Bill was walking away from her. Laura looked up from where she sat behind her desk to see him disappear past the curtains of Colonial One's presidential office. Every nerve in her body urged her to run after Bill, muscles tensing in preparation for flight. She stayed seated. She couldn't even call after him. "Don't go," stayed trapped in her throat.
Glued to her chair, Laura looked around her old office with horrified fascination. The sight of her old home struck her like a dissonant chord; this was not her reality anymore. She'd been returned to the Colonies before the attacks. She'd gotten married.
Right?
Why did she feel an impending doom, a pressing sense of wrongness that set her on edge?
"This can't be real," Laura thought, eyeing the ship she hadn't seen for a long time. Her illness had confined her to Galactica by the end of their journey. She'd only seen the worn outside of her old ship on the journey down to Earth.
"Madame President," Tory said, appearing before Laura's desk. Laura leaned away from the Cylon woman, but her old aide simply smiled and handed her a letter. Laura took the proffered letter but dropped it when Colonial One's alarms pierced the air.
The alarms wailed overhead, and Laura was finally able to stand behind her desk. The sound filled her ears, and her eardrums ached from the barrage. It didn't cover the unmistakable metal against metal echoing up from the bowels of her old ship.
No. No. No.
Only one thing made that mix of mechanical whirling and metallic clanking sound. It was drawing closer, and she needed to hide.
The problem was that she knew there was something she needed to find first. The Centurions' footsteps marched closer, and Laura sprinted through Colonial One in a frantic quest to discover what her heart screamed at her to find. She had to protect something more precious than her own life.
Metal scraped against metal, and Laura's nerves frayed as she searched. The clanking grew louder until a metal hand curled around her arm and pinned her in place.
NO!
The Cylon Centurions surrounded her, and she closed her eyes, knowing she was trapped. She fought for breath as they pressed in around her.
The light of a bright orb filled her vision.
"This isn't real!" Laura screamed.
…
"Laura!"
Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped for air. A man rose above her, the unfamiliar silhouette causing her to thrash against him in an attempt to escape.
"It's me, Laura. It's Bill," the man said.
Oh.
Laura stopped fighting and forced her body to relax, laying back against her sweat-soaked pillow. Gentle caresses ghosted over her skin as Bill used his touch to help ease her out of the nightmare; she remembered how he'd done the same when he noticed how it helped ease her out of Chamalla-induced visions. Undoubtedly, it was as cathartic for him as it was for her, and she relaxed at his familiar touch.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, light from under the door and streetlights at the window allowing her to find Bill's eyes. His frame might be less familiar now, not quite as stocky, and there was less silver in his hair, but she knew those eyes, and she knew that touch. She met his concerned gaze, his face all she wanted to see. She blinked, trying to clear the gathering tears from her vision. The watery image of him shimmered and blurred in the room's dim light. Her mind remembered the image of Centurions and the possible Doral from the day before. She blinked and saw only Bill again.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
"It was just a nightmare," Laura said.
It was not a vision. \
"We should probably expect those," Bill said.
"Can't we have this night off?" she grumbled, running her finger across Bill's old ring on her finger. This was their wedding night; they deserved to have one night where their worries stayed on the sidelines. All she wanted was to celebrate formalizing the bond they shared and let body, heart, and soul join together in something more perfect than she'd ever imagined being part of. Their wedding night was beautiful, and it didn't seem wrong of her to want it unmarred.
"You wanna talk about it?" Bill asked again.
Laura sighed, her nerves soothed, but the mind still reeling at what she'd experienced. "It didn't feel like a normal nightmare." She summarized, glossing over how akin to her visions it felt and how scared it made her.
"You haven't had Chamalla in this timeline yet, and you never saw things without it," Bill reasoned. He did not like the thought of visions. It was just a nightmare.
"Right. It was just a nightmare," Laura said, taking a deep breath. "You never really ever forget that sound Centurions make."
Bill nodded, his grip subconsciously tightening around her. He knew the exact sound of which she spoke; it plagued his nightmares. Nowadays, he was haunted more by memories of sickbay, tubes, and lonely cairns. She's healthy, he assured himself, subtly feeling the pulse point in her wrist.
"I hate the thought of them already on the Colonies," she said.
"There are no Centurions on the Colonies," Bill said.
"No, just the humanoid models," she replied.
Bill frowned, once again wondering what exactly they had seen. He wouldn't be surprised if they saw Cylons in the shadows of their dark room with all the trauma their brains needed to process.
"Could be jumping at shadows," he said, rationalizing it as the more likely scenario. He tried not to puzzle out the statistical probability of him running into a restored Laura Roslin, which hadn't seemed like a particularly likely scenario after Saul didn't remember anything of the future. Why did no one else remember? What could they do?
"Bill, I'm right here," Laura said, touching his hand where he dug his fingers against the pulse point in his wrist. At his heavy sigh, she twisted her hand and linked their fingers together. She burrowed into his warmth, comforted at the press of skin against skin.
"Wish we had answers."
"It's not dawn yet," Laura said after they cuddled in silence for a moment, letting their thoughts buzz in their head like angry bees. That was certainly not how they would spend the rest of the night. She inhaled deeply and nuzzled his neck with her nose. "Distract me… husband."
…
There wasn't any standard operating procedure for when one's girlfriend came back from the dead after being sent back in time. Bill thought asking her to marry him and then rushing off to do it was inspired. Another day dawned now; choices needed to be made, they had two lives to live, a future needed to be saved. The sensation permeating him felt those moments in his Viper where he'd spun out, and the g-forces pulled in every direction. In those times, he focused on the control stick in his hands; right now, he focused on Laura.
It was glorious being married to her, and that knowledge warmed him from stem to stern. But they were both still exhausted, worried about Doral, and traumatized after what they'd gone through. He saw the strain around her eyes, the crease of her brow when she heard a noise outside or glanced out the window. He knew he looked the same. He also noticed her forlorn look when she wrote in the journal where she recorded memories of the future. Sometimes, she put the pen down and simply looked lost and adrift.
Despite everything, they both agreed against hiding in Laura's hotel room, cowering against both of their natures. The walls of this place only provided so much information, and the Colonial world beyond called to them. So, they got ready to go outside on the day after their wedding.
Bill stared at himself in the mirror, still jarred at the sight of a Viper jock nearing the end of his golden flying years. His younger self, as he chose to think of it, had packed the suitcase, so Bill was left with that version's choices of jeans and a t-shirt.
What completed the look was the distinguished leather flight jacket with his air group's patch sewn over the breast. A few other patches adorned the leather, including a skull with a knife in its teeth; beneath it was embroidered the words "Galactica's Top Gun"—a status he'd earned in the First Cylon War. With the right cocky swagger, he'd look like any other Viper jock on leave.
He'd favored this style for a long time after the divorce, able to proudly proclaim his choice in career and not care that Carolanne hated it.
A snort of barely repressed laughter broke through his reverie. Against her best efforts, a giggle of laughter escaped Laura, who'd just emerged from the bathroom after getting ready. Bill frowned as she openly gawked at him while hiding her mounting giggles.
"It's how Viper pilots dressed on leave," he said, unhappy at the almost reflexive defensive edge that crept into his tone.
"It's not that," she said. She managed to smother her giggles into a smile. She shook her head and approached him, studying the picture he presented. "I just realized something."
"What?"
"I've only ever seen you in uniform," Laura said, and, despite her best efforts, another snort of giggles escaped. "And naked," she added.
Bill might have looked over the rim of his glasses at her in exasperation, but he didn't have those anymore. Yet. He'd get them at around fifty. The look still got across, and Laura laughed some more.
"You giggle at the strangest times."
"Bill, I've married a man I've never seen in civilian clothes! I'm probably the only modern Caprican woman who can make that claim. Tell me that's not worth some laughter."
Bill heard what she didn't say. We can either laugh at this or have an existential crisis. Please let me laugh for now.
Bill chuckled, but part of him felt alarmed as it reminded him that they'd lived with each other while constantly on duty or under attack. Their lives were once scavenged from whatever moments they could piece together, and now they were together in relative peace. He was a soldier; unit cohesion and trauma bonding weren't foreign to him because shared pain brings people together. He also knew that once the combat elements were removed, so was compatibility. Would their relationship survive in the absence of constant trauma? He found that question daunting.
I could lose her again. We could lose each other.
His chest ached, and he needed to focus on taking a breath. The feelings only amplified when she joined him at the mirror, and their reflections stared back at them. Unease slithered uncomfortably up his spine.
They looked horribly mismatched.
Laura looked beautiful and expensive in her designer trousers and fitted blouse. There was gold at her throat and grace in her steps. He looked like a bad boy, which he had once been. He looked like he might smell like engine grease up close. Before he dissolved into an undignified emotional mess, he looked away, having experienced one too many of those recently, or whatever counted as recently in his now nonlinear existence.
"Bill?"
"I love you," he said, and Laura melted at the rawness in his voice. Laura's warm palm against his cheek forced his gaze to hers. She kissed him gently. "I know. You're a good man, Bill. I'm proud to call you mine."
How does she know what to say? On the other hand, Bill never found it easy to decide what he should bring up and what would be better left unsaid. After a brief consideration, he chose to leave the thoughts he was having unvoiced.
Instead, they stood there for a moment, Laura's hands moving to explore the leather. A sad look filled her eyes.
"Back on Galactica, there was a moment near the end in sickbay when I realized that I would never see you without your uniform on again. It's not like you could wear that fluffy brown robe to sickbay, and I would never go to your quarters again to see you in your tanks or naked. Those moments were gone, and I cried so hard. Sometimes I'm so angry we are back, furious that I suffered and gave my life only for it to be thrown back at me," she said, her voice cracking. She rubbed both her palms down the front of his jacket, resting them on his chest. "But I get to see you again. In uniform. Out of uniform. I still can't quite believe it."
"And I'm not going anywhere," Bill promised.
…
Before they left, Bill asked Laura if she remembered everything he'd taught her on New Caprica about how to spot someone following her and how to lose a tail. She'd needed those techniques, although Bill remained unaware of how many times someone tried to follow and harass the former president. She assured him that she knew what she was doing before charging out the door—she was Laura Roslin and had her mind set on going outside.
Behind her, Bill grumbled under his breath before catching up.
They kept their eyes open for a sign of any Cylon model. At times, Laura felt like an Aerilonian prairie dog on the lookout for danger with its head swiveling back and forth. She hoped she wasn't that obvious.
"You'd make a terrible spy," Adama grumbled, dashing her hope that she was inconspicuous as they explored Picon together.
"I was an okay resistance leader, though," Laura said. "And I kept lookout a few times."
Bill harrumphed, not liking that thought at all. She almost made a joke about how her counterinsurgency career nearly ended by Cylon firing squad. There were moments when she felt morbidly compelled to make mortality jokes and only didn't because Bill would really not like that. Instead, she kept her eyes peeled.
Nothing. Everything was normal. Aside from them, this world continued in blissful ignorance of what the future contained.
They ended up at Picon's biggest outdoor market, hungry and finding appeal in staying outside where they could continue to observe everyone and everything. And there was sunlight outside. Fresh air.
Laura had never been there before. She gasped when they rounded a corner and she saw the plaza with more than one hundred open-air stalls and shops selling all kinds of foods and crafts. She couldn't look away from the brightly colored fruits and vegetables. Upon a nearby table, baskets of local fruits—plums, pears, and apples—waited for people to purchase.
"It looks like the market on New Caprica," Laura said softly as she looked around. Bill nodded, squeezing her hand in solidarity, guiding them into the fray. The heady smells of a nearby spice stall swirled around them, the cloying sweetness of a confectioner's booth, oranges, roses, mud, and meat. It became an assault on the senses.
She gripped Bill's hand while steeling her nerves against the onslaught. He did the same.
One booth caught her attention and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Laura?" Bill asked, searching in the direction she was looking. "Oh."
Laura hesitantly approached the vendor, pulling Bill along, who didn't mind. The man behind the booth grinned at her, sensing a sale.
"Promise you'll like everything here," the man said cheekily. He exuded young confidence as he offered Laura a sample. Leaning against his stall, he watched her taste. "I make all the chocolate myself."
She nearly swooned with the first taste of chocolate against her tongue, and she only took the tiniest bite of the sample. Oh, how she'd missed chocolate, and this was good—rich and smooth on the tongue. She rolled it around in her mouth, letting it melt fully and linger.
"Laura, you can eat the whole thing," Bill reminded her gently. Her eyes widened with the conscious realization of what she'd been doing—saving and rationing. She slipped the rest in her mouth, sighed, and lost herself in a hedonistic moment. Cancer took whatever remaining pleasure had been left in eating after the apocalypse. Now this.
To prove his point, Bill ordered a selection of chocolate and immediately handed her another piece. Laura accepted, appreciating how carefully he navigated her evident struggle with being back. She felt so frustrated with herself. While she knew he understood her need to come to terms with their unexpected return in her own way, she also wanted him to grab her by the shoulders and give her a firm shake. Just act normal, he would say. Just be happy to be back.
They walked away, a hand now at the small of her back to guide her to an out-of-the-way spot. He looked at her with concern.
"I'm fine," Laura said softly.
"You're crying," he said.
"What?" she said with a frown. She reached up and touched her cheeks, finding moisture there.
"You didn't realize," he said.
"Have you seen Doral?" Laura deflected.
"You know I haven't."
True. Bill wouldn't be so calm if they'd spotted the enemy. Laura wiped her cheeks and ate another piece of chocolate. She should be dragging Bill from stall to stall, overindulging in everything they'd missed while on the run. Bill deserved a partner overflowing with such joy to be back. And she was. And she wasn't. And Bill was just there making her feel good about enjoying a piece of chocolate.
"We should move around more. Increase our likelihood of seeing anything out of the ordinary," Laura offered. She felt almost grateful for this crisis; it gave her a problem upon which to focus, something outside of herself or the pair of them. She had dedicated body and soul to the survival of the human race, and it was an easy role to fall back into. It still chafed her having to do it again.
They walked into the center of the market, where a statue of Hermes, patron god of trade, watched over the people's dealings. The idealized man, over twenty feet tall, drew many a curious eye in its attempt to impress the masses. Laura looked away, too jaded by the Lords of Kobol to be impressed. At its base, a street preacher spewed venom about judgment and the gods' wrath.
"...the flood will come again to wipe us out if we do not change our ways…"
I didn't ask for this, Laura thought as she inadvertently listened to the words. They beelined away from the statue, Laura feeling dizzy from the sheer enormity of the task in front of them.
They sat at a picnic table, recovering from overindulging in fresh fruit. Laura continued eating despite the protest in her stomach. She almost relished the pain of overeating.
"Husker!" a man's voice shouted, interrupting her thoughts. A man in a similar pilot's jacket approached.
"Juan Calvin," Bill said, rising after an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation. The men shook hands, and Laura watched in fascination as Bill tried to remember how to act with old pilot buddies. "How've you been?"
"Good, man. Good," Juan said jovially, looking curiously between Bill and Laura.
"My wife, Laura," Bill introduced with evident pride in his tone. Laura grinned, rather liking how that sounded. She shook Juan's hand, trying to remember when she'd heard Bill mention his name before. It sounded familiar. They all exchanged pleasantries like three average citizens.
"Hey, listen, a bunch of us pilots are having a dance down at Bay 51. Some of their partners are going too. Ya'll should drop by. Some jocks from the Atlantia will be there," Juan said.
Bill glanced at Laura, expecting her to shake her head. Instead, she looked intrigued.
"Might not be your kind of dance," Juan added, noticing how well-dressed Laura was. A real huff of laughter escaped Bill because he knew Juan had just unknowingly appealed to Laura's contrarian side. She did what she wanted and liked a challenge.
"We'll be there."
…
Bay 51 hid off the beaten track, nestled close to Picon's shipyard, where not all the lights worked quite right, but it was still pretty safe. As the sun went down and the stars came out, the place packed people inside its concrete walls. The glass ceiling overhead kept it from being too claustrophobic and stuffy, letting the haze of cigar and cigarette smoke rise.
The doors rattled with the cheers of people inside and the dull thrum of music. Laura's body jittered with excitement as they approached, eager to lose herself in boxing and to try living in the moment. She and her father went to many matches after her mother died for the same reason. They both loved a good fight.
Without a second thought, the bouncers let them in, grinning with approval at Bill's top gun patch. Inside was fairly dark except for the brightly lit boxing ring in the center of the building and a bar against one side of the wall. Bill kept a tight hold of Laura as he guided her through the crowd, which pressed against them, smelling of musk, sweat, and booze. They gambled and shouted, enjoying the fight in progress.
"Were the fights with your father like this?" Bill asked, reaching the wall and spinning her around so that her back rested against his front. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. This was the place to playact at being just a newlywed couple, where they were barely seen and surrounded by members of the Fleet, with whom Bill shared an automatic camaraderie.
"Yes, actually," Laura said as they watched. She was touched that he remembered what she said about her father.
"So you're not—"
"Uncomfortable? No," Laura assured him, actually very much enjoying how they were standing together, how his thumb stroked over the silk of her blouse that made her stand out in the crowd. "You know I love a good fight."
Bill huffed. "Don't I know it."
The fighters danced around each other in the ring, their bodies glistening with sweat and a bit of blood. The crowd chanted the fighter's name after he landed a solid right hook. Laura was impressed with how the other man shook off the blow like it was just the tickle of a feather.
"It's almost reassuring we can go somewhere and do something normal," Laura said, leaning her head back to speak closer to his ear to be heard. This place was almost like a test to them, to see if Bill could interact with his fellow pilots as their peer again, to see if they wouldn't jump out of their skin in a crowd. A few pilots shouted a greeting to Bill, calling him by his old call sign instead of his name. More than one person shot Laura an appreciative gaze before seeing if she was with someone.
The crowd erupted in cheers of victory and groans of defeat as one of the boxers hit the mat, knocked out cold from a nasty uppercut. Money changed hands as staff helped the unconscious man out of the ring and got him to first aid. Someone stumbled into Laura, reeking of sour beer.
"Oh, sorry, ma'am," he said when he noticed the well-dressed woman he'd crashed into. Laura gave him a friendly smile and watched him retreat, thinking of how young he looked. The crowd's energy was infectious, and Laura liked watching how much fun people could have back on the Colonies. It was harrowing to think of how quickly most of them died, one traitorous little program taking away their ability to even have the dignity of fighting back as each ship in the Fleet was picked off by Cylons. The program.
"I can tell Adar not to use the program," Laura said. She turned in Bill's arms, knowing what she could focus on to help avert the attacks. "You can make a difference in the Fleet, and I'll make a difference back on Caprica. I'll play my cards right, and when the moment comes, I'll tell Adar not to hire Baltar for that CNP program that crippled the Fleet."
Bill nodded with a grim look on his face as he considered his plan of attack.
"I still don't like leaving you," Bill said. "I only have one more day on Picon before I have to report back."
The unfairness of their task struck her like a blow, and she sniffled, feeling the heat of tears threatening to spill. She would not cry in public even if she had to watch Bill walk away when his leave was up. She just wanted to be left alone to grab whatever happiness she could with Bill. She still felt thrilled at the thought of a life together with her husband, but they would be haunted for the rest of their lives.
"Promise you'll call and write?" Laura said, trying not to crumble at the thought of being parted, even though she knew he'd be back.
"All the time, and I'll be planetside again soon," he assured, lost in her green eyes as another match started up behind them.
"I promise not to get thrown in Cylon detention while you're away this time," she tried to joke.
"Not funny," he grumbled.
"It was a little funny."
…
Two days later, Laura walked through Caprica City, the gleaming capital city of the Twelve Colonies. Shining towers of metal and glass rose throughout the sprawling city, interspersed with manicured gardens and packed roads. Ships glided through the air and billboards flashed their advertisements. This was the crowning jewel of the Twelve Colonies; everyone was supposed to want to live in this modern, sleek city.
Before he returned to his Battlestar, Bill had implored Laura to be careful and to keep on guard. He might have become convinced they'd been seeing ghosts in regards to Doral, but he remained cautious. So Laura walked through the capitol building of Caprica City with her heels clicking on the expensive marble floor and her eyes observing everything. Aides rushed through the doorways, and lobbyists' voices echoed through the hallways. Despite how eerie Laura found being back, she carried herself with poise and grace.
She clasped her old briefcase in her right hand as she made her way to her old office. Meanwhile, she tucked her left hand in her pocket and fiddled with her wedding band.
Bill had surprised her with matching bands on their last day together on Picon, having slipped away long enough to get them. They'd been lying in bed together when he'd handed her the velvet box where inside two matching bands were nestled on a pillow of satin. Each band had two strands intertwining together in a knotwork pattern.
"Two lives lived. Two lives now intertwined," he had explained. "I wanted us to have something for those moments when we doubt this life is real. Something to see and feel even though we're apart."
Now, the ring provided her greatest source of comfort by giving her a tangible link to her far away husband.
She walked into her office and took in the sight of papers resting in neat stacks all over her desk, books on education lining her bookshelves, a framed education doctorate on the wall, and a million other details once mundane. Although she'd tried to mentally prepare herself for the reality of being back in this space, she still stared at everything for a long moment. It was like looking at an old photograph, but the photograph had sucked her into it. She wandered around, reacquainting herself with her old world while rubbing her thumb against her wedding band.
She reached her desk, the broad burnished wood surface glinting in the sunlight that shone through her high rise office window. Before she could sit, someone was knocking at the door. Without waiting for her admittance, Mayor Richard Adar breezed into the room with the confident swagger of a man used to getting whatever he wanted. Someone may as well have yanked the world out from underneath Laura, the sight of her once dead lover throwing her precarious equilibrium out of whack.
"Laura," he greeted, grinning at her as he sauntered closer. He held himself tall and proud, although he'd abandoned his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to give himself his characteristic confident but relaxed look. His appreciative gaze wandered over, briefly settling on the small décolletage her blouse revealed. He grinned, "It's good to see you, dear."
"Richard," she greeted. He strode around the side of her desk and leaned in to kiss her. Laura turned her head so that he only touched her cheek while her heart hammered in her chest.
He pouted. "Not happy to see me?"
He leaned in to try again, but Laura carefully pushed him back with her left hand. "Richard, we can't do this."
"Why? I thought we were on the same page," he said, bringing a hand up to cover hers. His thumb caressed her skin, and he gave her a soft smile that she'd once found impossible to say no to.
"I don't think so," she said, holding firm.
"Tell me what's bothering you," he said, care laced through his tone.
"I got married," she said bluntly, wincing slightly at failing to deliver the news as tactfully as she'd planned. Richard's face froze as he studied her, because surely she was joking. How could he understand the quiet woman who was still depressed over recently losing her family doing something so impulsive? But Laura kept calm and collected.
I've been a politician longer, Laura realized. She watched him slowly pull back and look down at the hand holding him away where he found a ring on her finger.
"You aren't joking."
"No."
"Who?"
"His name is William Adama. He's the CAG on the Battlestar Universal," she said, heading off the questions Richard would bombard her with before he asked.
"A Viper pilot? I didn't know military was your type. Are you craving some excitement?" Richard asked, trying to tease her. After all, he himself was married and still flirted with her shamelessly. Long ago his attention and the thrill of their affair had made her feel alive again after she'd sunk into a depression when her whole family was tragically killed before their time. It turned out to only be a shadow of what a real relationship built on love could be like.
"No," Laura said.
"You seem different," Richard said, studying her now with curiosity instead of lust.
"It was just a long week on Picon," Laura said.
"A long week with a marriage thrown in there. I'll admit, I'm worried, my dear. This impulsive marriage… you've always followed your own desires and done what you wanted. Have you thought this through?" Richard asked, and Laura realized that he was genuinely concerned.
We were friends once, she remembered with a twinge in her heart.
"I'll be alright," she said with a genuine smile.
"But you want to give us up? I thought you were enjoying this as much as I was," he said, reaching over to grasp her shoulders. "I thought we were on the same page," his voice was soft and sincere. Richard had always had a potent mix of charm, charisma, and ego that he used to his advantage. It would not work this time.
"And now we're both married."
"Because you had to run off and get married too. Were you trying to prove a point?" he challenged. She folded her arms while standing ramrod straight. She'd used this pose as president; it let people know she was ready to fight on a point. A raised eyebrow completed the look and gave all the answer she felt his question needed.
"There's still something between us, Laura. You know there is. It's something good."
"Richard, this has to stop. Bill is a good man, and I won't betray him." Her tone left little room for argument.
He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. Can you blame me for trying?"
Laura rolled her eyes, giving him a reproachful look that he undoubtedly still found more attractive than he should. "You're going to get yourself into trouble one day."
"Says the sweet schoolteacher married to a Viper jock, the renowned bad boys of the Fleet," Adar said with a laugh. Laura's jaw clenched when he called her a schoolteacher. It had been used derogatorily enough to describe her over the last few years, and people's clear disregard for her profession pissed her off.
"I should get to work, Richard. And you should go check out Desmond on your public relations team. I heard a little rumor that he was the mole leaking stories to the press," Laura said. In fact, Laura remembered Desmond leaking unsavory rumors about her and Richard to the press, but that hadn't happened yet. Desmond hadn't been caught for a long time, but Laura started using her knowledge right away to one day put Richard into a position where he'd either believe her or owe her enough to refuse Baltar's defense contract.
Richard left, tantalized by the information she'd offered. She knew he'd be back, and he'd pursue her. Part of her hoped they could be friends again. However, she realized her rejection probably only made her more appealing to him. In the end, he was just another task she could handle. Her thumb ghosted over her wedding band before she got to work. I can do this, she thought.