NOTE: THIS FIC HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED OR ADDED TO. IT WAS RE-EDITED FOR QUALITY AS IT WAS NEVER FULLY PROOFED WHEN FIRST POSTED. THERE ARE NO NEW CHAPTERS TO SPITE WHAT YOUR ALERTS MIGHT SAY. UNFORTUNATELY THE SYSTEM MADE IT LOOK THAT WAY WHEN THE LAST CHAPTER WAS TAKEN DOWN AND REPLACED. IT BUMPED IT WITHOUT MY INTENTION. IT IS COMPLETED. IF YOU ARE HERE TO RE-READ AND ARE LOOKING FOR THE ALTERNATE ENDING THAT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED WITH CH5, IT HAS BEEN REMOVED. I TOOK IT DOWN SINCE I NEVER THOUGHT IT WENT WELL WITH THE THEME OR REASON FOR THE STORY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE A COPY OF IT YOU MAY SEND A REQUEST TO MY INBOX WITH THE ADDRESS YOU WOULD LIKE THE PDF SENT TO. THANK YOU. LLA
Chapter 1: Snap Back
If Only For A Night
This fic is an AU set some vague place between Baltar's announcement as a presidential a candidate (The Captains Hand) and the actual election. I would assume that there were actually weeks if not months of campaign so this is all before Lay Down Your Burdens I. Though it is an AU fic I think that's a helpful timeline covering some missing space and the events of Downloaded. It will probably be three-four chapters. It is Adama/Roslin assuming an already established, though secret, romantic and physical relationship. It won't be very fluffy to spite the topic. It contains mature subject matter and is intended for adult readers. The contents of the story are not meant to be offensive to anyone's point of view in anyway and don't necessarily reflect my own but I felt I would take the subject at hand in the most realistic direction possible. Though the first half may seem rather depressing I can promise in some weird way it will pick up toward the 3rd chapter. If you're not completely confused and turned off at this point, or if you're just one curious mother frakker, I invite you to now read on. Feedback is appreciated.
Disclaimer: I own none of it.
Chapter 1: Snap Back
Infirmary aboard Battlestar Galactica, 1100 hours
Have you ever had one of those moments where your mind just starts to shut down? Not for any peaceful or zen reason
like in meditation, sleep or deep relaxation. Your mind just starts to shut down because it doesn't want to go on, doesn't
want to think the next thought. Your eyes unfocus, they stay open, but you don't see. Your jaw starts to hang slack but
you don't notice. A dull humming starts in your ears but you don't really hear it. Your awareness starts to drain out of you
like sap from a damaged tree until your only real thought left is 'Can I stay like this? If I can then maybe nothing will come
next. Nothing. No more pain, no more expectation, no more questions, no more answers, just blurry, numb, humming. It
was happening to Laura Roslin as she sat in Galactica's Sick Bay. Her mind was checking out; a desperate unconscious
attempt to save her from whatever was ahead.
Of course if you do know this feeling, if you have had one of these moments you know that most times it lasts for only
seconds. Though it may feel like time is suspended in the humming numbness usually only an instant has passed and
something jolts you back inside yourself. Something eventually jars you awake again, forcing you back to whatever awaits
you next. Something intervenes and your mind snaps back like a rubber band between the eyes. Someone waves their
hand in front of your face, shouts your name, a car sounds its horn, a dog barks a bell rings or…..
::CLANG CLANG CLANG::
Laura nearly jumped out of her skin.
The metallic sound of Doc Cottle hitting his clip board against a metal surgical cart reverberated in her ears and just like
that she could see him again. She could feel the cold re-circulated Sickbay air against her skin, the hard examining table
beneath her thighs and she could hear his grumpy gravelly old voice once more.
"Madam President, are you listening to me?" He asked, frustrated as he waved off a medic who had stuck their head in to
see what the loud noise was about.
"Yes. Yes, I'm listening," She said still trying to focus and compose herself from the loud banging that had obviously done
what Cottle intended.
"I said," He went on, lowering his voice now that he was at least fairly sure she wasn't spacing out any longer, "…that I
could… take care of this for you, later this week. At some point, when you can clear your schedule for a night." He
watched her as she tightened her arms around herself. Her mouth still slightly open but her eyes now focused. "You would
only
have to stay a few hours, maybe until the morning. I'd alert your aide and arrange a raptor to take you back to Colonial
One as soon as I thought you were ready. You would recover there, mostly." He stood there with his brows both arched up,
trying to encourage her in his own gruff way, that he was ready with a plan of action. He gestured with his hands, one still
holding the metal clipboard, trying to infer that he was waiting for her response.
Laura licked her lips but her mouth was so dry it did little to help her as she started to speak.
"Doctor, what you are suggesting… it isn't legal any longer. A law of my own recent doing, I'm afraid. You know that," She
said, looking past him again to some vague spot on the curtain behind him as she hugged her arms across her body even
tighter. Was she cold? She couldn't tell. She was dressed now, had been for a while. Why did she suddenly feel so cold?
"Madam President," Cottle said, putting the clipboard down on the surgical tray with one hand and taking a cigarette out
from behind his ear with the other. "Madam President," He said a little more forcefully, waving the cigarette in front of her
face and drawing it slowly back toward himself like a pointer, trying to guide her eyes back to his. It worked and she
winced as she focused on him again.
"Laura," he continued, in a manner far more gentle than usual. He used her first name too, perhaps in an attempt to be
comforting. "We say it's the flu, a 48 hour bug or food poisoning. Gods know it wouldn't be the only case we get of it in a
week with the grub we have around here now-a-days," He tried to joke, gaining little response from her. He went on
anyway. "You should understand; you have my complete confidentiality on this matter. There will be no paper work, no
permanent notes on your chart. It would just be me and one medic. Ishay, probably. Someone trustworthy, I assure you,"
He promised, putting the unlit cigarette between his lips and waiting once more for Laura to speak.
When she realized she couldn't squeeze herself any tighter if she tried she forced her arms to her sides placing her palms
against the cool thin sheet that covered the exam table. She shook her head and sighed deeply.
"People would ask questions. It would leak out. Somehow it would leak and then what?" She asked him more rhetorically
than not. She brought one hand up to run it nervously through her hair.
"I assure you Madam, it wouldn't." Cottle affirmed, standing up straighter.
He almost looked slightly offended at her lack of trust in his word but it faded quickly.
"What kind of president would I be if I broke one of my own policies? And so soon after enacting it?" She asked, as she felt
herself starting to cross her arms again.
She forced them back down and nearly tucked them underneath herself to stop them from moving. A memory came to her
briefly of a classroom on Caprica and a little boy who couldn't stop fidgeting with his pencils. 'Sit on your hands if you can't
help it,' she'd told the second grader.
"Young lady."
She made her eyes meet Cottles again and he furrowed his brow.
"It seems to me that you are coming up with an awful lot of excuses here. This isn't the time for policy and doctrine. This
is about your health," He started to shake his head. "You can't tell me that you would seriously consider going through
with…."
"No," She interpreted quickly before he could finish. She didn't want to hear it again. "No…but I just…I don't know. This is
all just very…" Her lips continued to move but her voice trailed off.
Cottle put his cigarette in to his lab coat pocket. He picked up her chart from the tray again and held it in both hands as he
moved closer to her.
"I know, Laura," He said nodding and extended his arm to put an uncharacteristically friendly and gentile hand on her
shoulder. "I know this is unexpected, shocking and upsetting to say the least. Please just know that my goal is to ensure
your health and your privacy. Those are my only concerns," He said with a half smile.
Laura nodded and looked down at her lap.
"Could I have a few days, Doctor? I just need a little time. It might take me that long to clear my schedule and I just have
some things I need to get in order before I…"
"Of course, of course," He said removing his hand from her shoulder and looking down briefly at the chart. "But I must
advise you, Madam President..." He was back to the formality. "…that this be taken care of as soon as possible. Waiting
toolong will only make it harder. It complicates things. A longer recovery too. If we do this now it won't take much to get
you back on your feet," He said tucking the chart under his arm and retrieving his cigarette and lighter from his lab coat
pocket.
"I will be in touch," She answered, looking up with forced assurance. "Thank you, Doctor."
Cottle turned to walk away, finally lighting his cigarette then pulling the curtain back. He turned once more to look at the
woman on the table. He had a strange feeling in his gut watching her with her head down, eyes in her lap and practically
sitting on her hands. She looked smaller somehow; more feminine perhaps, and she looked devastated. He had never seen
her look like that before. Not even as he watched her on what was supposed to be her deathbed. She had always had this
bright air about her and a sturdy confidence that seemed unbreakable even in the face of her own demise. As a Doctor he
saw people at their worst all of the time, broke countless bad diagnosis. Still he couldn't help but feel sad for this woman.
She looked deflated.
"Laura," He called once more as he stood half way through the curtain. She looked up at him with something that could
have been called a smile, if he had never seen her smile before."Really…don't wait too long to get back to me," He advised
her.
She nodded and waited for him to part through the curtains leaving only a few wisps of smoke behind him.
Laura sat there for a short while after Cottle left. She still couldn't think beyond the moment. Usually she felt as if she
couldn't stop all the thoughts and visions she had, projecting and considering their applications before they were even fully
formed in her mind three and four steps ahead. But this, this had stopped her in her tracks. At this moment every thought
was reactionary; a question, then a plea, then an emotion but no thought of what next. Not yet and not now. Her mind
wouldn't let her think of it right then. There was no use sitting there on her hands any longer. She got up, grabbing her
blazer from where it rested on a stool beside the bed. She inhaled deeply pushing whatever she could down deep and
away for the moment and she stepped out to find Tory. She had things to do and she would think about this later. She
would make herself think about it later.
