t is a fight that they are not expecting. They do not see it coming, do not realise that they are surrounded, encompassed, entrapped by it until it is too late. It is the result of nothing (everything). Small inconsequences adding up insurmountably. It is not like their previous fight when they were harsh and bitter and slicing wounds into each other's skin (wounds that they would learn to heal with hands and mouths, touches and promises). A fight before they had settled into this life, that they do not count as tarnish on their relationship.
It is its unexpectedness that shocks them both. Neither meaning to start or continue this battle, but neither willing to back down either (too used to digging in heels, to having to be right, forgetting how to let go and be wrong). It is too much time together, too many nerves frayed, too much death and tension and too little practice living with someone other than themselves. It is a fight over nothing but with everything at risk.
She snaps – he counters. They both continue to strike but there is no point, no goal, no end.
And so she leaves (the room, the ship, her belongings) and returns to Colonial One in a coruscation of discontent. Forgetting that she no longer lives there, that she is in essence blazing from home to sleep at the office.
(Forgetting too, that she can no longer sleep there in a bed that is not a bed, wrapped only in her own arms. Forgetting that one night she had been forced to stay through circumstance, how fitful her sleep and how haggard he had been when they'd met the next morning. How slightly abashed and entirely giddy she had been when she had called, to say goodnight, to hear his voice, to miss him after mere hours).
But, she goes and is gone, fuelled by smouldering embers of anger, of a fire that she thinks should never have been stoked (a stray spark igniting kindling).
Part of her flares at the fact that he is allowing her go, though she knows it is irrational to be angry that he has not attempted something that she would never permit – she will go if she chooses. (But part of her burns that maybe he is letting her go.)
(They do not realise that this is a wildfire – unplanned, unwanted, but a natural burning of that which is not meant to survive. They are meant to survive.)
He watches the plumes of smoke that drift in her wake as she leaves (the room, the ship, her belongings). He does not stop her, does not even try – only because her possessions have remained and that she will return to them (if it is for them...).
He reaches for the ambrosia, hand closing around the slender throat of the bottle, lifts the weight of it, the liquid ebbing within. He stops, replaces the bottle. (He does not drink now, not since that first fight, and not since she no longer can.) He reaches for the water, quenches a thirst and her trailing flames. He sits heavily, sadly, with concern. He knows she will not return tonight, will stay on her ship instead. He casts his gaze to the bed that they should be sharing and accepts in himself that the couch will hold his bones this night, while hers lie elsewhere.
He worries. Not just of this fight and its suddenness, its meaninglessness. He worries of what comes next (for her, for them). He worries that she will sleep poorly (or well), that she will be alone (but not lonely), that she will need him (or not).
He worries that she will simply be fine and choose not to come home.
The night passes slowly, but it does begin to pass.
The comm rings and he hopes it is her (though he knows he is more likely to concede first, sees this not as weakness but as how things are). He reaches for the phone.
Maybe it is an apology, maybe it is to argue with him more, maybe it is to say she is on her way back, maybe it is to say she is sending for her things.
But no.
It is worse it is worse it is so much worse.
He is in Life Station before they arrive, thinking incorrectly (and thinking incorrectly that they had raised the alarm on her arrival on Galactica and not her departure from Colonial One). He paces, fists clenching and unclenching, mind a whirlwind. (They shouldn't have fought. They should have longer than this. He shouldn't have let her go. He can't let her go. How bad how bad how bad is it, are things about to get?)
They wheel her in (the gurney wheel squeaks as they turn through the door) and he freezes, literally, figuratively (his blood running cold, solidifying, cracking his veins). She is conscious (barely), eyes open but unseeing, searching but not finding.
(How small she looks, lying there with her hair missing, breathing tubes in her nose. She fills up so much of his life. He forgets how little space she truly occupies.)
She is wearing only one shoe. It is this tiny observation, this unimportant detail, that is his undoing (she hadn't even relaxed on her ship before...). Her name croaks from his throat as he moves to her side (as she is transferred to the bed that has become hers, the bed she does not wish to call her own.)
Her hand stretches out, fingers reaching for him (to pull herself conscious, to latch on to him – her tether). Her mouth shapes his name but voices no sound.
The panic within them rises and peaks, flooding them both. (Is this it? Is this all the time they have been given, all that is left? Please please please no.) He leans down, his lips against her ear. "I'm here I'm here I'm here." (So are you. Now stay. Please please please stay.)
She murmurs, whimpers, turns her head weakly against his, brushing faintly, as best she can.
He knows that Cottle is speaking, can hear the sound but not the words, his focus in its entirety is on her eyes, her face, her mouth as she frames a "sorry" (for the fight, for this terror, for dying) that he would never allow her if he had a choice.
A "Should have..." trembles out before her eyes fall under heavy lids and she stills. (Should have stayed, should have talked, should have told you...) Her name, a refrain falling from his mouth, spills onto her (his hand grips hers tighter, though hers has gone slack, as if he can pull her back from this from this from all of this.)
"Bill." It is the rarity of hearing Cottle address him as anything other than Admiral that snaps his attention. Cottle's voice finally pierces in ears. "She's asleep." The words are spoken softly but enunciated clearly (an attempt to focus him, to prevent him from seeping into unnecessary grief).
It is only then that he hears the beep beep beep on her heart monitor and not the aching screech that would sound her passing.
"What?" He does not understand, cannot understand. (Without her, what makes sense?)
"Had to sedate her on the way over, she kept pulling at the IV line."
"Jack..." (He needs more information, more time, more of her.)
"Diloxin – took more out of her than usual, that plus the Chamalla and stress and overdoing it...She'll be fine."
Cottle clasps his shoulder – in support, in assurance, to steady him as he sways, as the words and reality and succour flood his system, melting through the dread, the anguish, letting his blood flow again. "Sit down. Don't wake her and for Godssake, the next time you two have a fight, don't let her storm off the ship."
"How do you know we..?"
"Unless she's had another change of address then she wouldn't be on Colonial One in the middle of the night. Especially without that aide of hers. Where is that Foster woman?"
"Who…." He chokes on the words. "Who found her?"
"Security detail, right after she hit the ground. She's (they are) lucky she missed her head."
He has fallen asleep with her hand in his, a temporary substitute for her body being held in his arms. She squeezes his fingers gently.
They both disregard Cottle's decrees. She is not to shift about on the bed (she has repositioned herself as close to the edge as possible). He is to leave (he has repositioned himself as close to the bed as possible) She is to sleep (she is awake). He is not to sleep in the chair (he is sleeping lightly, forehead against her shoulder). The hand not held in his traces gently through his hair, behind his ear, following the curve (this tract of scalp she knows she can caress without waking him, knows he will ease – that he will know she is there and know she is there).
"Want me to send him home? Or at least get him off your shoulder so you can sleep?"
She smiles, exhausted, shakes her head. "No, he's fine there. I don't want to wake him (or send him away)."
"Quite a scare earlier." (For him, for her, for all of then).
"Like to keep you boys on your toes," she jokes, but the humour dissipates within her chest before it can be freed.
"You need to take it easier." (For all their sakes.)
She nods once under the gravity of how serious it could have been, how serious she had thought it was, how seriously she had scared (and been scared).
"When can I go home?"
"In the morning. But only home. You step one foot onto Colonial One or into a meeting room over the next two days and I'll sedate you for a week."
She almost rolls her eyes at him, but he beats across her dismissal. "And you can be damned sure I'll be telling him that."
She sighs half-heartedly, already knowing that Bill will not need to be instructed to keep her confined to quarters for the proceeding days. She does not mind, not really, not now; probably will not in the future.
"Tell him that and he won't let me out of his sight."
"That a bad thing? Laura... he needs time to recover from this, too."
She would weep if she had the strength (she knows she has not the resolve to hold back the tears). How much has change in the space of a night. (Water supplanting fire, cleansing them of scorch wounds, of burnings and death. For now.)
She breathes deeply, gloriously thankful that she is still alive to do so, thankful that he is at her side, thankful that she is still at his. She tightens her hold on his hand, gives in to the slumber that is pulling at her eyes, her body, relaxes into this natural sleep.
When she wakes again, his chair is empty (she bristles slightly, a glint of panic that she cannot really explain, so close she had come to being lost that she is seized with the urge to keep track of him). The sound of his voice calls her attention just inside the curtain (open now, revealing him and Cottle, Tory off to the side).
His face is serious as he absorbs Cottle's orders, instructions for her care. His hand stretches back to her ankle, telling her he knows she is awake, sweeps around to the sole of her foot. (She wiggles her toes into his palm; he flips his hand to press a knuckle along her arch. She squirms.)
It is an hour between waking and leaving. Instructions repeated to both of them. A headscarf and shoes retrieved from their quarters (her wig and the match of the shoe she had wearing still on Colonial One, Tory dispatched to reclaim them, unendingly apologetic for not having been with her – the sincerity obliterated in the reality of where they both know she was instead.)
And so he takes her home, steering her straight to the bathroom, bypassing the couch and her questions (why are there bed sheets on it? did he sleep there after she left? was he going to sleep there now?), releases her only to start the shower before turning and kissing her softly – his mouth on hers, a kiss of life (in thanks for it).
He helps her undress, takes her soft hint when she begins to unbutton his uniform and removes his clothes as well. He walks them both into the shower, under the hot spray (her back against his chest), letting the water wash away the tension, the fear. He cleans them both, knows that despite her protests she is a breath away from sleep again, can feel the weight in her body change from strain to languor, somnambulistic in his hold.
She turns in his arms and wraps her own around his neck, pressing close close close. He shudders as he lets the terror drip away. He has no words for how he felt, for how he feels, for how he would (if... when... if – he stresses to himself) so he holds her until the water starts to cool, then dries them both and puts them to bed – only speaking then.
A stream of consciousness that he lets flow, no structure all purpose, to try and explain how much she means to him, to his life, to his existence. To apologise for a fight that neither started nor meant, to promise to not let her go again (or ever), to say with words what he feels in his heart (refraining from using the word only because it seems so small, so insufficient when compared to the scope of his emotions).
And she lies across his body, awake but silent, letting his voice, his words, his feelings bathe her further. Water flowing from her eyes onto his skin (that she lacked the strength earlier is irrelevant, now she has his strength as well, wants to share what remains of hers with him).
The room falls into silence for a beat (of his heart, of hers) before she takes up the mantle, whispering into his neck every explanation she had not proffered before, every apology she feels he is owed, every thank you that she has never spoken – each and every word a drop of love that flows in her veins. If she could, she would speak until she ran dry.
(They are liquid now, no longer burning, doused with love.)
But night and exhaustion tug at them both, relief and love cocooning them. Naked to each other now in every way. They have bared their souls – a metamorphosis awaits them on the dawn, when together they will both step forward from this nightmare into waking light. Transformed together.