Title: evidence of things unseen
Author: miabicicletta
Summary: "He knows she is asleep, and that however true this thing between them is, it is new and old at once and therefore uncertain."
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~450
Disclaimer: Not mine. Characters belong to their respective owners and creators.
Concrit: very welcome!
Notes: Thanks to leiascully for the quick beta.
The first time she says it, she has no idea.
She's asleep, curled against him in the damp and chilly darkness. There are no walls between them now, none at all, and that the Admiral of the Fleet has been taking shore leave in the ex-President's tent is hardly a secret. He does not hide his intention; she does not demur to the chastity of the schoolmarm she is. The more the better.
A few embers glimmer from her barely-functional stove, left open to illuminate the scene, and in the low light the red of her hair is made gold. Laura mumbles incoherently, shifting a little to slide her arm across his chest. Once she was a star and now his sun - he bends to accommodate her charmed and powerful gravity.
"Hmm," she hums and sighs again. "Love you..."
Her hand curls along the back of his neck, tangling in his hair. He knows she is asleep, and that however true this thing between them is, it is new and old at once and therefore uncertain. They are still finding their ground, and she would be mortified to have said it aloud, but, maybe, he imagines, a bit relieved. At their ages, this isn't a little screwing around. Eventually there will be a test of sentiments.
And anyway, it wasn't as though he ever had much choice in the matter. Once upon the end of the world, a woman unwelcome and unwanted had walked aboard his ship and so the pieces fell.
She was searingly smart and did not flinch when everything crumbled around them. She was devoted and ruthless and funny and kind. She had an ass that defied age, and a rack that he'd call gods-given despite a total lack of belief in any and all deities. He'd had no choice in the matter. She was impossible not to adore; she was impossible altogether.
Love you.
Bill Adama does not believe in the gods, but he does wonder about them.
He wonders how the devout still pray to the Lords of Kobol, even when Kobol has long ago refused them and the Colonies have burned to ash. Some things he is unable to reconcile.
In the dark he holds her close, running the pads of his fingertips along the hollow curvature of her spine. He counts the bones under his skin, measures her breath with his own. In and out, here and now. To quantify is to prove, and Laura Roslin is evidence of all his unknowns.
No. Bill Adama does not believe in the gods, and there is no divine truth to this or any other life.
In his arms, Laura sighs again, nuzzling further into his shoulder.
Love you.
And yet, as he kisses her brow and breathes her scent, he imagines faith: an inkling of the divine, the miraculous without proof of the miracle.