Prompt: "Are you taking his/her side against me?"
Set: late season 4.0
She can't remember telling him about this appointment, but he shows up anyway, brings a book, sits in the chair by her bed and watches as Cottle slides the sharp point of the needle into the back of her hand, just below her knuckles. (The delicate skin is bruised and tender from yesterday's treatment, but she doesn't wince, not when he's here to see it.)
"Either put that away or don't get worked up about it," Cottle orders, pointing a cigarette—lit, naturally—at the pile of Fleet requests and Quorum minutes in her lap. "You don't want to get upset right now."
She remembers what happened last time—the crushing nausea, the clawing headache, emptying her stomach over and over into a shallow bowl—and she knows he is right.
But there is so much to do, and so little time.
She gives Cottle's retreating form a sour look over her glasses and picks up her pen.
"I thought we could finish Love and Bullets," Bill puts in, his voice low. He won't argue with her—not quite, not over this—but he's not going to give up, either, and they both know it.
She levels her eyes at him. "Are you taking his side against me?"
It's a joke, but it isn't.
"Yes," he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily, trying to smile. "The doc and I are plotting against you. We're going to get you better whether you like it or not."
It's a joke, but it isn't.
She already knows she won't be getting better, that there will be no cure, no remission, no weeks or months of comparative peace, of tenuous hope. She can read it in Cottle's eyes, even as she reads it in Pythia's scrolls.
She is dying, and soon.
Bill won't face it, she already knows. He will sit by her side, always with a book, peering through a magnifying glass at tiny print on faded pages so he doesn't have to see that she is fading, too. She knows he pretends her wig is merely a new style, the prominence of her bones a sign of overwork and poor nutrition, the ash of her complexion merely a lack of sunlight.
She knows, because she pretends sometimes, too.
It doesn't help him, and it won't save her. But sometimes, when he looks at her, the need in his eyes so strong, the temptation is too great: to give up being a president, a prophet, a patient (just for a little while) to get to be Laura again, while there is still time.
There is so little time.
He feels it, but he doesn't believe it. Not yet.
He's watching her now, his brow furrowed, his thick shoulders tense, waiting for the bell to ring: the end of the fight, or the start of round two?
But there is so little time.
She lets her pen slide from her fingers, her pile of paperwork fall from her lap. "Yes, sir," she teases.
The relief in his eyes is painful (another stab where she is already sore) and he relaxes, opens the book and reaches for her hand, the one without the needle. (He always holds the hand without the needle. She does not wonder which one of them he fears to hurt.)
It doesn't help him, and it won't save her.
But there is so little time.