Requested by adama-roslinlove, who wanted a story set between Deadlock and Islanded in a Stream of Stars, where Bill and Laura babysit Hera. I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but I had a wonderful time writing it.
Title taken from "The Circle Game" by Joni Mitchell, which I of course do not own, any more than I own BSG or Bill and Laura. (I know. I'm sad about it, too.)
Take Your Time, It Won't Be Long Now
Laura thought he didn't see it.
The weakness that had her leaning more and more heavily on his arm when they walked together through Galactica's halls; the weariness in her eyes, no longer cured by a good night's sleep; the new, persistent trembling in her hands…Bill saw all of it. Every bruise purpling her forearm, every meal she pushed aside untouched, every shiver that wracked her body at night, no matter how warmly her wrapped her in blankets or how closely he held her…Bill catalogued it all.
But the way she'd been acting lately—so calm, so forbearing, letting Lee take the lead on Quorum business—that was even worse. Tears, pain, anger…these things, Bill could handle, could fix.
It was her new acceptance that was killing him.
How was he supposed to fight that? How was he supposed to fight anything, if Laura had given up? So he acted as though he didn't know things were as bad as they were: that he believed a habitable planet was out there, that Galactica's damage was fixable, that Laura's cancer was curable. What the hell else was he supposed to do?
And Laura was surprised that he'd started carrying a flask.
There had to be something he could do to snap her out of it, Bill told himself as he made the long walk to his quarters from CIC, two Marines trailing behind him. Something to cheer her up, something to give her her fight back—
He heard a child crying up ahead.
He picked up his pace and rounded the corner, to find Athena crouched in front of her uncharacteristically wailing daughter. "I know, baby," she tried to soothe the little girl. "But Mommy has to go to work now—"
Hera, her face buried in the perfectly starched fabric of her mother's uniform, only sobbed harder.
"Problem, Lieutenant?" Bill asked.
Athena got gracefully to her feet, despite the little girl clinging desperately to her neck. "Nothing I can't handle, sir," Athena informed him, her tone full of the polite confidence he would have expected if he had inquired about the probable success of a military operation.
Hera sniffled loudly.
Bill waited.
"She's just…she's a little frightened of the day care at the moment," Athena admitted, lowering her voice. "Since the mutiny."
Bill's heart lurched. With everything that had happened, he hadn't even stopped to think how being rounded up, thrown in the brig, and threatened by armed militants would have affected the little girl.
"We're working through it," Athena said quickly, her hand absently stroking her daughter's back. "But she had a nightmare last night, and she's still kind of shaken up…"
"Athena, report to hanger deck," called Hoshi's voice over the loudspeaker.
She shifted Hera in her arms. "Baby, you have to go to day care," Athena said firmly. "Daddy will be by to pick you up tonight, okay?"
Hera, if her sobbing was any indication, did not think it was okay.
Bill held out his arms. "I'll watch her," he told Athena. The mutiny had happened aboard his ship; it was his crew that had made this little girl, who'd already been through so much, afraid of the one place that should have been the safest for her.
Athena opened her mouth, then closed it. Sometimes, like now, it was simply impossible to remember that she was a machine, and not a human being. "Sir…" she began.
"Athena, please report to hanger deck," Hoshi called again.
Bill scooped up Hera into his arms, quickly, before she could begin to fuss. "Better go, Lieutenant."
Athena's eyes were wary. "Are you sure?" she asked.
Bill nodded. "We'll be fine," he assured her and Hera both. "I know someone who's good with kids."
"I have a surprise for you," Bill called out as he crossed the threshold to his quarters, Hera on his hip.
"If a second Ellen Tigh has shown up, I don't want to know," came Laura's weary voice.
Bill's lip twitched. "Even better," he promised, crossing to the couch where Laura was seated, dressed for official business and with her wig in place, a blanket on her lap and papers spread out all around her.
The smile that lit up Laura's tired face was magic.
She held out her arms, and Bill deposited the little girl in her lap. Hera, who hadn't spoken to him the whole way from the day care, was already smiling. Laura whispered something in her ear, and Hera whispered back.
"Uncle Bill's watching you today?" Laura repeated, her eyebrows lifted. "How'd he get so lucky?"
"I don't like the day care anymore," Hera confided, her voice very small.
"We'll see what we can do about that," Laura promised, hands already busy sweeping her work to the side. "But maybe you could play here today, hmm? Uncle Bill has plenty of paper for you to draw on…"
A knock on the door startled Bill, his hand automatically going to his sidearm.
Hera wasn't the only one who was having trouble getting back to normal.
It was only Saul, ambling over the threshold, a cup—which Bill strongly suspected was not filled with coffee—clutched in his hand.
"Morning, Admiral," Saul grunted, clearly hung over. Bill couldn't blame him.
At the sight of Laura, Saul pulled himself up a little straighter. "Madame President," he added, nodding respectfully.
"Colonel," she acknowledged.
There was no indication from Saul that he knew that Laura had been asleep in Bill's rack when he had shown up three nights before, or from Laura that she had overheard Saul's ragged, broken weeping at the loss of his child.
But then, Saul had never indicated that he saw the difference between the president staying with the Admiral, and Laura living with Bill, either.
Saul turned to Bill. "The Cylons are requesting a briefing on the progress on Galactica's repairs," he delivered lugubriously. "They've made two official requests already."
Bill glanced at Laura, Hera still on her lap. "Tell them I'll speak to them later," he told Saul.
Bill didn't miss the appealing look that Saul cast in Laura's direction.
She adjusted Hera in her arms. "Everyone's still a little shaky after the mutiny," she said, her tone soft so as not to alarm Hera. "A little reassurance from the Admiral right now wouldn't hurt. Besides," she added, coaxing a smile from their visitor, "we are going to be very busy, aren't we?"
Bill looked at Laura doubtfully. She'd barely slept last night. She hadn't been able to keep down breakfast. This wasn't fair to her. He'd only meant to bring Hera for a visit, not to draft Laura into child care.
But he definitely didn't want to bring Hera along on a trip to the Cylon base ship.
Laura looked surprised by his hesitation. "Go," she said. "We'll be fine."
He paused. The last thing she needed right now was to tire herself out chasing after a little girl. But he could hardly tell Laura, who was used to commanding classrooms of children, then an entire fleet, that she was no longer capable of watching a single child.
"We'll be fine," Laura repeated patiently, her hands playing absently with Hera's hair.
"I can have somebody from the day care—" Bill began.
Laura gave him a withering look over the rim of her glasses. "I'm not planning to steal her, if that's what you're worried about."
Saul snorted loudly.
"Too soon?" Laura asked, a ghost of her old wicked smile gracing her features.
Bill could never say no to that smile.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I'll be back," he whispered.
He opened the hatch to the sound of giggling: Hera's, and, even more rarely, Laura's.
Laura was sitting upright in his rack, her white shirt and gray skirt severely wrinkled, with Hera in her lap and what he guessed to be her entire array of makeup products spread out in front of them. Hera was wearing pink lipstick and blue eye shadow, with her hair done up in careful ringlets.
"That one!" she squealed, pointing to a tiny bottle of pink.
"Good choice," Laura approved.
He watched, his heart in his throat, as Laura bit her lip in concentration, struggling to tame the trembling in her hands long enough to paint the little girl's toenails.
Was there nothing he could do for her, nothing that would, even for an instant, allow her to forget?
"Hey, wait," Bill broke in, easing himself onto the rack with them, the mattress dipping under his added weight. "Don't I get to play?"
Hera giggled.
He held out his hand for the little bottle, and Laura handed it over, giving him a smile that was part knowing, part loving, part sympathetic.
She felt sorry for him, Bill realized with a pang, accidentally smudging the color onto the skin around Hera's big toe.
Laura deftly wiped the smudge away with a finger and took the bottle back, her hand lingering on his.
"Shouldn't this be easier than painting model ships?" she teased.
"Model ships don't wiggle," Bill informed her, grabbing Hera's foot and tickling until she shrieked with laughter.
Laura leaned over Hera's head to press her lips against his cheek. "I love you," she murmured.
"This is my favorite color ever," Hera told Laura some time later, as the two of them inspected her toes.
"Is that right?" Laura said. "Well, you can keep the bottle, then. How about that?"
It was just a bottle of nail polish, Bill reminded himself as Hera squealed in excitement, trying to stem the tide of panic welling up in his throat. Just a little gift for a little girl. It didn't mean that Laura was giving up, giving away her things, getting ready to—
"What if Uncle Bill wants to use it?" Hera asked.
"Pink isn't his color," Laura informed her. "I paint his toenails red."
Hera giggled.
Not for the first time, Bill allowed himself to pretend, just for a moment, that he and Laura had met in some other time, some other place: in a bar, maybe, after a long day's work; in a library, both reaching for the same book; on a train, coincidentally seated next to each other on a long trip. He let himself picture long, cozy dinners, just the two of them…a home, filled with their books…a hospital room, with a baby in Laura's arms instead of tubes in her veins.
He let himself imagine a little girl, with his blue eyes and Laura's red hair.
He would have liked to have known her.
Hera thrust a book into his lap, startling him out of his daydream. "Read me a bedtime story?" she asked.
He looked up to find Laura watching him, her eyes so full of love that they were hard to look at. "Uncle Bill does bedtime stories better than anybody else in the universe," she said softly.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Of course," he told Hera. "Anything you want."
"One more story," Hera pleaded.
"It's time to go," Helo repeated for the third time, his daughter squirming in his arms. "I think we've taken up enough of these people's time."
Bill suspected that if Helo had known that Laura was going to be there, he'd have moved heaven and earth to find someone, anyone else to watch his daughter. Bill couldn't exactly blame him.
Laura gave Hera one last smile. "Bring her back any time," she told Helo.
But Laura didn't have any time. Cottle had made that clear, the last time Bill had pulled rank and demanded to hear Laura's most recent test results.
Bill didn't ask anymore.
"Thank you, Admiral…Madame President," Helo added awkwardly. With a last respectful salute, Helo lifted the little girl up and carried her out, Hera waving goodbye over his shoulder, Laura waving back until the hatch closed behind them.
The next time Hera stepped foot in his quarters, would Laura even still be there? Would she be in sickbay, tethered to needles and monitors, leaving his quarters quiet and empty? Or would it be worse? Would she—
Laura wrapped her arms around him from behind, her dark wig brushing his cheek. "Thank you," she murmured into his ear. "That was wonderful."
Bill couldn't speak.
You are what's wonderful, he wanted to say. Please, please, don't leave me here without you.
She pressed her lips to the side of his head. "Come to bed," she whispered. "I think I have one more bedtime story in me."
Hastily, before he turned to offer her his arm, a bright smile ready on his face, he brushed the tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand.
He thought Laura didn't see it.