Codename: Life Station

Call sign: Moggie

Summary: WA&LR Something about change and trust, a heart and a President.

Rating: Pg13 / T / Genre: Drama & Romance / Pairing: Commander Adama & President Laura Roslin / Disclaimer: I do not own Battlestar Galactica. / Notes: This is my first attempt at BSG, so forgive the errors. I was also basically sleeping whilst writing this, so I'll correct mistakes when I read it again. lol. Thank you to DeeRich for looking these chapters over.

Chapter Two - Colonial One #2

"Breath in," he moved the stethoscope a fraction to the right. "and breath out." Tilting his head a tad closer, though it wouldn't make him hear any clearer, Doctor Cottle listened carefully for a few minutes.

Laura stood a few feet away, an arm across her stomach and one held up, nervously twirling her glasses close to her chin.

Adama breathed in again and opened his eyes, looking over the doctors shoulder. He looked down at the cold stethoscope that was pressed against his chest for a moment before looking back over his shoulder and breathing out as the doctor instructed.

She chewed absently on one arm of her glasses as she looked at him with concern. Her thoughts no clearer than a few minutes ago when she was gripped with panic. What really shocked her was the whole idea of her outliving him. The thought was almost unbearable.

"Nothing internal, but I'm giving you an X-ray," Cottle twisted the stethoscope and placed it back into his bag. "just to make sure you haven't been over doing it."

"I said I was fine." Adama told him calmly, his deep voice reverberating in his chest as he pulled his undershirt down.

"That's what you said the other day," Cottle stood back with his bag in hand. "right before you collapsed on my deck."

Laura frowned momentarily, then a hard determined anger filled her. "You collapsed? When?"

Adama sighed, pulling his uniform jacket over his shoulders, leaving it unfastened as he gripped the edge of the desk he was sitting on.

Cottle turned and walked towards the door, located at the front of the ship, leading to the lower decks. "Two days after your return from Kobol, Madam President." He called to Billy, who was talking to someone in the other room. "Call ahead to the Galactica and have them warm up a bed for Commander Adama in Life Station."

Billy was about to do as requested when Adama let out a disgruntled refusal.

"Commander, please." Laura pleaded, folding her glasses.

Adama turned his head away from the doctor to the President. Seeing her dark eyes pleading with him, he relented and nodded. "Fine." He slid to his feet as the doctor and Billy left the room.

Laura quietly sighed with relief, walking to stand before him as he straightened his shoulders and struggled with his jacket. "Why do you do this to yourself, Bill?" She asked him softly, pushing his hands away to pull his jacket tight, tucking the fabric in and closed.

He watched her, admired her concern for him, her pale and tired face, her hair and her small fingers as they worked up his side, working the buttons through the holes. When they reached his neck, he looked into her eyes.

"You need to rest," she continued. "and get better. Without you watching the fleet, we'd be dead."

"I'm one man. One soldier." he told her, his voice calm. "I have a crew capable of protecting this fleet without me. I trust them."

Laura smoothed her fingers over his jacket, gently pushing his collar against his neck where it had curled a little from the days wear. She felt him swallow as he spoke, felt his pulse when her fingers touched his skin. "I trust you." Her eyes rose to his face, his eyes. "Without you, the fleet would struggle to keep united. The Galactica is our only defence. We need your ship, your crew…" she sighed, stepped back and pulled her hands away from him. "We need you."

Billy cleared his throat. "Madam President."

"Yes Billy?" Laura tore her eyes from his.

"The shuttle is ready to leave Colonial One when the Commander is." Billy informed them.

"Thank you Billy." She nodded and waited for him to leave before turning back.

"Time to be poked and prodded." Adama shook his head as he collected his report folder. He stood for a moment, in the middle of the room, looking at his feet. Struggling not to say something, but struggling to say something that would put her concerns at ease. He could feel her concern for him like a radiator heating up.

Laura stood where he had seconds ago, inches from her desk. "You will let me know-"

"I will." Adama looked back at her with blue eyes that set her heart pounding. "Madam President." He turned and walked out of the makeshift office.

Shifting to lean against her desk, Laura called Billy once the Commander had been gone a few minutes. Even with personal feelings alight with possibilities, there was a war going on and her people needed her.

Meanwhile, Commander Adama sat in the military Raptor that was currently half way back to the Galactica. His quietness was normal to his men, and even now it wasn't abnormal to see him sitting, or standing, quietly thinking to himself.

Currently, his thoughts were trapped between pressing ship matters and Laura Roslin. Since the attack on the colonies, the escape from annihilation each time they jumped further away, and the peoples needs, Adama had learned that politics was still as boring and as important than ever. Everything was a political matter, and he hated that, but even though he wasn't certain a school teacher could lead them, he was never more pleased to be proved wrong.

The President of the Twelve Colonies, Laura Roslin, protecting the surviving people of their civilisation, and Commander William Adama, protecting them all from the Cylons, and themselves.

It was a tough job, they both were, but right now, neither could step down. Leaving, abandoning, almost fifty thousand people, human beings, was something they couldn't do. Which would only separate them from each other, which was something he didn't want to do.

Somehow, somewhere, something inside him grew attached to this woman. At first it was uncertainty, confusion, doubt, but as time moved by, hours, days, he saw how much she could help the last remaining survivors of their race. And without the Galactica, they wouldn't have survived the escape from Ragnar.

Even with all the history, in such a short time, they had both come a long way. They now had a location, a destination, to Earth. With the president's mutinous actions, she had gone against him, broken her word to him, and risked the lives of everyone in the fleet.

But like she said, it was the personal reason that hurt him most. They both knew they now held a huge responsibility and had no one to turn to but each other. They had to work together to save their people. In the beginning they agreed to stick together and live.

The question was, did they survive only to end up alone?

To Be continued