This was just a stop on the way to where I'm going

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.Laura put the kettle on the stove as soon as she saw the cloaked figure walking gingerly across the snow-covered yard between the Tigh homestead and the Adama house. Winter had come earlier than usual this year, blanketing the settlement before September was done. The pale sunlight fell too dim through the threatening snow clouds to make out the identity, but whoever it was, they'd be needing a hot cup of tea.

After poking the fire up a little more, she went to the foot of the stairs, waiting until the soft tapping sounds stopped.

"Bill? Someone's coming. Are you ready to take a break?" she called.

Bill emerged from the upstairs study, hair still ruffled in a bed-head mess. "Yeah. I think I've got a decent outline down." He'd woken up before dawn with an idea for another story to add to their latest anthology. The tap-clicking had started soon after.

Sometimes she wished they were still writing everything by hand, especially when his muse spoke to him while she was still content to linger under the covers. For a man who'd been so resistant to new technology, he'd taken to typewriters as soon as he was able to order one.

Laura had been hit with a wave of deja vu when she saw the keys, so different in form but laid out in the familiar pattern of every keyboard she'd ever used. She'd wondered aloud to Ellen if one of the Fleet could be behind mechanical typewriters, but the paperwork that had come with the machine included a brief history of the Remington company, showing that the design pre-dated the Colonials' arrival.

Maybe by the time our grandchildren are writing, we'll have computers again.

"I've got hot water on. You need to me to bring some up?"

His chuckle drifted down the stairs as he went back to their room to get ready for the day. "That your way of hinting I should shave?"

Laura rolled her eyes. Bill had joined the other men in growing a winter beard, adding a little extra protection against the brutal South Dakota winter. One more reason to long for spring.

"I gave up on that last winter," she retorted as she turned to the front door. Her eyes scanned the living room and she groaned. She'd gotten used to the clutter of correspondence from their publisher and booksellers, telegrams and letters piled on the mahogany side tables and a new stack started on the dining room table. She hoped their visitor was Ellen or Saul, someone who was used to the literary mess.

She opened the door at the first knock and relaxed. Not Saul or Ellen, but the next best thing: Ellen's assistant, Leticia Devany, a young woman quite familiar with creative disorder.

"Good morning, Mrs. Adama."

"Morning, Leticia. Come on in." She smiled. "Tea's almost ready."

Leticia bent to unfasten the leather bindings on her snowshoes. "I don't think I'll ever get used to this weather. We always thought O'Dell was telling tales, white frozen water falling from the sky." She gave Laura a rueful smile, her dark-honey cheeks flushed to a rose gold from the frigid air, as she set the snowshoes against the coat rack and hung up her snow-speckled leather duster.

"Warm up by the fire while I get the tea," Laura said. Leticia nodded and headed for her favorite spot, a low stool close to the hearth. Laura joined her, setting the tea tray on the cluttered side table. Both women were silent as they took the first sips.

"Hmm...I may thaw out after all," Leticia said, wrapping both hands around her cup.

"I suppose Liberia was much warmer year-round, wasn't it?" Laura had heard a bit about the small country from Mrs. Marchbanks when the renowned restaurant owner had given her a few cooking lessons. Laura had given a vague explanation as to why she'd never mastered a wood-burning stove and oven even though she was well past forty-her mother had done all the cooking, then after marrying, they'd moved around so much-and Mrs. Marchbanks had accepted it, albeit with a skeptical "um-hmm."

Laura had hidden her own skepticism about the reasons Miss Leticia Devany had come to Deadwood. She suspected there was some tie-in with some scheme of Mrs. Marchbanks' son, O'Dell, and Leticia's older brother, but O'Dell was dead and buried two years now, and the brother had headed to San Francisco as soon as he could, leaving Leticia behind "for her own good," he'd said.

It was Ellen, of all people, who saw the young woman's potential: quick-witted and a natural bent for a certain type of engineering. Leticia had become one of the first non-Colonials to settle in Falcon's Rest, first as Ellen's assistant, and now as the area's first telephone operator. The bulk of communications continued to be by letter and telegram, but the primitive telephone system had begun to cut down on the need to send messengers between Falcon's Rest and Deadwood.

It was especially appreciated when the snow began to fall.

"I heard there's going to be another telephone in Deadwood soon," Laura said.

"As soon as Mr. Farnum and Mr. Merrick settle which one will be next." Leticia's amber-brown eyes danced in the flickering firelight. The first telephone had been installed in the mayor's office, more at the profane insistence of Al Swearengen than Mayor Star's quiet requests. Trixie and Leticia had learned telephone operation together, leaving her with a deep appreciation for the calmer language and attitudes in Falcon's Rest, she had told Laura later.

Tea finished, Leticia got to the reason for her visit.

"Mr. Swearengen called this morning, Mrs. Adama. He asked me to tell you and Mr. Adama that, although the weather precludes him asking in person, for which he apologizes, he would ask a favor."

Laura arched one eyebrow. She suspected the young lady in front of her had done a fair amount of editing to Al's query...although she had to admit there were times when he reined in his language. Perhaps Alma had been at his elbow, making him mind his speech with a look.

Bill's footsteps sounded on the wooden steps behind her.

"Is there another cup left?" he asked Laura, greeting Leticia with a warm smile. "How's it going, Miss D?"

Bill's casual greetings had flustered Leticia at first, and Laura had asked him to be a little more formal. It was her resemblance to Dee in looks and manner, she suspected. And family history...Leticia had confided that her father had been furious at her return to America and had all but disowned her over it.

Ellen and Saul encouraged her in her apprenticeship and hands-on learning, but it was Bill she tended to look to for approval. When she'd made the first telephone call the settlement members had seen in years, cool and confident even with most of Falcon's Rest watching her, no one had beamed more than Bill.

"It's going well, Mr. Adama. I was just telling Mrs. Adama that Mr. Swearengen has asked a favor. He said that a young...man in town is in need of employment and may be better suited to the work involved in your novel-writing than that which predominates in Deadwood." The winter-chill flush came back to her cheeks, and Laura was sure a "cocksucker" or two had slipped into the conversation. "He's a hard-working, earnest, um...hooplehead, shy but has a decent head on his shoulders. And discreet. He mentioned that twice."

Well, he sounded nice enough, but employment in Falcon's Rest, with them? She and Bill researched, made notes, and wrote their fiction by hand until Bill's recent mechanical acquisition. What would they need an employee for? Then she looked around the living room with fresh eyes: the stacks of papers, the correspondence still unanswered, the research notes from a dozen sources stacked haphazardly.

Bill met her eyes after he finished his own scan. "And the upstairs study is worse," he said. He drained his cup and held his hands out to the fire. "Not like there's a lot going on right now. Yeah, tell Mr. Swearengen we'll talk with this fellow whenever he can make it up here."

He turned and smiled at Leticia. "What's his name? Did he say?"

"Yes, sir. His name is WIlliam Wiley. Mr. Swearengen said he goes by 'Billy'."

They both jumped as Laura's teacup slipped from her hand and shattered on the plank floor.

Bill watched Laura pace in front of the window. The past two days had seen enough sun so the snow was slushy and a bit more manageable. The livery horses had been put to the big scrapers and the road down to Deadwood was passable, if slow.

Today was the day Billy Wiley would come to Falcon's Rest to interview, and the Adamas still hadn't hammered out what his position would look like. If there was a position at all. On one hand, Laura argued, they had made it this far on their own-did they really need an assistant?

We need to cross-reference materials, Bill countered. He was tired of back-tracking through files that had been arranged with no thought to an index. Both agreed that they'd rather write their fictional works than sift through tedious fact-finding. Or answer fan mail or write yet another letter to their publisher about copyright issues.

"Leticia says he's well-spoken, quite articulate, with educated grammar," Bill mused.

"Really? She hasn't ever met him, though, has she?" Laura looked out the window again.

"No, but they've spoken telephonically every day since this came up," he said. Laura's lips softened into a wistful smile, and Bill knew she was thinking about their phone calls between Galactica and Colonial One.He walked over to where she stood and wrapped his arms around her, letting her rest her head on his chest.

"You can tell a lot about someone by how they communicate by phone," he whispered. "I almost miss that."

She turned in his arms, green eyes meeting indigo blue. "In person is infinitely better, though, right?" She pulled him down into a teasing kiss, promising more to come.

"We'll have to evaluate that again, once we've interviewed Mr. Wiley," he said, matching her kiss with one of his own.

The knock on the front door startled them both, and Bill wondered how much of their cuddling had been illuminated by the lamps burning near the window. He shrugged. If this guy did start working for them, he'd see the occasional kiss or touch. Surely it wouldn't be anything close to what he would have seen in Deadwood, if he knew Swearengen's operation.

He opened the front door and welcomed their visitor in.

Laura had listened avidly to Billy Wiley's verbal resume, then finally had to excuse herself to tend to a vague responsibility waiting for her in the kitchen. She hoped she'd positioned herself so her occasional blinking to clear her vision wasn't obvious.

Billy…

This Billy was also curly-haired, and had grey-blue eyes, although his build was a little more sturdy that Billy Keikeya's had been. Still, the resemblance was unsettling. Even with Doc Cottle's explanation of the various genotypes on this planet, it felt eerie that a young man so similar could be here, in her living room.

Applying for a job as their-her-assistant.

She began a pot of coffee to buy some time to process all this, measuring out the grounds, putting more water on to heat. This Billy was an orphan as well, losing his parents and sister in a typhus epidemic three years ago while he'd been away at school. He'd tried teaching at the insistence of his uncle in his home state of North Carolina, but found himself wanting to head west, see what was happening in the rest of the growing nation. He'd taken his small inheritance and bought passage to the Black Hills, thinking he'd find his calling as he crossed the United States by rail.

Somehow, over whiskey and cards, he'd ended up in debt to the Gem Saloon. Dan Dority, at a loss as to how to recover his losses from the educated drifter, turned the problem over to Al.

And something about Billy Wiley had led to Al Swearengen sending the young man to Falcon's Rest. Either that, or he'd become too tender-hearted to employ his usual method of getting rid of a problem.

No, she shook her head. Al saw something that said this boy would fit in here. And he could very well be right. She caught snatches of the boy explaining a new way of classifying data called Dewey something-or-other, and he seemed quite passionate about it. And that was after he'd talked about concordances at some length.

The coffee finally brewed and Billy Keikeya's memory firmly put away, Laura rejoined the two men.

By dinnertime, a spot in the batchelors' house had been found and Billy's bags and bedroll had been stowed. Billy Wiley was in the Adamas' employ, for the more-than-fair wage of forty dollars a month, plus room and board. Within a week, Laura and Bill saw the scattered piles morph into tidy collections of files and out-going correspondence.

By the end of the first month, neither knew what they'd do without him.

"So, you'll finish up the book tour by the first of May," Billy said, guiding his finger across the calendar. "Then a meeting with the publishers in New York, a convention in Philadelphia after that...then back here before June."

"And that's all?" Laura asked skeptically.

The skin over Billy's high cheekbones turned pink. He was still a little uneasy about herding the Adamas as much as he felt necessary. "Well...there's the possibility of some talks at a few libraries between Philadelphia and here, and a couple-no, really, just two!-of colleges that have asked about you coming to speak. No obligation at all, but it would help to get your books out there even more."

Laura met Bill's eyes behind the young man's back. They were holding firm on keeping their accounting private. If he knew the bulk of Falcon's Rest income came from patents from the Tighs and a few others, he might have more questions than they felt like answering.

Speaking of the Tighs, they should be arriving any minute. As busy as things got, they tried to eat one meal a week together, switching between the two houses. Ellen had found a scientist's delight in making perfect pies, the ratios of ingredients mathematically precise, the wood-stove's oven giving enough heat to caramelize but not burn tender crusts. She'd tried to explain how her baking came out so well every time, bringing the discussion down to a molecular level, until Laura's eyes had glazed over like one of her apple pies.

"That kind of precision just isn't for me," she'd said, nodding at the seared, meltingly tender elk roast and root vegetables scattered with handfuls of fresh herbs and doused with red wine. "I like bringing diverse ingredients together, even unlikely ones," she'd said as she added a scant handful of juniper berries. "Seeing how they meld together, the tastes and textures supporting the other, enhancing…" Ellen was right. Laura seldom made a dish the same way twice in a row. After mastering the basics in Mrs. Marchbank's kitchen, she'd found space to develop her own sense of culinary art, developing new recipes on the fly depending on what supplies were handy.

Saul and Bill told each other how lucky they were on a regular basis. Even before the all-algae diet, shipboard food had been...well, what you'd expect on a warship. All they had to do now was hunt, grow, or buy a good variety of foodstuffs, sometimes taking a turn themselves at preparation.

And since Leticia had come to apprentice with Ellen, their diet had expanded to cinnamon-rich pumpkin stews, peppery bean soups with searingly hot chilis, and other tropical refinements. Privately, Bill thought there were connections between Tauron and Liberian cuisine. Saul was certain he detected an Airelonian touch in the steamed cakes and breads she made when she had free time.

"There they are," Laura said. She swung the door open, everyone talking over each other in greetings and instructions for the baskets of food. The most fragrant of all was the basket in Leticia's hand.

"That smells fantastic. What is it?" Bill asked. Leticia pulled back the tea towel covering the rich, dark cake. The scent of cinnamon, ginger, and something lemony filled the air.

"Just a simple spice cake, Mr. Adama. My mother used to fix this all the time."

Ellen smirked as the young woman walked by and moved closer to Laura. "She's been working on that cake for two days...made one and threw it out. Said it wasn't quite right," she said quietly.

A lone set of footsteps echoed on the porch. Laura opened the door again just as Billy had raised his fist to knock.

"Come on in, Billy. We're just getting everything together." Bill studied their young assistant. Was his color a little higher than the cold would account for?

"Thanks for inviting me to dinner, Mr. Adama. It's been a long time since I've had a home-cooked…" His color deepened as Leticia walked back in from the kitchen.

"Miss Devany?" he said, clearing his throat before introducing himself.

"Mr. Wiley." She was smiling like sunshine. "So nice to finally meet you."

"I-I feel like I know you already, from our talks," he stammered.

"Oh, Mr. Wiley," she said lightly. "As if anyone could learn a person from words through the telephone."

"Why don't you both talk a bit in real time, while we old folks get the food on the table," Bill told them. If his phrasing sounded odd, neither showed it as they moved closer to the fire. His ship-to-ship conversations with Laura came back to him again, and he remembered how he sometimes felt closer to her then than when they were together at some meeting or other.

"How're you doing?" he asked, reaching to take a platter from Laura's hands. The furrows in her brow suggested she was deeper in thought than dinner preparation could account for.

She blinked and looked up at him. "I'm fine. It's just that...I thought I'd gotten used to the little similarities between him and our Billy, but seeing him with Leticia...I could see Billy and Dee again, when they he was just figuring out they liked each other."

They both moved around the kitchen, Ellen helping and Saul supervising from a kitchen stool while they talked.

The voices from the living room grew louder. By the time dinner was on the table, both were talking over each other, decorum forgotten as each had warmed to their subject.

"But what practical application would it have? I'm sure it could one day be possible, from what I've seen the Tighs working on, but why?" Leticia quizzed Billy.

"I could think of a hundred scenarios. Imagine the whole country seeing the same event at the same time, how unifying that would be," he countered.

"Oh, I think it would take more than a shared experience to have everyone agreeing...on anything. Do you really think everyone would see it the same way?"

"Well, if it were the same event, why wouldn't they? A fact is a fact, isn't it?" Bill felt a pang of sympathy for the confusion on Billy's face. He remembered having that certainty about life.

Cylons are evil.

Humans are better than machines.

Fight 'em till we can't.

He glanced at Saul and Ellen, then back at his politely arguing guests. He hoped they could figure things out sooner than the Colonials had.

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Bill banked the fire in the pot-bellied stove heating their bedroom, finally getting it how he wanted, then slipped under the covers. This was Laura's favorite part of their day; the work done, the house settled for the night, and their world winnowed down to him and her, together in their cozy feather bed. He scanned the file of loose hand-written papers on the stand next to the bed one last time, made a few notes, and turned down the lamp.

"So, what did you think?" She curled up beside him.

"It's a good plot. Time travel is popular right now, and the touches of a view screen to the past is novel. He get that from Leticia?"

"Yeah. Ellen's been playing with sending images over the wire, so I guess it was natural to expand that. And then the racial utopia idea...I'm guessing that's from both of them."

"Controversial subject," he mused. "Wonder if it'll be taken as a metaphoric critique."

She shrugged and moved closer. "I don't think he's seeing that way. Billy's getting a firm grip on story-telling...maybe some wishful thinking, though."

Billy had begun doing some light editing for her and Bill as the winter had dragged on, and things had gone from there, as his interest grew the more he saw. It thrilled her to teach again, even if it was just one student. How the right verb could transform a scene, how to give distinctive voices to characters...he'd soaked it up like a sponge.

When he wasn't "doing research" over at Saul and Ellen's workshop. Not that it was entirely a ruse...Leticia (or "Tisha," as she'd asked him to call her) was always finding new twists and tweaks for the inventions the Tighs were creating, and she had to admit it was fascinating to see what she'd do next. She suspected the young woman's mind was at least as much of a draw as her doe-like eyes and quick smile.

"If we were back on Caprica, before the attacks, I bet Leticia would have an engineering degree by now," Laura said. "And Billy...maybe he'd be getting a degree in creative writing or literature."

Bill slipped her nightgown off her shoulder and nuzzled the skin there. "If we were back on Caprica before the attacks, we wouldn't be doing this-"he broke off for a teasing kiss"-and we wouldn't even know these two."

"Hmm...true." She slipped her leg between his and flicked open a few middle snaps of his long johns. "And I love having Billy here-it's a little like having my Billy back, and I love nurturing talent again."

"Speaking of talent…" Bill did something new with his fingers that drew a surprised gasp from Laura's lips.

Discussing the future of Falcon Rest's newest proteges could wait until morning. Right now she just wanted to revel at being warm and naked with her husband, the outside snow drifts insulating them from the rest of the world, at least for the night.

Three Months Later...

"It feels strange, toning down the Saturnalia customs this year," Ellen commented, adding a few final touches to the fragrant pine tree in the living room, heavily festooned with garland and glass spheres.

"We're not as isolated as we were," Laura said, nodding at Billy and Leticia talking quietly in the kitchen. "And that's probably a good thing. We have to let go of the past sometime."

"And not just the past, Laura." Ellen's eyes were tight with tension. "Can I talk to you privately?"

Worry sent a sharp stab through Laura's stomach. If this had to do with Saul...she shook her head. Ellen had been more contemplative than usual lately, but nothing had suggested she was returning to her old perpetually unsatisfied ways. She put down her length of garland and went to the settee under the window.

"What's going on, Ellen?"

"It's Leticia," she said, studying the weave of the brocaded seat. "She's so bright, so creative...she's a terrific assistant, but I think she could be much more. I'm always walking a line between what's feasible to show her and what might seem too...outlandish."

Laura nodded. "I know what you mean. I keep wanting to reference Libran works of literature as examples, or Tauron popular novels...and Billy keeps up with Earth writers, from the work he does for us." She remembered one evening a week ago. She'd been talking to Billy about conflicted protagonists and had almost used a scene from Blood Runs at Midnight to illustrate her point. "He knows what's out there...and what's not."

"Like cars," Ellen said, finally cracking a smile.

"Yeah, like cars, and the Twelve Colonies." A few tidbits could be passed off as creative, speculative fiction. A society spread over twelve planets...the best case scenario would be him thinking she'd slipped too far into her imagination.

Worst case, he'd pick up snatches of conversation from other Falcon's Rest residents and conclude gods know what about them. There had been a few novels coming out of Europe about other planets and their alien inhabitants, and those "others" never came out looking the good guys.

"Anyway, we got that windfall from the last seismograph enhancements, and I've been exchanging letters with Milne and a couple of other scientists," Ellen continued, taking a deep breath, "and I think Leticia should consider studying abroad." She finally relaxed and her old "Ellen Tigh" twinkle was back in her eyes. "She could even study astrophysics at the women's college in Cambridge. That seems to be a reputable school."

Laura looked again at the two young people. Tragedy had cut Billy's education short, from what he'd said about the typhus epidemic. He was certainly university material. And the engineers and scientists who'd benefited from the Tighs' behind-the-scenes work would likely be willing to write letters of recommendation...as would the Adamas' publishers.

"Let's hash this out later, after we're alone with Bill and Saul." Her throat tightened at the thought of saying goodbye to Billy already, but he couldn't stay in Falcon's Rest forever, being a protege and emotional stand-in for her Billy, no matter how healing it felt to her heart.

"Oh, look at that...how sweet!" Ellen said, rising from the settee. Laura followed her gaze, and her spirit lightened.

Billy and Leticia had found the sprig of mistletoe, hanging from a red ribbon in the doorway. A blush, a giggle, and they found it again, as sweet and touching as her first kiss from Bill.

Goodbye felt a little better, seeing them like this.

Godspeed, better yet.