Four days. He'd been watching her die for four days.

For some reason Billy had always imagined President Roslin's death would be elegant, like the woman herself. Like in the movies, where the heroine simply succumbs to her illness with a final flutter of her eyes moments after uttering poetic last words.

Death could, perhaps, be considered romantic or noble if it fit the plot. Dying, in the realm of real life, was undignified and harrowing and cruel.

President Roslin's decline was breaking even the great and stoic Admiral William Adama. On the second day she was in LifeStation Billy had returned from an enforced break to find the older man tracing the angry bruises on her arms, the result of fragile skin and many, many needles, while tears ran unchecked down his face. Before the Admiral noticed his presence, Billy heard him muttering "oh, Laura" mournfully over and over again to her still form.

The meetings the president insisted on holding were the hardest for Billy. It was pure force of will by which she got through them but afterward she could barely breathe or raise her head. He was the one, not the Vice President or the Admiral or anyone else, who soothed her through the excruciating spasms that shot through her chest as she struggled to regain her breath. His whole body relaxed in relief when, each time so far, she finally succeeded and sank back into that space between sleep and consciousness.

Now, on the fourth day, Laura Roslin's moments of lucidity were few and far between. When she regained consciousness she was often confused. Billy had played former President Adar in one conversation and the Admiral in another unknown dream. The worst was when she looked up at him and asked, weakly, "what's happening?"

When the president woke this time and turned her head to look at him, Billy could tell she knew exactly what was happening and he knew exactly what she wanted. He'd become an expert in reading the torment in her soft green eyes to figure out what she needed to try to fend it off. Without letting go of her hand he turned to retrieve the cup of ice sitting on the nearby table and gently spooned a tiny amount through her chapped lips. Swallowing water had become too painful, her esophagus inflamed and swollen from the advancement of the cancer.

Laura sighed gratefully at the cool sensation and Billy expected her to fall back onto the pillow into unconsciousness again. Instead she spoke in a hoarse voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Update?" She paused to gasp for breath. "On the Cylon child?"

Billy was surprised at President Roslin's ability to remember her orders but he knew he shouldn't be. His already generous estimation of her strength had increased exponentially over the past few days.

"That will be taken care of in a few hours, ma'am." He tried to keep the disapproval out of his voice. She knew he disagreed with the decision on principle. He knew she didn't have the strength to argue and would never ask her to explain herself now. She never liked to do that even under normal circumstances.

She nodded almost imperceptibly, her face impassive. "The explosion?"

Billy is annoyed that President Roslin's beloved Captain Apollo was so careless to tell her about this. His deal with the Admiral, not to upset the president with anymore unpleasant information, obviously held no sway with his son.

"Admiral Adama is handling it," he replied confidently.

"Report?" The president wasn't looking at him now, her eyes clenched shut, but Billy knew that she was asking if he had the official document detailing the incident.

"Yes, Madame President. But…" he trailed off when she clutched his hand tighter.

"Read it to me," Laura gasped, eyes still closed.

"Ma'am, it's under control. You should be resting."

"Read." She arched back in obvious pain and it took several seconds to find her voice again. "Please. Gives me something to focus on."

Resigned, Billy let go of her hand and moved to the end of the bed to sit her up just enough so she wasn't staring into the light. He returned to his chair, found the report in the president's bag that he'd been using as his own, took her hand again, and began to read.

After several minutes it was clear that the pain had become unbearable. The president was restless now, twisting her body on the bed, and muttering incoherently.

"Ma'am?"

She could still hear the young man's voice. "Read," she ordered weakly.

Billy looked at her in alarm but didn't refuse. He recited several more lines before her mutterings turned into heartbreaking whimpers. The president's formerly beautiful face was contorted in agony.

"Oh my Gods, Madame President, please. Please let me get Doc Cottle to give you a shot of morpha. You don't have to suffer like this." He couldn't keep the tears out of his voice. He could barely stand to watch. He couldn't bear to think about what this must feel like for his friend.

"No," she whispered.

Billy obeyed but couldn't continue when the president started to writhe frantically and her mutterings and whimpers turned to breathless, almost incoherent cries for help. The monitors registered her body's distress and signaled loud calls of alarm.

Billy stood to lean directly over her, his voice rising in panic. "Madame President? Madame President, can you hear me?"

Cottle, accompanied by two nurses, rushed in and surveyed the sight before him. He locked eyes with the Billy and silently asked for permission. When the young man nodded, he yelled for the nurse to inject the strongest morpha still available into the IV on the president's arm.

It took several agonizing minutes for the medicine to take effect. Finally, though, Laura's cries started to subside and her body's desperate thrashings slowed. When she finally went limp, sinking back deeply into the folds of the bed, her features had relaxed into something resembling relief.

Cottle smoothed her hair back before taking her pulse and checking one of the sensors on her arm. He shook his head mournfully.

"Notify the Admiral," he ordered one of his staff.

When the doctor released the president's arm, Billy sat down in his chair at her side and took her hand once again. He paused before looking up at the doctor, unsure what response he wanted to his question.

"She won't wake up again, will she?"

Cottle sighed. "No. But it's for the best. She's not suffering anymore. It won't be long now."

Billy's face crumpled. He didn't want Laura Roslin to die in agony but he selfishly wanted to look into her eyes one more time. Have just one more coherent conversation. He found himself wondering if he'd done enough to make sure she knew how much she meant to him.

"Keep holding her hand, son. She knows you're here." The gentleness of Cottle's tone, such a stark contrast to his usual demeanor, threatened to unloose the tears flooding to Billy's eyes.

Thankfully the doctor turned to leave before they could overflow. Once he was gone, Billy laid his head down on the bed near where his hand was intertwined with the president's and sobbed.

He woke to the pressure of a warm, strong hand on his shoulder. He looked first to President Roslin, terrified she'd let go while he slept, and huffed in relief when he saw her take a breath. Reassured, he looked up and found Admiral Adama looking down with an odd look on his face.

"Come with me for a minute, son?" Adama jerked his finger toward the curtain.

Billy hesitated. He assumed Baltar had already frakked something up and, while he might care when it became his job to deal with the mess, he wouldn't leave his president in her final minutes because of that frakweasel's ineptitude.

"Just for a minute. We need to hurry." Bill shot a worried look at his unconscious friend before turning his gaze back to her adopted son.

Billy rose and followed the older man to just outside the curtain where he could still watch the president's chest rise and fall.

Billy had never seen the Admiral look so scared. His eyes flashed unsurety in a way the boy was sure few people in the fleet, no the world, had ever seen before.

"Billy, Baltar has found that the blood of the Cylon fetus kills cancer cells."

When Billy looked back at him, uncomprehending, Bill continued.

"He thinks there's a chance that injecting the president with Cylon blood could cure her cancer. Or at least give her a little more time."

The younger man staggered when the Admiral finished his statement and the military man reached out to steady his weight by clutching his shoulders.

"I'm going to have him try it. I just…" Bill paused. He wasn't asking an aide not too far removed from adolescence for permission. But something about the way he'd seen the boy care for Laura all these months wouldn't allow him to do anything to her without his knowledge, if not consent.

Billy was still trying to understand what the Admiral was saying. Laura Roslin had been dying for months, much longer than anyone else knew, and while he hadn't been able to come to terms with it he had at least accepted it as fact. Now the loony Vice President and the lovestruck Admiral wanted to subject her to some crazy experiment?

"Will it hurt? Don't cause her any more pain, please. She's so spent and…" Billy's voice trailed off tearfully.

Adama patted his arm reassuringly. He was touched, not for the first time by any means, by the boy's earnest and single-minded concern for Laura's comfort.

"Baltar says it will be just like a normal blood transfusion. Cottle says he's given her enough drugs she won't know what's going on no matter what. There's no harm if it fails."

Billy looked back at the pale woman lying reasonably comfortably on the bed just inside the curtain and thought of her pleas for help hours earlier. He narrowed his eyes at the Admiral.

"Do it."

The authoritative insistence in Billy's voice was an almost perfect imitation of the way Bill had heard the president speak those words so many times before. He chose to take it as a sign that Laura might one day forgive him if, by some miracle, this crazy scheme worked.

Billy watched as one half of of humanity's leadership walked back inside the curtain, leaned down and kissed his counterpart lovingly on the forehead.

"It's ok, Laura. Don't be afraid. It's going to be alright." He lingered for several moments, stroking the president's hair and whispering into her cheek, before gruffly telling Billy he was needed in CIC.

The pure vulnerability of that gesture was part of the reason Billy could barely contain his anger when the Admiral didn't return with Baltar and the pregnant Cylon. He wondered how the man would dare order something like this done to the woman he obviously loved and refuse to be there with her when it was carried out. It was the first and only time he'd ever think of Admiral Adama as a coward.

He forgot his anger and everything else when the vice president inserted the biggest needle he'd ever seen into that thing's stomach and moved to inject the Cylon blood serum into the president's IV. His hope and curiosity turned to abject terror when President Roslin began to seize violently. Despite his promise to Cottle that he would stay out of the way no matter what happened he couldn't help but run to help the nurses turn her on her side, holding onto her legs with such desperation he would later worry he'd bruised them.

Suddenly the president stilled. Her heart monitor stopped and Billy could have sworn his own heart did as well.

Her eyes opened. The tension in the room crested as she looked up in recognition, clutching her vice president's hand before raising a delicate finger to identify him.

Billy's gasp of relief was the loudest. He smiled for what seemed like the first time in months.

What had been one of the worst days of his life had become, maybe, hopefully, the absolute best.