Our Language
(aka Five Books Bill Adama Read to Laura Roslin, and One She Read To Him)
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Particular thanks to Saz for helping me finding book titles and for listening to rambling about a show she hasn't even watched. Dig you, babe. Lines from the invented books are product of my own imagination - in some cases, using lines from stuff I've written or stuff I never finished. Spoilers up to "Escape Velocity".
II
Books have become a language between them, and he keeps reading to her.
At some point, he started reading to her in his quarters too. It started after a treatment where she still felt bad, at one point even being sick all over his floor. He didn't comment, just called marines to clean it and read to her over the noise.
The next time, he just read to fill the silence she would refuse to pity herself in. The next, he just read, and she listened, and they both knew.
There are many ways to have a conversation, after all. She's giving him plenty with body language, and he often knows what tone of voice she'll use before she speaks just by watching her hands. She knows what he means by just meeting his eyes. Even in silence, a lot can be said.
He doesn't always need his own words to speak to her.
Books have become a language between them, and she keeps listening to him.
II
The Last Adventure of Orion
"... I knew it was bad. My own blood was telling me, but I didn't want to listen. Frak this for a life, and I still wanted it..."
II
"I think the author was glad to kill him," she says, and he stops reading mid-sentence to look up at her, steeling himself a little as she does.
It's not a good day for her.
Laura's determined to be brave about dying, and hates it when she fails. Hates him a little for seeing it too, because weakness can be harsh to have mirrored. There's a reason Admirals usually don't let many close, after all.
Probably Presidents too. Certain responsibilities. Certain burdens. Certain standards to live, even facing death.
"Maybe," he half-agrees. "But he never wrote another book after he killed off Orion."
"A literary career defined by a character. Takes guts to kill that," she observes, looking towards the bookshelf. "I wonder why he he didn't write again."
"Maybe he got too close."
"Maybe he was only good at Orion."
He chuckles little and she moves her gaze back to him and smiles a little self-consciously.
"Maybe that's the way. Go out on top, a blaze of glory."
"Maybe," he agrees again. "Maybe he was just a coward who couldn't weather anything but the top. It takes guts to stick at it too."
She's too smart not to know what he's also talking about, and she seems to contemplate it for a moment.
"Takes more courage to survive than to die gloriously, Admiral?"
"You should know," he says calmly, leaning back in the chair as she sits forward in hers. "You taught me."
II
Clues by Bodycount
"... All those dead for the beauty of one blonde, and I cursed the weakness of men even as I was walking to meet my own temptress. Without her, all that made me different from the corpses would be that I held a pulse..."
II
She's angry with Baltar again.
he's been able to tell ever since he sat down, even if she makes a show of listening. She fidgets too much, takes her glasses on and off, and the way her eyelids move he's convinced she's running an internal film of airlocking Baltar's ass on loop.
He wouldn't mind a show of that one himself now and then.
"Does he love anything but himself?" she asks abruptly, dragging her knees up to rest her elbows on. "All his talk... Have I gone crazy and everyone is seeing some other Baltar then me?"
"You've seen the real him, they haven't."
"Mm." She exhales a little. "You should have found him guilty, Bill."
She doesn't sound angry, just resigned, but he knows she's never going to be happy about that. That's all right. Neither is he. That doesn't make it a wrong decision, though.
"That blonde Cylon..." Laura continues, shaking her head a little. "Did he love her? Or is it flattered vanity, the love of his life?"
"Cylons are very good at infiltration," he reminds her, feeling the bullet scars throb faintly.
"Yes," she agrees, a little absentmindedly. Then she catches the look on his face and makes an apologetic face. "Yes, yes, of course."
"What would you do?" he asks, and she looks surprised. "If you were in Baltar's position."
For a moment, she seems to contemplate whether or not to get angry and have a rant about it. He can almost hear it, and it might be good for her to get it out. Then her body relaxes, and her eyes almost glitter with mirth.
"For one thing, I don't get seduced by pretty young Cylons," she tells him. "They would have to try something else, because that wouldn't work."
When she smiles at him, he has a good idea what she considers would.
II
Long Nights on a Slow Moving Battlestar
"...There is an almost unspoken agreement between them that sooner or later, they would come to this. It's been sealed by held looks, returned smiles, and all the space between words..."II
He's not sure exactly when the book fell to the floor. Maybe it was when she kissed him, but he has a faint memory of pressing it against his chest and pressing both against her later. Maybe it was when he stroked her naked shoulder, but he is sure he let the spine of the book trace the curve of her skin. Maybe it was when clothes were discarded, he certainly doesn't remember anything but the warmth and texture of her then.
He can see the ravages of cancer treatment across her body - bruises, lines, paling colour - and he kisses all. He is a soldier. He honours distinctions of war, and that's what she carries. Laura Roslin's civil war, good cells versus bad, round two, knockout or going to the judges.
He's certainly going to give her all the points he can.
She breathes a little when he cups a breast, feeling the weight of it against his palm and the faint reverberation of her heartbeats. Pulse.
He kisses it in her throat, and she laces her fingers in his hair as he lifts her enough to ease her down in his bunk.
"Laura?" he asks softly, not quite sure what he's asking. If she's sure, if she's feeling up to it, if this is wise, maybe all three at once and something else beyond.
"Bill," she says, and her laugh is more delighted than amused, and he knows whatever he's just asked, she has affirmed. "Get to it."
He does.
II
Window to Mirrors
"... Dead, you can read someone's soul. Eyes stop being mirrors and become windows. You see... I didn't know that day she walked into my office that soon, I'd know all that she was..."
II
Midway through the book, he realises Laura's definitely not enjoying this one.
She isn't relaxing. He might think it's the treatment, except she's done it so many times now. It can't be residual upset from any meetings, since Tory cancelled all. It isn't him, because he's gotten good at knowing when it is.
"Do you want me to get another one?" he asks, and she asks her head, trying not to wince as Dr Cottle adjusts a line.
"I liked it when I was younger," he admits.
"We're all allowed our youthful indiscretions," she replies." Though I have to admit I never understood why you had to stop them when you grew old."
He laughs a little, putting the book away. "You're not old."
"I'm as old as I'll ever get."
"The treatments..."
"... are just buying me time with pain," she snaps, touching the hair that isn't her a little angrily. He almost wants to yell at her a little. Her hair is nothing to more time. He'd give far more for it.
"You might be ready to die," he says angrily. "Doesn't mean everyone else are ready to just let you die."
She exhales, then nods a little curtly.
"I know," she says, putting her hand on his, half an apology, half a caress.
There doesn't seem to be anything else to say.
II
Rain at Dusk
"... He let her go. It was the only way to keep her..."
II
Laura reads like a teacher, he thinks, listening to the rise and fall of her voice and the occasional catch in her breath as her mind reads a little faster than her voice and she needs to realign. Mostly, it's smooth enoough that he knows she has practice.
"I love this part," she says softly, reading voice for a moment discarded. She lifts her head a little to settle better against his chest, and he adjusts the blanket around them a little. She's too cold these days. Always just a little too cold, even when he turns the heating up.
"Why do you love it?"
"It's a bit silly, really," she says, tilting her head back to look at him.
"I won't tell," he promises, and she smiles.
"Even if she never came back to him, he'd always love her. Losing her wouldn't change it."
"It doesn't," he says, thinking for a moment, deciding to give her something she'll know what means. "I still observe my wedding anniversary. I still remember her."
He's surprised by the sudden force of Laura's kiss, her hand around his neck to press him against her. It's almost desperate, leaving both breathless and she presses her forehead against his so hard it hurts.
"Thank you, Bill," she says.
II
Life Between the Season
"... And there she was waiting for me, the summer sun and we would face autumn together..."
II
"What do you think happened after?" she asks as he closes the book, and he can feel her gaze follow his fingers as he caresses the worn cover.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "What you want to. The narrative's over. You can take it from there by yourself."
"Imagination," she says, smiling a little. "Makes books live on even after the reading is done."
"I still enjoy the reading very much," he says earnestly, and her laugh is clear and strangely youthful.
"I do too," she acknowledges, putting her hand on the book as well, her fingers slightly stroking his. "Do you think you can find us another?"
Tonight she'll sleep in his bed again, he thinks. Today's a good day. Today, she still sees tomorrows and will share them with him. Today, the reading's not yet done.
"Always," he promises.
II
FIN