She appeared almost timidly in the frame of the hatch. As if she were unsure she was welcome without the seal of her office and the mask of the president. She clasped her hands in front of her as she stepped into his quarters, eyes downcast as if in apology.
He was not surprised to see her… though surprised probably was not the right word. He'd come to expect her presence, there was something of comfort in her proximity, a pleasant warmth. He welcomed it. But her presence as the President was expected.
She came to him as Laura. Bared by more than the absence of her jacket.
"I'm sorry." She started, her eyes flitting to a point on the wall behind his ear before dropping back to her hands, "I didn't… I didn't know where else to go." She confessed with a breathy sigh.
She shifted her weight anxiously between her feet. Not half as subtly as she had as Baltar took his oath and her office.
She was not wholly unfamiliar. As if she had been a friend he'd known in childhood… the person who had almost pushed Secretary Roslin aside to fight bare-knuckled against Commander Adama over a computer network before fading back behind the resigned and weary façade. She was the woman who sometimes peeked out from behind the shoulder of President Roslin, who had let him hold her hand when she had been dying. Who let him glimpse at the person he might have known if they'd met for coffee somewhere in Caprica City and not in the causeway of a Battlestar she was decommissioning.
He'd met her before. But he did not know her very well.
Bill stood up from the table, remembering halfway that he probably should have closed the file over the papers marked 'confidential', and took her gently by the arm. It was a paltry gesture, he knew, but what else could he offer her. The decision had been hers, but he had laid it at her feet. Now she was here, surrounded by the familiarity of his belongings while her own hands were empty.
"You are always welcome here."
She offered up a weak smile at the apology she heard in his voice, finally meeting his gaze. Relief shaded the watery sage of her eyes.
She seemed smaller somehow. More fragile… more human.
The subtle pressure of his fingers on her upper arm directed her to the couch and she sat hesitantly, perched on the edge as if to take flight, while he poured her a glass of water.
"I'd have had tea," he murmured, handing the glass to her, "if I'd known you were coming." He hoped it was enough. Enough for her to know that she could stay. Here. With him. As long as she needed. As long as she wanted.
But she tapped her nails against the glass absently, restlessly.
He poured a second for himself and sat down across from her, letting the soft, worn leather consume him.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, more bluntly than he had meant to but his direct question seemed to elicit some of her former focus. Her eyes snapped up to meet his.
"What else can I do?"
He had never heard her sound so resigned, so utterly apathetic, but was at least relieved to hear an undercurrent of absolute anger tint her timbre.
"You could stay here." It slipped out easily before he could call it back, but she took it without so much as a raised eyebrow.
"Never was very good at taking orders." She said, a smirk tugging the corner of her mouth, and she finally eased back into the cushions. Giggling softly until Bill joined in, shoulders shaking with the rumbling in his chest, her hair curtaining her face as she descended further into mirth. At the absolute absurdity of their working relationship. They had survived a nuclear holocaust, they had survived the Cylons, and by some miracle they had survived each other.
"Much harder after you've been the one giving them." He agreed with the ghost of laughter still on his lips.
She sighed, still listing slightly off to one side and pushed back her hair.
"I need to be useful." She murmured, sobering quickly, "I need to have a purpose."
"So, what are you going to do?" he repeated.
She had swallowed down her mortality in exchange for their survival. If that was the price that the Gods demanded, then she would pay it in full and unflinching. Because that was her purpose. But her body had failed before she could even try, and so the Gods had played with her again. She thought she'd been given a second chance, to find them a home, to find Earth…
Maybe she just wasn't worthy.
"I am going to go down to that planet and…" the words seemed to falter in her throat, her breath hitching for a moment as if she might cry.
What was she going to do?
"Okay." He offered as gently as he could, a measure of his acceptance and a promise of his support.
It took less than a week for the Baltar Administration to send it's first civilian team to the surface and Laura was determined to be on it, citing she'd taken up far too much of his time and his space already. It was one of her more transparent lies.
Bill could not deny that he extended absences were only exacerbating the issue, but he had expected more than 5 days to barter and extort his way through the Galactica's supply stores and he could not deny that growling at his subordinated in a vaguely threatening manner was a decent distraction from that fact that Laura was leaving.
He knew there was no reason to stay. She had never been enamored with space even before her forced incarceration in it. She was not meant to be kept in the dark. Not when she glowed even in artificial sunshine, her hair burning bright like burnished copper and every shift of her head flowed like a warm stream in Autumn. She belonged somewhere green with purple flowers, where the wind could lift her hair and the rain could make her eyelashes twitch in quiet rapture at the beauty of it all. She didn't belong on a Battlestar.
He breathed a sigh of relief to see her reading when he came home, holed up in her usual spot, her feet tucked up under her, her left hand absently combing through her hair. He thought he was too late.
He dropped the satchel by the coffee table, balancing a pair of worn tactical boots on top.
"I, uh… got you a few things," he mumbled as she closed her book with a quizzical glare, "It took me a while to find a pair close to your size…" he gestured vaguely at the boots, "Not many women your size join the marines…"
She cut him off with a gentle hand laid on his forearm. The knot in his gut made him cover it with his own.
"Good luck, Laura."
It felt awfully like goodbye.