Triangle
by kimbari
All of this happened 30 years ago. All of this will happen again...
The first time I saw her she was barefoot, and I will never forget that as long as I live. Her bare feet, and the muscle cut in the lovely leg that showed through the slit in the long dress she wore. The dress had blue flowers on it, and I could just see her white panties through it, a sight that set the caveman in me gibbering.
She'd wrapped herself in a black shawl and stood gazing out the window, apparently lost in the view, a half-full goblet of pink wine in her hand. Noble profile, with dark red hair pulled back from her face into a single braid that went halfway down her back. A wallflower, yet self-possessed enough not to mind her role as decoration.
I thought she needed more wine. Besides, I was bored. I hated these things.
Alone but not lonely?"
I turned my head. A second later I turned my body. A line. Rather original, but still a line.
"I suppose so," I said and returned to my view. He was going to have to do a lot better than that. I could see him being nonplussed in my peripheral vision. Caro's flyboy. I'm sure he was used to the ladies tumbling easily, him with his angelic smile, his dark, wavy hair, his husky voice. Not me. Not today.
"Would you like more wine?" he asked.
I held up my goblet. "I'm good, thanks."
He held out his hand. "William Adama," he said.
"I know who you are," I said, and turned to face him again. "Unless the 'Bill' Caro talks about so incessantly is someone else."
"No, that would be me," he said. There was a tinge of irony in his voice. It probably had something to do with my use of the term 'incessantly.' "Now, you have me at a disadvantage."
"Laura Roslin," I said and took the hand he'd offered. He shook it and smiled again and I felt something inside me give a little. It was an odd sensation. His hand was big, warm, rough. A masculine hand.
"Laura…" He nodded knowingly, still grinning. "You're Caroline's best friend."
"One of many," I conceded. I'd known her the longest, but that would make me her "oldest" friend, not a very complimentary description.
"She does have quite a few," he said. He looked around at the milling party guests and sighed.
"You don't like playing the host, do you?" I said. He exuded a low-grade restlessness, as if there were at least several dozen places he'd rather be.
"Not particularly," he said and his eyes returned to me. He looked into my eyes and I felt that something in me give a little more. "Unfortunately, Caroline is a hard woman to say no to."
"Don't I know it," I said, crossed my legs and lowered myself to the floor. William Adama stared down at me for a moment before joining me. Egalitarian.
"You and Caroline known each other long?" he asked.
"Why?" I asked and William Adama laughed and held up his hands in surrender. He did have a beautiful smile.
"You think I'm prying?" he said.
"Do you always answer questions with a question?" I returned.
"Okay," he said. "I just think it's important to get to know Caroline's friends."
"The room is full of Caroline's friends," I said.
"None of them are as interesting as you are," he said. His eyes, again. I tore myself away from his gaze.
"Are you hitting on me, Mister Adama?"
"Lieutenant," he said.
"Sorry," I said. "Caro did mention something about you being in the military..."
"A time or two or three?" he said and this time, I laughed.
"She's very fond of you," I told him, which was something he should already know.
"Yes, she is," he said softly. I dared to look at him again, and it was then that I noticed that his eyes were blue. The darkest blue I'd ever seen. The color could easily be mistaken for black or even brown, so they weren't all that incongruous in his dark-skinned face. Still, they fascinated me, the depth of them. How deep does a man with eyes like that go?
"Are you fond of her?"
I was in the middle of noticing how musical her voice was when I heard her question. Looking into her eyes made me think of rain, and how water takes on the color of its surroundings. Looking into her eyes I couldn't lie to her.
"Not as fond as she is of me," I said.
"She doesn't know that," Laura Roslin said. "Don't you think you should tell her?" Her eyes locked with mine. Not judging, but not letting me off the hook, either. I looked away.
"Caroline hears what she wants to hear," I said.
"Don't I know that, too," Laura Roslin murmured. "If it were me, I'd want to know."
"If it were you, you wouldn't have to make any assumptions," I said and was surprised that I'd just blurted out what I'd been thinking. I looked over to find her regarding me with those clear eyes of hers.
"What an odd thing to say..."
"I didn't mean to say it," I told her. "You've got me a little off-balance, here."
She raised her eyebrows, her expression amused. "Off-balance?" she said.
"Yes," I said, sounding harsher than I meant. The amusement vanished from her face.
"Well... I'm sorry if I've put you off-balance, Lieutenant Adama..."
"William," I told her. "My given name is William. You have my permission to use it." Her eyebrows went up again, no doubt at the arrogance of my last sentence. It's been years since I tasted my own foot but the flavor is just as bad as I remember.
"Perhaps we should change the subject," she said. "Better yet, you should see to your other guests."
"They aren't my guests," I said. "This isn't my party..." And I suddenly did not want to be here, playing host to Caroline's boring friends – present company excluded... and what made her so damned special anyway, aside from the fact that she was intelligent, and beautiful, and her legs were sublime, and I could see her skivvies through her dress...
"You look like you're about to mutiny," Laura Roslin said, and made as if to get up. I grabbed her wrist. My hand enclosed it completely. Her skin was warm and silky, and it seemed as if I could feel every bone that connected her hand to her arm. She looked at my hand, then looked at me.
"Don't go," I said. I held onto her wrist. I was holding it too tightly; I could feel the steady throb of her pulse in my fingers, but she didn't protest. "We'll change the subject."
"What if I don't want to talk to you?" she said. I released her hand but she didn't move. It was a good sign, and I told myself to breathe.
"Then don't," I told her. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
"Thank you for the confirmation," she said. Frosty, but still, she stayed. I changed the subject.
"Are you hungry?"
He'd reminded me. "Yes," I said and swallowed the last of my wine, warm as pee from me holding the bowl of the goblet all this time. "But the food's all gone."
We both looked over at the buffet table where a few stragglers were picking aimlessly through what was left of Caroline's gourmet spread. William Adama looked at me and smiled. "I'll find you something in the kitchen," he said, got to his feet, took my empty glass and left me sitting there, wondering...
"Are you taking good care of Laura?"
Caroline sat at the kitchen table playing a game of Muses with her artsy-fartsy, pacifist Picon friends. This bunch made no bones about the fact that they disapproved of the military, forget that it was the military that kept their asses safe during the war and that brave people had died only to win their disrespect. I ignored them, concentrated instead on Caroline's beautiful face and those blue eyes full of implicit promise. I was so busy concentrating I didn't hear her question.
"Are you taking good care of Laura?" she asked again.
"She said she's hungry," I said. "Is there any food left?"
"They've eaten it all?" Caroline asked. They're her friends, I don't know why she was so surprised. You wouldn't have to go back too many generations to find the swarm of locusts that had spawned them.
"Nothing left on the buffet table but smears," I told her.
"Party's over, then," one of the Picons said. I couldn't tell if it was a he or a she.
"There's still plenty of booze," another put in, and they chortled. Caroline made a cute face at them. I was not amused.
"I have some chicken salad in the fridge," she said, bustling over to get it.
"I'll get it," I said but she went over and got it anyway. She took the cover off the bowl, stuck a fork in it and handed it to me, caressing my fingers as I accepted it. Her eyes made promises for later that I knew she would keep. I'm the one, her eyes said. And you know it.
I leaned in to kiss him.
My beloved Bill. I try hard not to let him know how crazy I am about him, but I'm afraid it's written all over me. He could take me, right now – had in fact done so a time or two, on the very table where my friends were playing Muse. The memory made me smile in the middle of his kiss, his soft sweet tongue in my mouth... Oh, later, Caro, later after everyone is gone you'll have him all to yourself. In the meantime you have guests and one of them is hungry.
I pushed him away. "Go, take care of Laura," I said.
He looked startled. "What?"
"I saw the two of you," I said, caressing his face. "You seemed to be getting along quite well... Isn't she marvelous?" And she is. Really, I'd known Laura since we were in grade school and I so wanted her and Bill to be friends.
"I dunno," he said. "She seems a little formal..."
"And since when did formal bother you?" I teased.
He raised his eyebrows. "Is this not a party? I know how to loosen up."
"And so does Laura," I told him. "She's a wonderful friend, as warm as a fire once she gets to know you."
"Well, maybe I should go let her get to know me, then," he said, and smiled that smile that always turns my bones to jelly. I am so weak for him.
"Caro! You're going to forfeit your hand if you don't get back over here." I looked around at my friends at their game.
"Can't have you forfeiting your hand," Bill said, and something about the way he said that gave me a chill, out of absolutely nowhere. But he smiled again and left the kitchen and I realized I was being silly. I went back to the table and picked up my hand. I was happy, I was in love... and I was winning this game of Muses.
She was gone.
I stared at the spot where she'd sat for thirty seconds, not quite believing it was empty. The thirty seconds passed and I looked around the room. Same crowd of dull, boring people; no quiet, auburn-haired woman, wrapped in a black shawl.
"Frak!" I was surprised at how dark the room suddenly seemed.
I was even more surprised at how empty I felt.
I sat down in the place she had vacated and started eating the chicken salad, staring out the window. Caroline is an excellent cook and the chicken salad got better with each forkful.
"That had better not be for me."
I don't believe it! I recognized Caro's chicken salad and I sincerely wanted to throttle him. He looked up at me with a look of guilt and surprise and... something else. The combination was funny (except for that last part), and it made me laugh, despite hunger and my irritation.
"I thought you were gone," he said lamely.
"Do I look gone?" I said. I really should let up, the guy truly seemed to be suffering. He proffered the half-eaten bowl of chicken salad. I eyed it warily.
"I've had my shots," he said.
"It's what you haven't been inoculated for that I'm afraid of," I said. "You flying around in space and everything."
"What can I say to reassure you?" he said. I got tangled up in his deep eyes again, and it seemed like he wanted to reassure me of something more than his not giving me any alien microbes.
I sighed and took the bowl from him. "Shall I get you another fork?" he asked.
"Don't bother," I said, sat down on the floor again and started eating. "I'm too hungry to be that paranoid about germs."
He watched me in silence for a while. "Where did you go?"
I chewed, swallowed. "Bathroom," I said. I'd seen in the mirror where this man's apparent fascination for me might have begun. I had no idea the damned dress was that transparent. I tied the shawl around my waist, although it was probably too late to do any good. "Did you miss me?" I was being sarcastic and I was talking with my mouth full. Ill-mannered but I felt as if I could get away with it, somehow. Despite the military stiffness that lurked beneath his charming host act, I was beginning to feel at ease with William Adama, at a comfort level that usually took weeks for me to find with new acquaintances. Maybe it was because he was so at ease with himself. Or maybe it was those don't-step-too-close-to-the-abyss-or-you'll-fall-in eyes of his.
"I was devastated," William Adama said. "I thought I wasn't going to see you again."
I stared into the nearly empty bowl is if it held the secret of the universe within. I forked out the last of the chicken salad and put it in my mouth. I did not want to fall into those eyes, not the least because Caroline Sawyer had fallen there already, so I said,
"You're being funny."
Actually, until I'd said the words, I didn't know how serious I was.
"No," I said. "I'm not."
She wouldn't look at me, kept staring into bowl. I needed her to look at me, because I was in trouble. It hadn't been at first sight, but it had happened, fast, while my "beloved" sat in the kitchen playing cards with her stupid friends. And if it was everything I thought it was, I needed confirmation. I needed to see it in Laura Roslin's eyes.
"I should be going," Laura said. She wouldn't meet my eyes. She got to her bare feet and made her way to the kitchen, to return the bowl, to make her goodbyes to the hostess, to walk out of my life forever. I watched her, the gloss of the braid down her back, the way she held her shoulders. I smiled at the black shawl now tied around her waist, hiding her underwear. I followed her into the kitchen.
"...oh, don't be silly, Laura. Bill can take you home."
Honestly, Laura is just too independent sometimes. Her neighborhood isn't safe and I'd seen the people she'd come to the party with slip away, no doubt to a private party of their own. She had no way to get home. I had plans for Bill later on, but he could certainly be a gentleman and take Laura home, then come back to me.
"What are you volunteering me for, now?" Bill growled. He was making that stern face. He could be so intimidating sometimes, but I'd known him long enough to know when his growl should be taken seriously. This wasn't one of those times.
"Laura needs a ride home, the people she came with ditched her," I said and Laura rolled her eyes. "Would you take her home, darling? Please? For me?"
"Really, it's no problem for me to catch a cab."
Caroline could be clueless sometimes, but as long as I'd known her, she'd never been this thick. How could she not know that the last thing she should want was for her precious "Bill" to be alone with me. How could she not see the way he looked at me, when I could see it with my eyes closed.
But that was Caroline, who'd lived all her life with the confidence that vast beauty instills in its possessors. I'd often envied that beauty, felt resentment when men flocked like dizzy moths to her light while I languished in the shadows. She could have any man she wanted, and I knew how much she wanted William Adama.
"I won't bite."
I smiled when I said it. I'd gone in the space of a few hours from being ready to propose to Caroline to falling in love with someone else. And now nothing else mattered but that someone else. How this would all play out depended entirely on Laura Roslin, who didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do. I could tell by the way she was trying to wiggle out of riding with me that she didn't want to hurt Caroline. Lords of Kobol help me, I didn't want to hurt Caroline, either, but I'd made her no promises. Laura to me was a gravitational pull that I was helpless to resist. I'd never felt like this before, never wanted any woman like this before, and I would have her... if she'd let me.
"See, Laura... he won't bite. He promised."
Caroline was grinning, throwing her lovely smile first my way, then his. What else could I do? I was outnumbered, by compelling William, by clueless Caroline, and by her maddening certainty that William was "hers" and I couldn't possibly be a threat. Not me, her "old" friend Laura Roslin, the schoolteacher.
She was right about one thing: I wasn't a threat. Because William wasn't hers.
"All right," I said. "Lead on." I spared Lieutenant Adama a glance but he was looking at Caroline. There was something like pity in his expression, just a flash and it was gone, so quickly I wasn't sure that's what I saw at all.
I kissed Caroline's cheek. I hugged her. "Send him right back, now," she whispered in my ear and giggled. I nodded. I would send him, because I loved her, but I wasn't at all sure that he would go.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
"Really," I assured him on the sidewalk outside of Caro's house, "I can catch a cab." I pulled my phone out of my purse and started punching buttons to prove it.
He put his hand over my hand and the phone, shutting it down. "It's not a problem," he said.
"I live clear on the other side of Caprica City," I told him. Inside I fumed over Andra and Telly deserting me like this. They can forget about getting an anniversary gift from me.
He opened the door to his car. "Get in the car."
It was chilly outside and I undid my shawl and pulled it up over my shoulders, to hell with modesty... and to hell with William Adama, who did he think he was, using that tone of voice with me.
"Is that an order?"
Gods, how her eyes flashed. She was almost my height, but I didn't think she could take me. Actually, she could take me... anywhere she wanted.
"Do you always make it so hard for someone to do you a favor?" I asked her. I tried not to smile. I knew it would piss her off even more.
"There you go again, answering a question with a question."
"The answer is no." I waved her toward the car. "Please?" She glared at me a moment longer, then got in.
She was right about being "clear on the other side of Caprica City." Our journey lasted thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of being in a small, enclosed space with Laura Roslin, listening to her breathe, the sound of her voice as she swatted down my attempts at conversation. Thirty minutes of smelling her fragrance, something lighter than perfume that hovered just out of reach of my ability to identify and thereby drove me crazy. Thirty minutes of watching her movements from the corner of my eye. She crossed her legs, wiggled her toes. When she pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders I turned on the heat. She thanked me, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. After thirty minutes of being in a small, enclosed space with Laura Roslin I was ass over teakettle in love with her. It was ridiculous when you got right down to it. But then, isn't life?
When we arrived at her place (seedy didn't begin to describe the neighborhood), she got out of the car before I had the chance to go around to open the door for her. She was halfway up the stairs to her apartment before she realized I'd followed her. She turned around and started because I was right behind her. We were practically nose to nose. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted very much to kiss her.
"Thank you for bringing me home," she whispered. She was staring at my lips. Was she thinking what I was thinking?
"Do you mind if I come in?" I said.
Her eyes left my lips and met my eyes. She looked alarmed. "I don't think that's a good idea..."
"It's a long ride back," I told her. "I need to use the head." She looked puzzled and I said,
"Bathroom."
Oh. What was I going to say, no? "Of course," was what I did say, unlocked the door and directed him to the proper room.
Wonderful. Now he was in my house.
While he was occupied I slipped into my room to get out of this see-through dress and into some armor: a set of sweats and after a moment's consideration, a pair of socks. I'd noticed him looking at my feet... it was a fashion statement, not a come-on! Well, everything's a come-on to some men. Besides, I was cold. Yeah, that's it.
He came out the bathroom as I was moving down the hallway. My intention was to hold the door open for him and send him back to Caroline, but he blocked my way and we were nose to nose again.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted very much to kiss him.
"Would you like some tea?"
I heard her ask me something while I was stumbling around in her eyes that were like rain, like rivers, like a glass of ice water when you were dying of thirst, like necessary, like that.
"Coffee?" I said, when I finally heard what she was saying. She nodded and sidled past me and I watched her pad off to her kitchen, amused that she'd seen fit to obscure practically every inch of her body with unattractive clothing. That horse was long gone from the barn and I think she knew it. I think she was fighting this, for her friend's sake. But I knew that if it wasn't her (and that was a possibility I was not prepared to entertain), it wasn't going to be Caroline, either. Laura would say that I should tell her, but Caroline would know soon enough.
She made coffee and I nosed around a bit, reading the titles of her books, admiring the artifacts she considered beautiful, noting that the papers on her desk were mostly lesson plans and writing in childish scrawls.
"You're a teacher?" I asked. It was a small apartment and I didn't have to raise my voice to be heard in the next room.
"Elementary school, nine to eleven year olds... you want white? Sweet?"
"No to both," I told her, briefly considered mentioning the kind of sweet I did want and discarded the idea. I didn't know what was going to happen. All I knew was that she hadn't chased me out when she could have, when she had at least one reason to. I didn't want to risk what little I had.
She returned to the room carrying two brightly painted mugs. As I sat down on the couch she handed one of them to me. I accepted with thanks and she sat down in a chair next to the couch and crossed her legs. As she sipped at her coffee I noticed the words painted on her mug. I love Laura. I chuckled. She looked at me, inquiring and I nodded toward the mug. She looked at it then, incredibly, blushed.
"Gift from your lover?" I asked.
"Gift from my students," she said. "Who has time for lovers?"
"You make the time for what you want," I said.
"You're making my case for me," she said and I smiled and sipped my coffee.
"You don't want a lover?" I asked. She smiled a little closed smile that I would've found infuriating if I hadn't been marinating in a slag puddle of desire for her.
"I don't want Caroline Sawyer's lover," she said, and the puddle deepened by about three inches.
"I don't want to talk about Caroline," I told her. "What do you want?" We stared into each other's eyes for a long, long moment. Then she said,
"Everything."
I said 'everything' because I was a liar. I loved Caroline and I wanted to keep her friendship, but I did want her lover and a tiny, mean part of me wanted him precisely because he was her lover, because the Lords of Kobol had decreed that Caro would always have whatever she wanted so this man belonged to her, yet here he sat on my couch, drinking my coffee, his wanting me coming off him in waves that I could almost taste. I wanted him. And whatever the cost, I would not die never knowing what having William Adama felt like.
Everything.
"I can't give you everything," he said. His voice was soft yet scratched at my nerve endings. My hands tightened on the coffee cup. He reached over and pulled off my sock and dropped it on the floor. I wouldn't have been more aroused if he'd caressed me between my legs. I felt the hot flush creep up my neck and over my face. He saw it and he smiled. "Will you take what I can give you?" he said.
Did he expect an answer? I looked down into my cup. My heart was beating triple-time as my body prepared itself to receive him. Did I really want to lose Caro? Because if I did this...
"Laura," he said, and again his voice. I looked up, into his eyes and he said, "The answer is a small word, but you need to say it."
I couldn't. Instead, I got to my feet, took his hand and led him to my bedroom.
It was answer enough for us all.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
"The sun's coming up."
He opened his eyes in response to the statement of fact in her soft, musical voice. He could make out objects in the room that he hadn't been able to before. Not that he'd been paying much attention. She was lying beside him, with her head on his chest. He couldn't see her face, just the top of her head and that lovely autumn hair of hers, spilling all over, everywhere. He slipped his fingers into it and she looked up at him. Her eyes were dark in the dawn light of the room, dark and unreadable.
"Did you sleep?"
She smiled. Had she slept? It seemed she'd been half-conscious the entire night, between the times they made love. She remembered dreams that were more like waking fantasies, interrupted over and over again by his need to be inside her. Each time she received him was a gift she bestowed on him. At least, that's what she felt. He was a man of few words but he got his point across. Repeatedly.
Laura thought she might have to learn how to walk again.
"A little," she said, in answer to his question. "You?"
"I don't want to sleep." William sighed. "My leave is up at eighteen hundred hours today." His hand moved restlessly in her hair. "It'll be a while before I can see you again..." 'Won't I?' was the unspoken tail of his sentence. He didn't ask because he didn't have to.
Laura sat up, then climbed astride him. "You will see me again," she said, and she caught her breath as she felt his penis stiffening against her. "If I have to hunt you down... what's so funny?"
"The idea of you hunting anyone down," he said, grinning. He shifted beneath her, then she moved up, then back, then down and they were joined again.
"Ohh..." she gasped. "Gods, Will... What are they feeding you guys in the fleet?"
He pulled her closer, maneuvered himself deeper inside her. She threw her head back, sent a soft cry of pleasure to the ceiling. "I think," he murmured, "I get all my stamina from this new redhead diet I just started..." He lost his train of thought as she began to move on top of him, the sensation sweet, hot, electric. He moaned as she moved, moved him, moved them both toward climax. They came together, crying out. He held her close as they came down, each murmuring each other's name, over and over again. "I love you, Laura," he whispered. "Say you love me."
"My mother taught me never to lie," Laura said softly, against his chest. Frowning, William turned her face up to his. Her mischievous expression made him laugh out loud.
"You're an evil woman, Laura Roslin," he said.
"And you're a heartbreaker, William Adama," she told him.
He shook his head. "Not your heart," he said. "Never your heart."
"You can't promise that," Laura said. "So why say it?"
"Because I mean it," William said. "I love you. And I won't break your heart."
She touched his face with the tips of her fingers, the pitted, scarred cheeks, the perfection of his lips. She kissed them. I won't break your heart. This wonder they'd found in each other would break the heart of her best friend, her oldest friend, and she felt a stirring of guilt... but not enough to give him up.
"I love you, Will," she said. He touched her face in his turn and his expression made her heart cramp with joy.
"Then we've got some music to face," he said, and she nodded.
But now there was love, and he drew her closer and she held him tighter and they soaked in each other's being, and finally slept.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
He was the only person besides myself and the housekeeper who had a key, and it was the housekeeper's day off. I looked up as he came into the room. He looked none the worse for wear, same clothes he'd worn yesterday to the party. There was this look of contentment on his face, of peace, of completion. Whatever he'd been about since I'd seen him last had made him pretty damned happy.
"I was worried."
Caroline had been crying. I have no issues with self-esteem, but I knew I wasn't worth her tears. She got to her feet and came toward me. She wore a pink silk wrapper and nothing else. She looked delectable, yet I was totally unmoved by her beauty, so full was I of Laura, so empty now that we were apart.
"I called Laura's number three times," she said. I could vaguely remember turning the phone off the second time it started ringing. I'd been knee-deep in Laura at that point. "She never answered..." She trailed off as she spotted the mark on my collarbone, half hidden by my shirt.
"Laura's fine," I said as she carefully moved my collar aside to reveal the livid love-bite.
I saw her blue eyes turn to ice as she stared at the proof of my infidelity. I saw hurt and fury and betrayal, and a number of unnamed emotions cycle across her face. What I didn't see was the open-handed slap she dealt me. I felt the sting on my cheek, heard the ringing in my ear. Caroline was a little woman, but she was strong. I saw the second slap coming a split second before she delivered it, caught her wrist before her hand could connect again with my jaw.
"You only get one," I told her. I'd seen enough violence in the Colonial Fleet. I wasn't having it here.
"You bastard," she yelled. "You sonofabitch! How could you?"
"It was easy," I said. Not that any aspect of my affair with Caroline had ever been hard, well, except for the obvious. It was a rhetorical question, anyway and she'd only asked it because she didn't know what else to say. She soon thought of something.
"You were with Laura?" I didn't bother to respond. I didn't want her swinging at me again. I was going to have to explain the welt from her first slap to my C.O. as it was. "She's my best friend," Caroline said, in a tone of wondrous sorrow. "She wouldn't do this to me..."
"Caroline, I need to get my things. I'm due on a transport in an hour." I walked past her, into her bedroom and began to empty out the drawer she'd given me. She followed me, stood at the bedroom door, watching.
"How could you do this... Bill, I love you."
I stopped packing, for just a moment, then continued. "I'm sorry, Caroline."
"You're sorry?" she said. Her voice sounded dull, lifeless. "I thought we had something."
I threw the rest of my gear into the bag and snapped it shut. I'd never kept much at her place, perhaps fearing what she would infer from it. Not that my restraint had done any good.
I turned to face her, face the music. I'm a man, after all.
She was crying again. Caroline Sawyer was one of the few human beings in the universe who managed to look beautiful with red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose. And still I was unmoved. The only thing I regretted in all this was the pain I'd caused her, and the damage this had done to her relationship with Laura. But there was no undoing this. We all had to go forward.
"We did have something, Caroline," I said. "It just wasn't what you thought it was."
Caroline closed her eyes. Two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. "Get out," she said quietly.
I took my bag.
I got.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
I imagined them together, Bill and Laura, making love in her tiny bedroom in her little apartment on the poor side of town where she insisted on living because her students lived there. (Can't say I ever understood that but Laura had always been altruistic, even when we were girls.) I wondered if his "approach" to her was the same, if he was the same. Did he last longer, thrust harder, did he ever say he loved her, because he'd never said that to me. I'd always heard it when we were together, but it was only an echo of my own declarations. I'd been in that love alone.
Did he let her get on top or did he insist on dominance as he had with me? I tortured myself with these thoughts, even as I rebuffed Laura's attempts to contact me.
"Caro, please pick up the phone. We have to talk."
''All right. Talk.
After two weeks of trying to reach her nearly every day, I found myself speechless when Caro finally spoke.
'Hello?' she said impatiently.
"Come out and have lunch with me," I said.
'Whatever you have to say to me you can say over the phone.'
"Caro, we've been friends for too long to..."
'You know, Laura, that's the problem. The fact that we were friends. But a friend doesn't steal her friend's man.'
Okay. There it was. "You steal a blanket, Caroline," I said. "People don't own each other, at least not on Caprica."
'Semantics, Laura... I really hate you, you know that?' Her voice quavered on that last word and my heart cramped.
I sighed. "I know," I said. "I still want to buy you lunch. I'll get out of your life if you want me to, but you have to meet with me one more time."
'Fine,' Caro said, capitulating. 'We'll lunch at Elysium.'
Great. It was the most expensive restaurant in the Twelve Colonies. I couldn't afford to smell the food, let alone eat there and she knew it.
"Expensive place," I said.
'You wanted to have lunch,' Caro said, her tone vicious. 'It should only set you back a week.'
"Two weeks," I informed her. "Very well. Elysium tomorrow at two..."
'That's a late lunch,' she said snidely.
"I have a half day of school tomorrow, will you work with me, please." I said.
'Elysium tomorrow at two,' Caroline said and hung up the phone.
Well, at least we had a date.
I didn't want to lose my friend, but... I had another letter from Will, the third in the two weeks since he'd left. I remember Caroline complaining about the dearth of communication when he was on duty, ending with the smug observation that he more than made up for his neglect when he was on leave. I couldn't help but wonder what the fact that he communicated with me while on duty boded for our reunion, although he was pretty explicit in his letters about what would happen on that occasion. But I didn't like to think about being with him again because thinking about it only brought home the fact that he was not here now, and when I allowed myself to dwell on that, I found it hard to breathe. My longing for him was huge and according to his letters, I wasn't alone in my longing.
Caroline and I had been girls together. This thing with William Adama was new and perhaps not destined to last. I wasn't going to be forced into making a choice but I already knew if it came to that I would make the same choice Will had.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
I arrived late. Caroline sat at the table, cool, calm, gorgeous and working on her second cocktail when I rushed in, windblown, sweating and harried. Perfect. I thought if the object of our affection could see the two of us now, he might switch sides.
"I started without you," Caro said as the waiter seated me and took my drink order.
"I'm sorry I'm late, I was delayed by a student—"
"So, how's Bill?" she asked, her blue eyes cold.
"We're not here to discuss him," I said.
She raised her eyebrows. "Really? What else do we have to discuss?"
"Our friendship, Caro—"
"Which ended when you decided to have sex with my boyfriend."
I sighed. "I'm sorry, Caro. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry we hurt you, but you had a certain relationship with William and you and I have a different relationship, a long-standing relationship and I will do anything I can to salvage it."
Caro's eyes gleamed. "Anything?" she asked.
"Except choose," I said. The finality in my voice made her sit back in her chair. She bit her lip, thinking.
"All these years you've known me," she said. "You only knew him for a few hours..."
"I'm in love with him, Caro," I said.
She scoffed. "You? You never fall in love with anyone. You don't want to get married, to have kids..."
"Right," I said. I'd said all of that in some dim, distant past that really wasn't all that long ago. I'd meant it. And all of that changed the moment William Adama took me in his arms.
"And he changed all that for you?" she said. Hurt tears shone in her eyes.
"I don't want to talk about me and Will," I said. "I want to talk about me and you."
"There is no me and you," Caroline said.
"You can't stop being friends without my permission," I said and she looked startled. I could see the memory surface, a teenage row, again over a desirable male. That one had been interested in me until he fell under Caroline's gorgeous glamour. I'd wanted to die from the loss of that love, and I'd hated Caroline. She couldn't have cared less about the boy and renounced him easily, for the sake of our friendship. But he never came back to me.
"What's the difference, now, Laura?" she asked.
"The difference is, we're women now. The difference is, I really want the boy. The difference is, this time you will lose me... lose us... if you force me to choose."
"I want the boy, too," Caro said sadly.
"I know," I said. "And if I walked away from him, for your sake, do you honestly think he'd go back to you?"
Caro glared at me. "I wouldn't have him if he did."
"That's not what I asked you," I said. "I know you're having a hard time wrapping your brain around the concept that a male might actually prefer me to you, but it's a strange universe." Words I'd wanted to say to Caroline Sawyer since... forever. I could see surprise on her face that I might've even entertained such thoughts. "Has any man you conquered ever walked away from you?" I asked. I could see her thinking that over. She finally looked up at me.
"The first is the hardest," she admitted.
"And therefore not truly conquered?" I said.
Her eyes filled with tears again. "He never once said he loved me," she said. "He was incredible in bed... but he never said he loved me."
"The bastard," I said. Caro looked at me in surprise, then we both started laughing.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
They invited me to their wedding, and although it hurt me, I went.
Laura and I got past our estrangement, although our relationship would never be the same. When we were young, I had dreamt of love and marriage and babies and Laura had waved all those dreams away as inconsequential fluff. There were bigger things in the world to do than create a family, she'd declared, although when pressed she acknowledged that family was important, too.
So important. I'd always imagined being the bride, with Laura as my attendant, because she was my best and oldest friend. Laura didn't ask me to stand up with her, for obvious reasons. Our relationship hadn't improved that much. It hadn't been that long since my party – but I think she and I will get to a better place than we are now.
Laura was a beautiful bride, in a white dress that was too tight across the bosom, wearing a crown of white blossoms on her head. Her face was full of the heartbreaking luminosity found only in women who are carrying the child of the man they're about to marry.
And Bill... He looked good enough to eat in his dress grays. And happy and insufferably pleased with himself, as well he should. He'd made a baby, after all.
I couldn't look at him, although he had no trouble meeting my eye. He, after all, had followed his heart. And if I'd mistakenly thought that that heart belonged to me, well it was nobody's fault but my own.
They looked lovely together, autumn and winter, and their love for each other was almost palpable. I stood outside it all, wishing it were me as, I'm beginning to realize, Laura Roslin always had, calmly smiling in my shadow all these years, happy for my sake.
She's my friend. The least I can do is be happy for her sake.
No matter how much it costs me.
End