Chapter 3

"Good morning," Bill whispered into her ear.

These days, even before she opened her eyes, Laura was smiling.

"Morning," she yawned, stretching lazily in his arms, feeling the length of his body nestled against hers. Early morning light flooded their tent, casting a warm golden glow on the thick green military-issue canvas around them. Laura sighed in contentment and turned in Bill's arms, burying her face in his chest. Mornings were one of her favorite times of day now.

They'd been on this planet—Laura still wasn't sure she'd ever quite think of it as Earth—for three weeks now, twenty-one nights of falling asleep together in this tent and twenty-one mornings of waking up, still here, still together. It wasn't nearly as long as they had run after the attacks, or even as long as they had settled on New Caprica, but it was enough time that Laura could feel both herself and Bill begin to relax here, begin to trust that this planet, too, would not be ripped away from them. For the first few mornings, they'd blinked awake in the unfamiliar sunlight, hearts pounding, disoriented, until they placed themselves here in this tent, on this hill, on this planet. Now, even though she knew she hadn't come close to learning all of its secrets, this planet was no longer a stranger; Laura was coming to think of it as a friend.

"Time to get up," Bill said softly, rousing her from her daydream.

Laura shook her head against his chest, tightening her grip on him and burrowing further under the blanket. It wasn't that she minded getting up—not for a second, not anymore—but she loved knowing that they didn't have to, that they could waste the entire day in this sleeping bag if they wanted to.

Sometimes they did.

Even with her eyes shut, she could feel Bill's smile. "Fine," he said, giving in easily. "We don't have to get up. Of course, we were going to start laying out the posts for the cabin today, but if you'd rather live in this tent for the rest of your life—"

"Up," Laura commanded, already sitting up and reaching for her glasses. From beneath her, she could hear Bill chuckling softly.

Laura was already halfway into her clothes.

"Just for that, you're making breakfast," she informed him.

Bill laughed harder.

After breakfast, which Bill did make—fish that they'd caught from their lake, cooked over a fire pit they'd built from stones they'd collected, along with nuts and berries they'd gathered the day before—they headed over to the site they'd picked out for their cabin, just at the summit of the hill.

Two days ago, they'd stood there at sunset, watching the fading light turn the valley beneath them to indigo. They'd spent the day sawing logs down to size, then hauled them up to the site, just as the light was beginning to go.

Well, Laura amended, to be perfectly fair, Bill had done most of the heavy lifting. She was feeling good these days, better than she would have believed, in fact, not even a month ago—but she still tired easily, still had yet to gain back all of her strength. She wasn't worried. She remembered this weariness from the first cure, back on Galactica. It would just take time.

And they had plenty of time.

"We ought to be able to get the posts planted for the perimeter of the cabin before we lose the light," Bill mused, peering at the plans through his glasses.

Laura leaned over his shoulder to look, even though she'd had the blueprint memorized weeks ago. She loved these plans: every line, every curve, every wrinkle in the paper.

"Then come the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling…" Bill continued.

"You mean, actually building the thing?" Laura teased.

He snorted. "Well, it's not going to build itself," he said, tucking the plans, carefully folded, back into the pocket of his jacket. "So we might as well get started."

It didn't take them long to get into a rhythm, with Laura digging a hole for each post, the two of them hoisting each carefully cut plank upright, and Bill hammering each post into place. In fact, if Laura was surprised by anything—and after making peace with the Cylons, finding Earth, and being cured of her cancer, nothing much came as a shock to her anymore—it was how quickly she and Bill continued to adapt to this place. She would have thought that the transition—from life on the ship to life on the ground, from FTL drives and running water to fire pits and footpaths, from commanding a fleet to gathering berries—would have been rougher, on both of them. Instead, they seemed to slip smoothly into this new life, the way they slid into the lake here, the heat of the air easing them into the warmth of the water.

She wondered, sometimes, if they would ever get sick of this planet, this life, and long for what they'd had, and given up…or if they'd fought and suffered and lost enough getting here to never want to go back.

Looking at Bill now, at the sun warming his olive skin and the energy sparkling in his blue eyes, Laura wasn't worried.

"It's a beautiful day," she said aloud.

Bill grinned, pausing to wipe the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "You say that every day."

"It's true every day," Laura argued.

Bill's smile softened. "That it is."

He gave the post a final push into the earth, giving it an approving slap with his hand.

Laura giggled.

Bill lifted his eyebrows.

"You just…" She shouldn't tease him, really. She loved him for this, loved him for his hand-drawn plans and his carefully cut logs and his honest enthusiasm for every part of this project. She'd wondered, sometimes, what they would have been like together if they'd met back on the colonies, what their life would have been like, if they could have been this happy.

Somehow, she doubted it.

No one could ever possibly be this happy.

"You're good at this," she said instead.

"When I was a kid I spent summers on my uncle's farm," Bill said. "I've built a shed or two in my day."

Another giggle slipped free; Laura tried to turn it into a cough. From the look on his face, Laura could tell that Bill wasn't fooled.

"You worked on a farm," she repeated. "You. On…a farm?"

One corner of Bill's mouth lifted. "On a farm," he informed her. "With chickens."

This time, Laura didn't even try to hide her glee. "Please tell me you fed them."

Bill grinned. "On occasion."

Laura propped her chin up in her hand. "Tell me about it."

Bill shook his head, amused. "About feeding chickens?"

That wasn't quite it, no.

Laura shrugged, trying to find the words. "I forget sometimes how much about you I don't know," she said at last. "I think I know you so well, and—"

"You do," Bill argued, his voice low, his eyes concerned.

Laura reached for his hand, squeezing his fingers to let him know that it was all right, she wasn't upset. "Tell me something about you," she prompted. "Something that I don't know."

Bill leaned back against the post. "Well, my father was a lawyer…but you know that."

"I do."

"My mother was an accountant," Bill continued. "Did you know that?"

Laura nodded. "It was in the dossier that Billy prepared for me on my first day on Galactica."

Bill smiled. "How come I didn't get a dossier on you?"

"You wouldn't have read it, anyway," Laura reminded him.

"A report on the naïve little schoolteacher who was coming to decommission my battlestar and ruin my life?" Bill teased. "Not a chance."

Laura stretched out on the grass, letting her head come to rest in Bill's lap. "You haven't told me anything I don't know yet," she reminded him.

Bill's fingers played absently with the reddish fuzz that was just beginning to grow back in on her scalp. "Let's see…I was an only child, did you know that?"

"No, but it shows," Laura said dryly.

From this angle, she couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling. "And let me guess…you were the oldest," he teased. "That's how you got so good at telling people what to do."

Someday, Laura knew, she would tell Bill about her sisters, about her father. But not now. Not today.

"That's when I learned that other people needed to be told what to do," she corrected.

Bill snorted. "And you grew up in Caprica City, right?"

Laura nodded against his lap. "That's probably why I'm so much more sophisticated than you."

"Hey," Bill said, pretending to be offended. "I'll have you know lots of girls were into hot Viper jocks."

"Farm boys are so popular," Laura teased.

Bill's hand was still moving on her head, and Laura closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensation. She was startled when Bill spoke again.

"When I was ten," he said, "my father was always trying to get me to read more. He was a law professor by then, and he was always reading, writing—law books, legal briefs, case reviews, that kind of thing. And I…well, I didn't want to be like him. I wanted to be like my uncles—going places, doing things, not sitting around all day in a study…"

Laura smiled, but gently.

"Anyway, one day, a friend of my father's brings a book to the house. A mystery. And he asks my father if he's ever read it."

Laura tilted her head up to see the smile on his face.

"And my father starts going on about how much he hates mysteries. They're trashy, and badly written, and you always know who did it by the end anyway…"

Laura shook her head in mock despair. "Now they tell me."

Bill's smile grew wry. "So that summer, I went to the library, and I checked out every mystery they had."

Laura reached up, touching his cheek. "I'm glad you did."

His smile turned soft. "Me, too."

Laura let her fingers drift, across the bridge of his nose, down the craggy plane of his cheek.

"And what about ten-year-old Laura Roslin?" Bill asked, looking down at her.

Laura shook her head. "Sometimes I think we're not so different," she said. "And sometimes…"

"Sometimes?" Bill prompted, his voice gentle.

"I wonder what she'd think of me," Laura mused. "I wonder…well, I wonder what I would tell her. What I wish someone had told me."

"And what would you tell her?" Bill asked, his voice quiet.

Laura hesitated. "I suppose…"

Don't let your sisters get in the car. Stop Billy from going to Cloud 9. Tell Elosha to watch her step. Steal the election. Get that frakkin' breast exam.

"I think I'd tell her that everything will be okay," she said at last. "But I'm not sure she'd believe me. I mean, I'm not sure I'd believe me…"

"You are kind of stubborn," Bill informed her.

Laura snorted. "What would you tell ten-year-old Bill?"

He grinned. "That's easy," he said, bringing her hand to his lips. "Be nicer to the schoolteacher."