Unfortunate Circumstances

by Miss Shannon

Summary: Women have needs. Presidents have needs. Laura Roslin has needs. Just a humorous take on what Laura's und Bill's relationship might have started out as before they fell in love. [Set between Epiphanies and Sacrifice].

A/N: No worries, this will be T-rated throughout. :)

Cottle was smirking. The bastard was enjoying himself. After the cancer it should have been a nice change from his grumpiness or the occasional stricken look she had discovered on his face whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention to him. Now she was cured, the cancer was in remission and the doctor had the nerve to chuckle at her latest predicament. He took a long drag from his cigarette and gave a casual shrug that looked as if he was trying to appear nonchalant when he actually wanted to giggle like a little girl. Or maybe roar with laughter and bang his fist against the nearest available surface. She approved of neither and adopted her very best presidental glare of contempt that caused him to hold the chart out to her and point at one blood result in particular.

"Your hormon levels skyrocketed."

She narrowed her eyes at him and clicked her tongue impatiently. "I kind of knew that already, doctor," she pointed out in a vicious tone. "That's why I came to see you in the first place."

Doctor Cottle's eyes were gleaming. "Would you mind describing your symptoms to me?"

Yes, she minded a lot, but he was her doctor and even if this was the anamnesis from hell, she needed to tell him about the bothersome developments in order to enable him to make them go away. She lowered her voice to a whisper for fear of being overheard despite the drawn privacy curtains around the examination table. Her eyes flitted from Cottle's unnaturally bright eyes to her hands and her feet and then finally settled on his collar.

"I have great trouble concentrating on my work as I get easily-" She swallowed, hoping that he would give a nod of understanding for which she would not need to actually say it out loud. She looked up at him and Cottle tilted his head in anticipation. There was no way around it.

The old bastard.

"I get rather... aroused," she confessed in a small voice that she had not intended to use. She cleared her throat. "I have… fantasies that I am, um, unable to refrain from dwelling on." She straightened her back and crossed her arms in front of her chest, feeling uneasy and exposed in the hideous sickbay gown she was wearing. To her surprise, she saw Cottle's gaze wander across her body just once before he looked up at her face again.

"Fantasies?" he asked, stretching the word out in a volume that irrevocably made Roslin fidget. She nodded, unwilling to utter more words than absolutely necessary in this precarious situation.

"Sexual fantasies, I take it," Cottle said smoothly, finally nodding his head in understanding. "You feel like a teenager, so to speak?"

"That describes it fairly well, yes," Roslin blurted out from between clenched teeth. She did not want to have that conversation, but her symptoms were so overwhelming that even Billy had suggested she get help for those "concentration issues" she made him believe stemmed from migraines that lead to her having to frequently excuse herself to splash cold water on her face.

"Well," Cottle explained. "the cylon hybrid blood rejuventated your system. Apart from curing your cancer, it has also reversed menopause and considerably elevated your hormonal levels. Looks like your body desperately wants to get pregnant now that it has been given a second chance. Maybe you should give it what it wants."

Laura shuddered. "Get pregnant?" she exclaimed. "Gods, no! There is absolutely no way I could-"

Cottle rolled his eyes. "I am not suggesting you get yourself knocked-up, Madame President. In fact," He turned around and rummaged through a drawer behind him, turning around triumphantly a moment later. "I don't want to temper with your hormon levels any further. After all, you have just recovered from breast cancer and your bloodwork is a mess as it is. Therefore, I give you this."

He revealed a fistful of condoms and placed them into her palm like a treasure. Laura looked up at him in horror to which Cottle shook his head slightly. How he was not writhing on the floor with laughter at this point was beyond her.

"You should be grateful, Madame President. These are hard to come by, these days. Unfortunately, I have no personal need for them right now, so-"

Roslin held up a hand, inwardly shuddering at the images Cottle was creating in her mind.

"Are you suggesting I-"

"Frak," he finished for her. "Exactly. Get it out of your system, as they say. You won't be able to concentrate on anything again anytime soon if you don't get laid, so to speak."

Roslin felt faint but slightly enthusiastic at the same time. The absurdity of having sex due to doctor's orders was not lost on her. She nodded slowly, unwilling to contribute further to the awkward conversation and turned around to head for the chair where her suit was waiting for her. Instead of leaving briskly and without saying goodbye as was his usual habit, Cottle remained rooted to the spot.

"What? Is there something else I should know?" she asked moodily, her mind already on the Quorum meeting and how to get through it without losing her mind.

He shrugged and put his hands in the pockets of his white labcoat.

"I just wanted to say, Madame President, if you need any assistance…" he trailed off deliberately, rising his eyebrows suggestively.

Laura's eyes widened in shock. Was Cottle offering to- Oh no. Not in a million years. He ducked away when a kidney basin came flying at his head. Gods, now she was down to hurling objects about! At this rate, she would start airlocking people very soon.

"You're also acting like a teenager," Cottle remarked dryly.

"Get out!" she hissed.

Later that day when she was on her makeshift cot on Colonial One, Laura realized the implications of Cottle's offer: To have proper sex, a partner was required. Alone, you could only do so much. But who in the universe was the President of the Twelve Colonies supposed to have sex with without the tabloids crawling all over it? It wasn't as if she had a both willing and discreet Secretary of Education on her hands, she thought cynically. In the end, Adar had turned out to be a collossal asshole but right now she wished she had had more sex with him when it was still possible. If only she could find someone now that she could block an hour in her schedule to "discuss important matters with" as Adar had always put it.

She pulled her covers up and rolled on to her other side, unable to settle despite the fact that she was tired. Cottle, for one, was completely out of the question. The thought alone of getting naked with him repulsed her. She did hold a certain respect for the mean-tempered doctor but that didn't mean she wanted to have sex with him. She was glad, after all, that while her body would have been happy with any man with a pulse, her brain was still working sufficiently enough to make sure she decided on someone who felt right.

She tossed back onto her other side, legs uncomfortably tangled in her covers. It was ridiculous. Telling her to frak was easy enough for Cottle but, really, it was quite out of the question. She would soon be running for office again. If word got out that she enjoyed sexy times with anyone, her yet to be determined opponent would have a field day with it. Which she could possibly work to her advantage, she thought, grinning to herself. If she did the nasty with Zarek, he would be smart enough not to tell because he would be in it, too. She sighed. Zarek was not bad-looking and he had a certain kind of bad boy charme. Then again, she thought, wriggling her toes to get rid of the blanket, Zarek had once planned to kill her. How could she have sex with someone who had tried to kill her? It was a total buzz kill. So definitely not. Zarek was officially out of the question.

Baltar? Word around the fleet was that he slept with every woman who would have him and he wasn't that bad-looking either although he could have really used a haircut lately. She thought of his rather innocent smile and his passionate speech at the Quorum meeting before Colonial Day. He was younger than her but he had lot of experience. Maybe he would be well capable of- no. She didn't trust Baltar. And also his whiny attitude got on her nerves. He would probably want her to tell him just how good he had been after and she had never been one for pillow talk. She tended to go straight to sleep. Baltar was entirely too self-serving.

But who else? Billy? Gods, no. That would feel like incest. Lee? Too young, although he had magnificient abs and was overall very sweet. He was a definitive maybe. Saul Tigh? She shuddered inwardly. There was not enough alcohol in the fleet to make her want to do it with him. Laura went through the list of men she knew and found fault in any of them. Not attractive enough, not able to keep silent, too old, too young, too impolite, too hairy. It was already four in the morning when she reached the inevitable conclusion.

Bill Adama.

She spent a lot of time in his quarters anyway so no one would know whether they were talking business or frakking each other's brains out. He was not attractive in a conservative way but he radiated a kind of calm and strength that she found quite alluring. He liked her and she could trust him to not tell anyone about it. They were both leaders and they knew their place in the society they guarded. A little frakking would also probably not mess up the steady friendship they built. She trusted him, Laura realized. And she liked him.

He had also kissed her. Softly and gently only, but that could only mean that he at least didn't think she was repulsive. The actual problem, of course, was that she liked him a little too much. So much, in fact, that she tended to get a little nervous around him when it was late and they were on his couch.

Oh Gods.

What was she doing to herself? She would definitely NOT ruin her friendship with Bill to satisfy her ridiculous needs! Laura turned around in bed again and squeezed her eyes shut. A Cylon attack would have been nice, she thought. Just to take her mind of things.

TBC