to the floor and she staggered backwards at the sudden move. She clattered into her machine and something convoluted and vaguely important looking fell of it with a clang. She turned to inspect the damage and then whipped back around to face Edric. Her eyes narrowed.
"C'est la guerre." She uttered in a low voice, stripping her white lab coat from her shoulders and whapping it to the floor.
"Oh, come on, Colton." Edric sighed. "There's no way that you can…"
Clang!
Edric reeled under the impact of the wrench to his temple. He staggered backwards several steps and was completely unprepared for over two hundred pounds of nanotech enhanced scientist slamming into his chest and toppling them both to the floor. He flipped them both until she was trapped under him, but underestimated her for the second time when it hadn't occurred to him that she would pull exactly the same move and end up straddling him on the cold steel floor. Her fist slammed into his jaw and cracked his head to the side.
"That's frakking delicate!" Her fist came down for another pass and his huge hand engulfed it easily and halted it mid swing.
"Unlike some things I could mention." He sneered around the blood trickling from his lip.
"Urgh!" She stood up, gripping him by the collar and smashing the heel of her hand into his nose, nearly crunching the cartilage under her hand, but pulling back at the last moment. It was then that he realised what this was all about. It wasn't about the machine or the insults or the way sharing the same breathing space with one another grated on them. It was simply that she was bored and tearing lumps out of each other was as good a way of passing the time as any.
"Gotta be the first time you've had a man between your legs for a while, huh?" He grinned at her, slightly lopsided because of the way his lip was swollen.
Her lips pursed, but her eyes were smiling. "Face it, Adama, you wouldn't know what to do with me even if you had me." Those same legs that he had been talking about seconds before tightened together and crushed his ribcage between them hard enough to make his bones creak.
"Frak!" He grunted in pain and at the challenge.
"Not in this lifetime." She answered back with a tight voice. Holding up like this, pinned between her thighs, while being almost enjoyable from his point of view, cost her a lot of effort.
"Thank Gods." He surged upwards, jamming his shoulder up between her legs hard enough to make her gasp, snagging one of her slim wrists with his hand and twisting it up behind her back to keep her balanced on his shoulder, his chin bumping against her hip. He rose to his full height, so high that she could reach up and touch one of the support beams over their heads.
Something that she didn't hesitate to use to her advantage. She gripped the beam with her free hand, smirked at him with a wicked baring of teeth and spurred her heels into his lower back and his belly in a hard kick like he was a stallion she wanted to gallop. He grunted and the breath huffed out of him. That kick had been hard enough to cave steel under it. His grip loosened on her wrist and she tore it free, her hand going to join its twin on the beam. She slipped her legs from his shoulder and bunched her arms twisting her body up and to the side in an oddly snakelike motion. Edric reached to catch her legs again and drag her down to his level and realised his mistake almost immediately.
But not before both of her legs whipped around with the entire weight of her body behind them and slammed heel first into his chest.
He was thrown backwards several feet and landed flat on his back. She swung again and landed on a neat crouch between his legs. Perilously close to something he'd really rather not have her land on.
"Had enough yet?" She smirked at him. Clearly enjoying herself.
Alright, she wanted the kid gloves off?
Fine by him.
His legs jack-knifed together, catching her delicate feet between his, and wrenched to the side. She toppled onto her hip and shoulder with a yelp. He pounced on her with a playful growl and they rolled across the floor, grappling for dominance. To anyone else, it would look like they were trying to kill each other. To them, this was kids' stuff. They weren't even close to cutting loose.
She finally succeeded in working her feet under them in a show of cat-like flexibility, and punting him off her chest with a huff of effort.
The sound of tearing fabric rent through the air and they were both back on their feet before they realised what had happened.
Colton looked down at her right arm. Her completely bare right arm. The entire sleeve of her purple and magenta pinstripe shirt (something she had went though hell to get, it should be pointed out) and part of the shoulder and collar were suddenly MIA. Her gaze swung over the floor and burned up the length of Edric's body to land on his guilty hand, clutching the torn fabric like it was some absurd little battle trophy.
"Favourite shirt!" She protested.
"Only shirt!" He parodied back to her and wrinkled his nose to cover his smirk. "Smells like it too."
"It is SO on!"
"I'm all aquiver." He mocked her and waved the sleeve at her like a red flag to a bull.
It had the desired effect of having her rush him. Unfortunately he hadn't accounted for exactly how much she had liked that shirt. She sprinted at him and he dropped the rag in favour of readying himself for catching her and rolling to absorb her momentum. He lunged to meet her, arms swinging together and closing on empty air. It wasn't until he felt hands fist in the pant leg of his military sweats and the sound of yet more ripping fabric echoed through the room. She had dropped under his reach and scooted between his legs, catching his trouser leg on the way past and not stopping until she had slid way past him, pant leg still in hand.
He whirled to face her, sitting on the floor and waving the lower half of his pant leg at him with an evil little smile on her face.
She must have really liked that shirt.
He was on her before she could tear more clothing from him. He landed on top of her, forced the air from her lungs with the impact, clamped her arms to her sides with his own and slid across the floor with her. There, she had to give up now, her legs were squashed under him, her arms were immobilised. There was nothing she could- -
"Ow!" He reared back, the side of his neck throbbing from where she had bitten him. Blood was a flush on her lower lip and she grinned at him before swiping it away with her tongue. Her legs slid out from under him, clamped around his hips and twisted to the side as she heaved at his shoulders. She flipped him neatly on his back, fisted a hand in the front of his double tanks and ripped upwards, stripping away the material in a long swath that left the cobbled muscles of his abs and most of his chest bare. She quirked a smile at the view, before snapping the material against his face with a slap and scrambling off him. He snagged the back of her shirt and she twisted awkwardly to get out of it, ripping it clean off her back and revealing the deep blue lace thing she was calling a bra underneath.
"Well, THAT isn't military reg." He muttered. She turned to face him, while scampering backwards away from him, and revealed it to be almost completely see through on the front. Edric shook his head hard, feeling like she'd just clocked him with the wrench again.
"Civilian, sweetheart." She mocked gently and he launched himself after her. With a muffled 'eep' she dove under her machine and wiggled between the props to get to the other side. Edric took the simpler and shorter route of leaping over the thing, a jump no normal person could make, and landing over her as she crawled out from under it. She rolled onto her back, hair wild and cheeks flushed, one of his feet on either side of her shoulders.
She punched straight up.
Edric swore and twisted to the side to avoid having his tailbone crushed and facing the possibility of never fathering children.
Her fist connected with the steely muscle of his inner thigh hard enough to bruise and sent him toppling further. She flipped onto her front again and made to crawl away. He recovered himself and snagged her up off the floor with his normal arm around her waist. His metal arm went across her collar bone. The one she couldn't bite.
"Leggo!" She kicked wildly and squirmed like an eel. He held her tight and gave her a hard little shake in an attempt to get her to cry uncle. He should have known better. She was never doing what he thought she was doing. All the kicking and screaming was a distraction. She had used it to steer him to the work bench, and the pot of thick black engine grease she had been using to lubricate the mechanisms she was working on. She didn't hesitate to snatch it up and upend it all over them.
"Ew!" He nearly dropped her with his recoiling and greasy oil sludged down over his arms and chest as well as down over her front and back. Skin slid over skin and she slithered from his grip as slippery as a fish caught fresh from the river. She giggled to herself and took the rest of his tanks with her as she plopped to the floor. She slipped and slid her way away from him and waggled his oily clothes at him in a grinning challenge. She tossed it back to him and it slapped against his chest, splattering some oil up onto his cheek. He glared at her and wiped it away with exaggerated care before flicking it off his fingers with contempt.
"Sure you haven't had enough yet?" She looked at him with faux innocence.
"And admit defeat? An Adama is never beaten."
"First time for everything." She shot back.
"Not with you."
"I believe you said something similar about a hundred years ago. I won that time too." She looked too damn pleased with herself.
"You sure?"
Her brows flickered in an uncharacteristic show of doubt but the look was gone almost as soon as it had arrived.
"Of course." She planted her hands on her slim waist.
"A lot can change in a hundred years." He prowled his way towards her, careful not to slip on the oil.
"And there are some things that are constants in the universe." Her chin came up, daring him to refute it.
"Like me kicking your ass?" He smiled sweetly at her.
"Or me letting you think you have." She grinned feral. "Not the first time I've faked something around you."
That appeared to be too much for Edric to let slide and he launched himself at her like he had an FTL drive.
Shrieking a laugh, Colton danced out of the way and sprinted away from him to the other end of the barracks that they shared with Bill and Laura when they weren't having their numerous physicals. She could hear the low growl of Edric's impending wrath and couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up in her throat.
Gods, she did so love to rub him just the wrong way to make it feel right.
$inister $cribe
"Do you think they've killed each other yet?"
"Hmm?" Laura looked up at Bill's face and tried to look like a President that had not just been caught ogling the Fleet Admiral.
Not that anyone could blame her.
Bill, in the distinguished weathering of middle-age had been a compelling man to look at. He'd had a rugged look about him. A bearish build of strength that spoke of raw power under his belt (not that she was paying a lot of attention to areas south of the belt, that would be inappropriate and irresponsible for the President of the Twelve Colonies…Gods what a crock of frakking shit) and a stern, staid manner that had whispered of iron willed control.
Younger, in-his-prime, and to be perfectly honest, infinitely frakkable Bill was truly a sight to behold. Every time she glanced at him (okay, ogled) she thought (frequently, she did a lot of ogle-er-glancing) she was looking at a photograph of him from twenty years ago. Gone was the beating his face had taken from a lengthy and stressful career on the frontlines of the military, gone was the extra weight that age had brought him, even the stern cast to his features had lifted somewhat.
In their place was something infinitely more…just more. His face was lean, sharp slashing cheekbones, a strong jaw, inky black hair with the slightest curl that made her fingers itch to tangle in it and smooth bronze skin that was just begging to be colour tested all over his body to see if it was the exact same tone over every inch of him. There wasn't a spare scrap of flesh on him. Muscles bunched over muscles, rippling in interesting and hopelessly fascinating ways. He was still the same height, and his shoulders were still wide, but his hips were trimmer and he had a lean wolfish cast about him now rather than the grizzled bear she had known from a few days previously.
Gods, had it only been four days?
Four days since she had suffered unspeakable agonies, had her entire body turn into a blister that had threatened to suffocate her and then, literally, being torn out of her skin to be…what? Remade? Reborn? Reprogrammed?
She was still confused as to what exactly happened to them. It had all been explained to her by Colton and Edric of course and Cottle had tried to keep up, but the ramifications…the ripple effect from this would be huge. Not just for her and Bill personally, but the entire fleet too. How were they going to react? Were they going to reject their own leaders? In favour of who? Who was the best second choice to her and Bill?
"You okay? Stop worrying about the universe." He flashed her a grin. "One day at a time." His hand reached out and his fingers brushed over her knuckles in a shiver of contact.
They touched more now. Just to feel it. They were a lot more sensitive to everything now. Food tasted infinitely better. They could identify individual scents in cologne and ingredients in food. Colours were brighter and her eyesight was sharper than it had ever been. They both found themselves ensnared in a fascination with their surroundings like everything was brand new. It was intriguing and interesting. It was also frakking terrifying.
She curled her fingers and stroked his palm before forcing herself to release him. She smiled back at him as they walked along the cleared corridors back towards their quarters that they had been 'quarantined' in. It had been decided by all involved that Bill and Laura should be given time to adjust to their new situation before they were subjected to the gamut that the Fleet would no doubt put them through when they found out. Obviously some people knew. The guards, for example. that accompanied them everywhere lest they suddenly decide that they were Cylon sleeper agents. Something they had ordered themselves.
Not that the guards would be much of an obstacle. Laura found herself calculating exactly how easy it would be for her to take down the dozen man guard and caught herself with a mental shake.
So much had changed…
She glanced to her left, at the man at her side and was abruptly reminded that some things would always be the same though. Bill would always be the same.
She looked at him and tried to discern the most familiar of his features in his new-but-still-him face. His eyes. His eyes were still unfathomably dark, piercing and unreadable. His smile too. His rarely seen true smile, the one that showed dimples (she was a sucker for dimples, though she could be persuaded to nibble in a pinch). The one she went out of her way to have him share with her. His voice. It was still that deep gravel growl of his that sent shivers down the spine for all kinds of different reasons. He still laughed at the same jokes, still got pissed off at his physicals and impatient with tests. He still went slowly mad with being cooped up in commandeered guest quarters and kept away from his lair in CIC.
The core of him was still the same. He was still her Bill.
That made a lot of things a lot easier to handle knowing he was still there to be her anchor.
She really needed an anchor right now.
"Yes, it's just…"
"A total head-frak?"
She laughed at his choice of words. "To put it bluntly."
"Always best to." He followed her down the stairs and was careful not to warp the railing this time with his hands when he gripped it. Being strong enough to bend steel with a flex of his fingers was great in theory. Only in theory though. The practicalities of being unbelievably gentle with everything were a bitch. Laura was suffering the same thing. She had inadvertently pulled more than one hatch clean off the wall because she was so used to throwing her entire weight behind it just to shift the reinforced steel doors. Bill had nearly cracked Saul's ribs the other day when he had hugged him to show that it really was the same Old Man under this kid's good looks. He didn't remember ever looking this good. His eyes skated to Laura.
Mind you, some people had looked good before and were now stunning in a jaw dropping fashion. The faint lines around her eyes had up and disappeared, she had lost weight so that her high cheekbones and the curve of her jaw lent her a sculpted appearance that would have not been out of place in the temples of Aphrodite. Her hair was amazing in that must-touch-and-smell-at-the-soonest-opportunity kind of way. The colour and lustre much more defined. She looked less tired, less ravaged by the cancer. That was a brief shadow in his mind. Cottle was still trying to find out what this nanotech meant for the cancer and it hung over them like a guillotine. He subtly regarded her, noting her smile and the way it was making a much more frequent appearance on her striking face, down her body to pay homage to every lush curve and, of course, The Legs.
Legs such as those deserved a temple of their own and an entire order of worshippers. He'd start it if he had to. They could have robes and everything.
Bill shot a glare at the nearest guard who happened to be checking around The Legs for security threats a little too often. Eyes front was immediately in effect. Young Old Man was certainly a Creature With Whom One Does Not Frak.
"You were saying?"
Bill looked down at Laura. She had taken after Colton in her habit of going around in bare feet (despite his protests), it was pointless to wear heels with military sweats she'd said, and was now much more petite next to his, what felt like, hulking frame.
"Colton and Edric." He reminded himself abruptly. "Things seemed a little tense before we left."
"I'm sure they'll find a way to work it out." She looked like she was trying very hard not to smile.
"What?"
Her pale grey/green eyes rolled in a 'men!' expression and she turned to look at him with an arched brow.
"If you don't know, I'm not going to be the one to explain it to you." Her voice had dropped an octave or three and sounded like sex, straight up with no ice, just steam. Bill cleared his suddenly tight feeling throat as the Frak-me eyes were levelled with his own.
Oh, that wasn't fair.
"You think…the two of them…really?"
"I am NOT drawing you a diagram either, so you can forget it." She tossed her hair and he was momentarily distracted by the play of light over the glossy waves. He was never going to win an argument against her ever again if she kept this up. "Nowhere is it stated in the Pledge of Allegiance that I have to teach the Admiral of the Fleet about the facts of…"
"I get it!" He cut her off with the threat of imminent sniggering from the surrounding men. If she kept running rings around him like this, and if he kept letting her, he'd never be taken seriously ever again. "I just thought they were too different." He shoved his hands in his pockets and felt a momentary satisfaction when her eyes dipped below the drawstring of his pants for the briefest of moments.
"Opposites attract." She said absently. Dragging her eyes away. They had reached the guest quarters and one of their escort was opening the door just to make sure it actually stayed attached to the wall.
He liked the dragging. In fact, he had some dragging for himself in mind. Though it was distinctly more along the lines of him throwing her over his shoulder and dragging her off to…holy crap.
The barracks were quite effectively destroyed. It looked like a Caprican hurricane had passed through here. Beds were overturned, papers strewn over the floor from Colton's desk, one of the computers had met a crushed end against a wall, there were several dents in the walls, one warped support beam, three shattered lights and two bodies collapsed on the floor breathing hard.
"Stay here." Bill ordered the guard when they made to move inside. If he had learned one thing in the last couple of days, it was that only he and Laura were capable of taking on Edric and Colton if they ever decided to turn against them. They'd break anyone else in half with a flick of their wrist.
Bill overtook Laura, keeping himself between them and her, and picked his way carefully towards the epicentre of the wreckage. He stared at what he found and Laura poked her head around his shoulder and made a cut off sound that sounded somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.
Colton lay on her back on the floor, naked from the waist up aside from a blue lace bra that was missing one strap and nearly hanging off at the side. Half of her dark blue jeans were missing, only a thread of the waist band holding them on and it was fairly obvious that she'd coordinated her underwear to match that morning. Her naked leg was twisted to the side over her body and caught under Edric's as if she had kicked his feet out from under him. Which was what Bill had suspected had happened.
He heard Laura snort behind him and knew she was trying to stifle giggles.
Edric, if anything, looked worse than Colton did. He lay on his back, metal arm thrown up and over his eyes as he panted. His shirt had gone the way of the dodo, his pants were MIA except for the remains of a leg caught around his calf and ankle and Colton had hold of one side of his shorts, hanging from limp fingers.
Laura couldn't stop a yelp of laughter from escaping her and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it.
Both of them were breathing hard, looked dishevelled, exhausted and more than a little satisfied. Bill felt the beginnings of a smile tug at his lips and tried to fight it down. They were also covered in a charming cocktail of engine grease, blood and sweat.
"Been busy have we?" Bill spoke as best he could around the hysterical laughter that was trying to wrestle control of his vocal chords. Laura had already surrendered to it completely. Her hand gripping his shoulder in an attempt not to fall to the floor, clutching her ribs and laughing until she couldn't breathe anymore.
Edric shifted his shining clockwork arm and peered at Bill from behind his wrist joint. "Bill." He rocked his head in a nod of deference. "Madame President."
"Edric." Laura managed to greet in return with barely a quaver of laughter in her voice.
Colton cracked open one eye, then the other and then levered herself up onto her elbows, unaware of what the pose did to the remains of her bra. Bill felt Laura's glare on the back of his head when he didn't look away. Well, he wasn't looking at that he was watching Colton's face. She was glancing about the wreckage with a small smile on her face that very closely resembled one which is usually worn after another activity that involves being covered in sweat, upsetting the furniture and tearing off clothes. Though other people tended not to do that literally.
She pursed her lips and appeared to take stock of the situation and how it must have looked to those that had just walked in. She let her head loll back in order to meet Bill and Laura's gaze.
"So…" She said, then paused to suck on her split lip for a moment before turning back to them.
"You going to believe what you see, or what I tell you?"