Chapter 12: A Message Too Late


There were at least seven thousand wrecked Centurions and countless deaths among the Cylons the more time went on. Many were lost among the Humans too, and Bill lived with the guilt of seeing the people pay in such a way, especially when he'd look at Laura and know she was imagining her white board on Colonial One. But they were done with running, done with being run over. And the people agreed with them.

And then it happened. One day, the very hope he had refused to believe in for so long came true. Bill had been out early that morning to meet with an unusually excited Gaeta.

"Chief sent me this from the caves," Gaeta had said, handing him a folded printout.

The caves had been an accident. A discovery by the mine workers Baltar had ordered to seek out ground fuels for the Colonists, the caves had come to be used as a base for their resistance. Most of the time, Bill had stayed there, allowing Laura the safety of having nothing to hide. Only the night before had he come back to her, delivering any news he could.

Now he sat on their bed, heart in his throat.

'75 to NC. We're coming for you' said the first part. 'Kid' said the second.

Kid. His heart sped up as the clue began to make sense. Kid. Saul had always jokingly called him The Kid during their early friendship. Bill had not only been the youngest, but also looked so among the men and women of the freighter they'd met on. Kid....Saul had sent the message.

He laughed a bit unsteadily. Saul and Lee were coming back. He wasn't sure how it was going to work out, or if his ship and his best friend would be able to make it through, but they were coming. They hadn't given up. And that was all he could think about.

"Bill?"

He looked up as Laura came around the curtain. He took her hands in his as she knelt, taking them from his knees to be held in the air between them. She smiled at the look on his face, some confusion still settled on her brow.

"Saul and Lee are coming back for us." He said, nodding to his right.

She looked at the note resting at his side. A moment passed as she read. Then another.

Her breath broke the silence , eyes suddenly bright and large as she turned back to him. A sound, something between a sob and a laugh, broke over him and then both of them to laugh.

"Oh Gods," She cried, throwing herself in his arms. He spun her around in a circle, the feel of her laugh echoing through his chest and into the skin of his neck. The life he felt in his arms warmed him all over again.

Setting her down, he only had moments to register her movements before she pulled him into a deep kiss.

"Gods I love you," She whispered, lips pulling back only an inch from his as she spoke. He recaptured them as he spun her again.

"When?" She breathed.

"I don't know. But if they've sent that message, they have a plan," he replied. Her smile faltered as a thought crossed her eyes.

"Bill, Galactica can't fight them off long enough to get us all out, can she?"

His joy evaporated. No, the old girl couldn't. Pegasus, perhaps, but not Galactica.

"No, but we can't be sure Saul and Lee don't have a plan between the two of them. We just sit tight and get the resistance ready. I've already sorted it out with Chief and Sam."

She put a hand to his cheek," Always my Admiral," and smiled," I have faith in them, Bill. I just want my family to come through this."

Bill opened his mouth to tell her how damned gorgeous she was when she talked like that, but a rustle at the tent flap prevented it. He turned his head just as Ellen came in.

"Sam said you got something."

Bill smiled and handed her the note as Laura took a seat next to him on the bed. Ellen's eye racked the message and she, like Laura, let out a sound of joy. He stood to retrieve and burn the incriminating message. But before he could react (what was with women and their ability to completely surprise him?) she had thown her arms around his neck, laughing.

He laughed with her, and wondered just for a moment when this woman had turned from obnoxious pain-in-the-ass to a brave friend. Ten years before, he'd have asked anyone who'd described this very scene just how many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters they'd had and yet here it was.

"What can I do?"

Bill considered Ellen a moment before speaking. She really had become the woman Saul deserved, "Just be ready and let the Chief, Sam, or myself know if you see the Cylons change anything about the colony."

"Okay.," She replied, face still unimaginably bright, and left.

"Wonders never cease," Laura said, a bemused expression on her face. Bill chuckled.

"And now we wait." He said.

She moved to lay her head on his shoulder, one arm snaking around his waist. But before she could, Bill's well trained ears picked up a sound become all too familiar over their long imprisonment.

He tensed.

"Bill, what?"

He pulled her behind him just as the tent flap opened up. Three Centurions stood, guns drawn and pointed at Bill's chest—for a moment he saw another time and place, but a beloved face instead of red beams—with a Three they recognized by her hairstyle as being D'anna Biers.

"I knew it. The attacks got far too sophisticated for a bunch of criminals and civilians." She said, smiling darkly at them both.

"No!" Bill and Laura started. D'anna smiled again and she stepped aside. Ellen, hair mussed and face bruising already, was held between two other Centurions, "Bill, I'm sorry. They caught me. I didn--"

"Its not your fault, Ellen."

Ellen dropped her eyes, tears beginning to leak down her cheeks.

"Take him. Its about time the people see what we do to those who fight us." D'anna said, ignoring the drama around her. The Centurions pounced on Bill, yanking him out of Laura's grasp. She screamed, jumping forward and throwing her fist at D'anna. The Cylon's eyes widened as Laura's fist made contact and she flew backwards. Bill spared a second to be incredibly proud of her before his eyes turned to the Centurions. The two holding Ellen dropped her in the mud, and she made a sickening thud before rolling to her side.

One of the turned around, pointing it's hand gun at a few people who'd come outside when Laura had screamed. The other was in front of his wife before anyone could blink and knocked her aside with one grand sweep of it's metalic arm. She, like Ellen, hit the floor, but she didn't move once she had.

"Laura!? LAURA!" Oh Gods, no. Not after her close call, after Cancer and Cain, not after he'd just got her back.

"LAURA!!"

"Take him to the Detention Center." D'anna ordered, getting up from the mud, jacket and hair coated in it, yet looking completely calm. Only the huge bump on her cheek betrayed her humiliation.

She turned to the onlookers, who Bill noticed now included Chief and Racetrack. Both of those faces were pale and drawn, a sense of guilt in their eyes.

'Not your fault,' Bill thought, pain beginning to run up him arms from the grip of the Centurions, 'Never your fault.'

"You hid your Admiral well. But this insolence ends now. Tomorrow afternoon, your revolt ends," D'anna said to the people. Bill was pulled along beside her, craning his neck to see if Laura had moved. She hadn't, but he saw Cally kneeling down next to her, one hand around her wrist. The young woman's eyes connected with his and she nodded curtly, but then let out a cry more suited to a wounded animal than a young woman.

He knew she was listening to D'anna, but he was so intent on the meaning of that curt nod that he missed what the Three was saying.

"NO!"

"STOP THEM! STOP THEM!!"

"YOU FRAKIN' CYLON WHORE!!"

"BITCH!"

"SIR!!!!"

D'anna turned to him, that same smile still plastered across her face. A chill caught Bill's breath in his throat at the look in her eyes. It was a feral, cruel darkness that looked back at him through those eyes.

"I can't wait to see you dead."