Chapter 1 It was cold, and the weather was awful even for New Caprica, but you would never know it in the union hall that night. Everyone was dancing and carrying on like they were bound for prison in the morning. It was the last night of the festival of Aphrodite and with all the newlyweds around, it made the festival seem more boisterous than any Laura could remember prior to the end of the worlds. She stood back and watched the others dance and swirl around her, sipping a glass of homebrew mixed with some powdered orange juice to cut the taste. She wanted to soak in this moment and remember these laughing, happy people when she huddled against the cold later in her tent. She looked around and noticed Sam Anders also seemed to be standing off to the side, watching instead of joining. It was something Saul Tigh of all people pointed out to her. Of all the people left, Sam, like Laura, understood what it was like to be in charge of everyone around him. He knew what it was like to hold everyone's lives in his hands, how it made you of them but not one of them. Laura walked over, smiling.
"It's hard, isn't it? Being yourself again after everything?" she said loudly over the music.

"It's funny. Before I used to wish I could just kick back and let someone else worry about all of it," Sam said with a wry grin.

Laura laughed, remembering all the times she had done just that. "It is nice to sleep again, although sometimes Baltar's decision-making process has me gazing at the roof longer than I should at night."

"I think if Baltar wants that kind of headache so badly he can damn well have it. Hell, all things considered, maybe he deserves it," Sam said, making Laura laugh again.

"Trust me, you have no idea how much," she replied, still giggling.

Sam looked at her a little oddly, then shrugged and said, "Hey, wanna dance? My wife is busy ordering everybody around in the kitchen." They looked over and saw her doing just that, working in tandem with Cally to make sure they all had something to soak up the booze in their stomachs at midnight as the festival demanded.

"Sure," Laura replied, quickly realizing, not for the first time, that he reminded her slightly of Billy or perhaps more correctly, what she thought Billy could have become. That night Laura danced until she could drop and sat around and laughed with the people who were no longer hers. She celebrated, not having any worries bigger than the strength of the homebrew.