Laura sits at the desk, still in her nightclothes but reports in front of her (reports always in front of her, more more more for her to learn, to try to remember). She spies Bill out of the corner of her eye, dressed in sweats and taking items from the wardrobe. She frowns in confusion. "Where are you going?"

"I told you last night." He pauses, neither elaborating further nor reiterating what he has already told her. It is a gentle encouragement. She must remember on her own, remember what her slowing, cotton-shrouded mind is causing her to struggle with. Her memory is not what it was, what it should be.

Memory. She remembers. (Remembers the paper in her grasp, the warmth of his hand on her neck, his words filling her ears. Liquid memories solidifying.) Boxing. "Boxing." She stops, grins, pleased at her success (these small delights). "Boxing. You're going to the gym with Lee. To box."

He smiles, she smiles, they are smiling. He kisses her temple, her cheekbone, her cheek. "Gonna kick his ass too."

She crinkles her nose, delighted with so much this morning (that her mind is holding, that he is so upbeat, that they are them).

"Come with us." He issues the invitation as he returns to readying his bag (towels, uniform. CIC when they're finished, he wants more time with her, with Lee. He will always want more time.)

"Think you could take me, Old Man?" She watches him bite back a response as he crosses to her again, laughs with him while he shakes his head, kisses her quickly.

She sighs, pouts slightly to herself. "I have work to finish. And..." She stops and fights off a falsehood, gathers herself and continues in truth. "I'm tired." (An admission that costs her less and less, though she is almost apologetic in tone.) She pats his chest gently, her fingers tucking under the seam of his shirt. (She loves doing this, with his tanks, with his uniform lapel. She does not know why. Maybe, she thinks, it's just that she can). "Besides, I'm not a very good cheerleader." Her eyes sparkle with humour, the glittering of the blue in his is hued with veneration.

He sits in the chair beside her as he reaches down to encircle her ankle, pulling it up into his lap. He grins lopsidedly at her as his hands massage from ankle to knee and back again. His voice is all rumbling waves, bathing her skin as he continues kneading. "Oh, I don't know, you've got the legs for it."

She laughs and pushes her leg further into his touch, raises the other foot to balance on his knee. He reaches forward and drags her chair closer, lifting the leg in his hand higher until the heel of her foot is pressing into his shoulder. She holds his gaze as he turns slightly to kiss the soft skin of her leg, brushing his cheek gently against it.

She squirms slightly; he tightens his grasp. "You need to shave, Bill."

He kisses her again. "I'm growing a beard." His tone is all light, playful splashes.

She quirks an eyebrow at him, lets the words float out. "Must be for your mistress - you won't be near me with a beard." She digs her heel into his shoulder good-naturedly. (They joke now, about mistresses, about Zarek, about the idea that they would even look at anyone else with the eyes with which they look at each other. They joke, because they accept now that the notion is ludicrous.)

He scrapes the stubble against her leg again before turning and nipping lightly with his teeth. Soft open-mouthed kisses wash over the marks. "I'll shave later." Simple acts and simple promises. She hears the undercurrent of love beneath both, she swims in their grace.

He trails his hand farther up her leg, splaying fingers over her skin as the foot on his other leg dances higher until her calf rests on his thigh. She tells him he's going to be late in a cadence that does not dissuade him from his present ministrations. They have such little time before he has to go. (Before she will be gone. Time. They will always want more time.)

"We seeing Cottle later?"

She feels so much love at the simple choice of pronoun that he has used that she thinks it must be seeping out of her skin, teardropping on the floor, onto him. She shakes her head (droplets of love scattering around them). "No." She stills abruptly. "Yes." She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to unravel the correct answer from the muddle of knots in her head. "Frak. No. No, not today." She opens her eyes to his silent observation, judgement-free, tinted only with love and concern.

"Take your time."

She repeats the words again. "Not today. I have a Quorum meeting later on Colonial One, though." She relaxes, assured of her answer, and by his continued patience, receives more kisses to her leg as his response.

"Hey Dad, you ready? Oh. Sorry." They both snap their eyes in the direction of the interruption, to Lee as he stands uncomfortably just inside the hatch.

She almost laughs as Bill lowers her leg, but the line of Lee's gaze is not on her limbs or Bill's, not on his father's face or hers. His eyes are trained on the crown of her head. She inhales sharply. She is clothed, but naked in this moment. Her scalp exposed. She is not ashamed or embarrassed by her baldness (not now, not since Bill had convinced her that its absence is nothing once she is present) but this, this vulnerability is not for all to see. It is personal.

She can count on one hand those that she allows to see her like this.

Cottle, her caregiver.
Tory, her aide.
Bill, hers.

Lee, by extension of this family she is building with Bill, is her son now, too. But he works for her and revealed her cancer to the fleet, and they do not have the relationship they once had. This is not for him to see, not yet, not until they are more family than colleagues.

Bill seems to sense her discomfort almost as soon as it grasps her, and he releases both her legs to the floor. She stands and makes her way towards the rack where she has left her headscarf (she is no mood for the wig, for its coarse strands itching her skin).

She can hear Bill and Lee talking, but not what they are saying. She hopes the conversation includes the word knocking. She ties the swirling reds and whites around her head, knotting it at the back as she moves to rejoin them, but is met with Bill before she makes it out front. The look on his face usually is reserved for when he is about to suggest something that she won't like.

"I need to go to CIC right when Lee and I are done. I'm going to send him back here to bring you to the Quorum meeting."

"Tory..."

"Tory's already on Colonial One. You sent her there this morning to work out your schedule for the week." He says all this without frustration, gentle gentle gentle reminders of details she already knows, of details she had imparted to him.

Beneath his overprotection, she can sees the ripples, these tides of worry. His fear that she will forget that she has this meeting, that it will slip from her mind again.

She places her hands on his chest and pushes him backwards, steers them both back out to the main room, to a waiting Lee.

"Time for both of you to go." She reaches up to kiss Bill's cheek. "I'll see you this evening. Lee, I'll see you when your father's finished kicking your ass." Bill's hand finds hers and squeezes, in thanks (for her agreement to his suggestion, for her support in the bout, for her).

She squeezes back.