Rated: T for now

Summary: Another Alternative Universe after Bill and Laura spend the night together on New Caprica

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters don't belong to me. I make no money from this work of fiction.

A/N: Thank you to Laura Mayfair and her cat who proofread the story. And thanks to all of those who tell me what they think.

Zagreus

Part 4

New Caprica

Day 380 of the settlement, thirty-seven weeks after the ground breaking ceremony.

A sense of dread filled Laura as she heard the whooshing sounds coming from the sky and she went outside, hoping to see an unruly pilot having fun above the settlement. But when her worst fears were proven to be true, the first thought that came to her mind was to protect the children. She ushered the curious students back inside the tent and closed the curtain door, as if the fabric could somehow protect them. At least they wouldn't have to see it. She stood in front of the tent, last rampart to a new generation that would most likely die before nightfall. Ironically her own impending doom didn't even register in her mind. She had so often been close to death that it had become a part of her.

Laura then spared a prayer for her one time lover, hoping that he had successfully led away those left in space now that she wasn't there to tell him. She wondered briefly why the Cylon Raiders had even bothered to come into the atmosphere instead of nuking the planet like they had done before but chased the question away, unwilling to allow them to occupy what would probably be her final thoughts.

Like she had the last time she had found herself about to die, she redirected her mind to the tipping point that led them there, namely the original holocaust on the colonies. Billy's worries when she had come out of the bathroom, Captain Apollo intrigued by her taking charge, her swearing in, the abandonment of thousands of people, the meeting with commander Adama in the Galactica at the Ragnar anchorage, their fleeing after leaving the storm…

Laura suddenly realized that there was one thing fundamentally different from all of her previous Cylon encounters: there was no shooting. She kept her eyes trained on the sky, spotting a heavy Raider flying down, as if to land near where the Colonial One was supposed to be. A few minutes afterward all heavy Raiders disappeared from the sky and soon Centurions were marching down the streets. Laura irrationally congratulated herself for sending Maya and the baby home early. It didn't really make sense since no one knew about the true parentage of the child but it made Laura feel that it would protect them somehow.

She wasn't sure what the Cylons were hoping to achieve here but she was certain she wasn't going to like it. Practically everyone was in the street, watching with morbid fascination and dread. After the Centurions came the skin-jobs. One of the "priests" she had airlocked just before the election was followed by a Black man that Starbuck had mentioned but whom she had never met and D'Anna Biers. The sight made Laura take a second glance before letting it go. There was nothing more to do now. A Sharon, a Doral and one of the Blondes joined them from the Colonial One and a Leoben came from an inner street. The latter made a bee-line for Kara Thrace while the female models came to stand before her.

"Laura Roslin, you will follow us now."

She was used to the journalist voice and wondered if that was a same copy that had travelled with them or if this one had arrived with its fellow machines. She nodded and started to follow them. There was no point in defying them without even knowing what they wanted but she would be damned before she left her students unattended. She looked around for someone she could trust.

"Tyrol." She called "The school."

She didn't look back to check is he had understood what she had asked because at the same moment some pain in her lower back and abdomen made her freeze. It was not the time for a Braxton-Hicks and it was certainly not the time for premature labour. A Centurion stepped behind her, his "hand" becoming a gun. She took a deep breath and ignored the pain, like she had gotten used to during her cancer. If it kept on she would go and see Cottle as soon as the Cylons were done with her. She didn't even register the fact that she wasn't sure she would actually be alive once the Cylons were done with her.

After a minute the pain stopped and she was able to walk more easily as she followed them to the ship she used to live in. Everything happened quietly, the Cylons not volunteering information on why they wanted her, Laura not asking. As she crossed one of the Colonial One hatch the pain came back, sharper this time, causing her to stumble and catch herself on the bulkhead.

"Something's not right." One of the black models commented.

"Really?" Laura replied between her teeth, her jaw locked as a way to control the pain.

"She's pregnant," D'Anna offered, unknowingly answering Laura's early internal question about the identity of the copy.

The former President stiffened suddenly as unwanted and foreign hands started feeling her abdomen.

"Not for long. She needs medical attention, we should take her to the Baseship."

"What for? She's not our problem." The priest interjected.

"It would be a nice gesture of peace to help her." The blonde model explained.

"I don't need your help." Laura said through still gritted teeth.

They ignored her and started discussing together. As the pain started to recede, the dark-skinned Cylon turned to her again.

"Back this way Laura. We'll take care of you."

"I don't need your help. I don't want your help." She repeated.

"It's not up to you, actually."

He took something out of a bag the Doral gave him and took her upper arm. Before she could shake him off, he had used the syringe to give her a shot. Very much like the time she had taken too many Chamalla pills, Laura felt herself becoming dizzy and unfocussed just before reality dissolved into nothingness.

)-oO,o.

New Caprica

Day 382 of the settlement, thirty-seven weeks and a half after the ground breaking ceremony, day 2 of Cylon occupation.

Laura gradually became aware of being cold. She didn't really know where she was, she wasn't on her mattress and yet she could feel the unfortunately familiar draft of the New Caprican tents. She was on her back, which was strange because for the last two months her pregnancy had made it quite uncomfortable, making her abdomen ache. It actually ached right now, she realized. She was about to turn on her side when she noticed that the aching was the only thing she felt: no kicking, no movement and no fluttering.

She put her hand where she was most used to feel her child and her breath hitched when instead of the tense skin she had gotten used to touching there was a flaccid belly. Before her worries could develop into a full panic attack, she heard a familiar voice.

"She's waking up, Miss Foster. Can you let me do my job now?"

A few seconds later Doctor Cottle appeared near her medical bed.

"Baby?" She managed to articulate around her sore throat.

"The Cylon told me he was a still born. You apparently suffered from eclampsia and they were barely able to save you as it is. The emergency C-section wasn't enough to save him as well; it was too late. They also performed an emergency hysterectomy."

"Is it true?" She asked softly.

He seemed to understand what she meant because he looked pained.

"I can't know for sure. You may have suffered from eclampsia: you always had a slight hypertension. As for your son, it's best not to know."

"Son?"

"Yes. They told me it was a boy. They kept the body. I think they only brought you back here when some of the people started accusing them of secretly killing you."

It didn't really make sense. They had talked about helping her, to help the peace or some similar crap. Did they think that helping out one person – if that was actually what they did – would make up for the slaughter of billions? Before she could even think about voicing her reflection, she realized it was black outside and Cottle wasn't next to her bed anymore. The experience was reminding her a bit too much of the day she had spent before being injected with half-Cylon blood.

People must have been coming and going all day but all she could remember was that every time she had opened her eyes after blinking to share a new idea she had had about the conversation she was having it was someone else next to her. The pain wasn't as bad and the breathing so much easier but it was the same fuzzy sensation inside her brain. It wasn't a good alcohol induced fuzzing. It was a cloudy, hard to shake hard drug induced fuzzy. And she didn't like it one bit.

"… Orpha" She rasped.

A few seconds later a nurse was near her bed.

"Are you in pain?"

She shook her head slightly and coughed a little before trying again.

"No Morpha."

'No, we cut you off a few hours ago. I don't think doctor Cottle would allow you to have more."

"Good."

She turned her head to the other side of the bed and closed her eyes. Why had she thought it was a good idea to give birth? Oh right she hadn't any choice. Not that she remember any of it anyway. She felt a few tears escape her eyes. Did she have a good reason to be sad? She didn't remember. Might be pregnancy hormones… Oh. She remembered. She wasn't pregnant anymore. That's why she was sad.

And it was day again. Or dawn because there wasn't so much darkness as before. But it might be a rainy day. New Caprica wasn't lacking in that department. The cloud in her head was not as heavy anymore. She became aware that someone was standing next to her bed but she couldn't really see who it was, her absent glasses making the unfamiliar silhouette unclear.

"What happened to you?" The person, Ellen Tigh, if her ears were to be trusted, asked.

"Sorry, what?"

"What put you in this bed? The last time I saw you like that was in the brig in Galactica."

Oh, Chamalla withdrawal. No, that wasn't a good memory either. Did the woman enjoy seeing her down that way? Unless Tigh had been taken too? She still didn't know why they had picked her up in the first place. Did the Cylon think she knew where Admiral Adama had jumped? She hadn't set foot on a battlestar in over a year. But Colonel Tigh had just come down.

"Don't remember, why?"

"Starbuck has disappeared. No one knows where she is, everyone thought you were together. But you came back and she didn't."

"Didn't know."

Oh. She knew: she had seen the Leoben walking up to Kara. But she hadn't thought much of it at the time. They didn't go to the Colonial One together. Maybe Kara was a Cylon too, just like D'Anna Biers was? No, the idea was ridiculous. Next thing she knew she would suggest that Tory was a Cylon. Thinking of her former aide reminded her of her current job.

"School?" She asked

"What?"

"How is the School?"

"I don't know. But I think I'd know if there had been a children bloodbath."

"Good. Adama?"

"No news. He's gone."

"He'll be back." She said with the same finality and confidence she had when she had said that settling on this planet was a mistake.

She closed her eyes, tired of screwing up her eyes to focus on Ellen. Her visitor must have misinterpreted her action because she quickly said good-bye and left. Laura couldn't say she was upset to see her go for she didn't care much about the woman on the best of days – and it wasn't the best of days – but she had been a distraction. Not a nice distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. The familiar scent of cigarettes reached her nose and she opened her eyes.

"You seem more alert today. We'll try to have you walking the afternoon and then you can give me my bed back by tomorrow."

She smiled sadly, used by now to the grumbly bedside manners. The best she could do now was to move on, to forget it had ever happen and to fight the Cylons back. She knew that some of the Galactica former crewmen that had moved down here would form a resistance -and she would be part of it.

)-oO,o.

A/N: Please don't hate me ! Still I'd love to hear what you think though. I should post the next one on saturday.