One crisis followed another.

Condition Ones were called at any time day or night. There was always something threatening the survival of humanity.

The people found a fierce spirit in their new leader. She was like a phoenix who rose from the ashes of their home worlds' destruction. She rallied her people with a grim determination, and they held onto hope. President Roslin came into her own once more – the leader of her people. What she kept hidden was the awful nausea that lasted all day. It spiked at the slightest provocation. The pungent smell of Tylium fuel, the aroma of stale gunpowder, and reek of whatever flowery cleaner they used on Colonial One all left her discreetly rushing for a bathroom.

That morning, she poked at the breakfast she struggled to choke down. Even in the early days they couldn't waste food, and her baby needed its mother to eat.

"You've cut Tylium rations to the military?" Bill growled from where he sat at his desk.

"We talked about this, remember? The whole fleet has to make sacrifices."

"I didn't realize that included the military."

"You're part of the Fleet."

"We protect the Fleet."

"The refineries can't keep up with how much we are using right now."

"Dammit, Laura, you know why vipers and raptors need fuel."

"And what good will your vipers and raptors do when the Rising Star, or the Celestra, or Faru Sadin can't make a jump?" Bill caught the undercurrent of fatigue and suffering in her tone. He watched her poke at the food on her plate.

"You need to eat."

"Really?"

"Laura, your condition…"

"My condition? It's called being pregnant. It's ok to say the word," Laura said, shoving the food away. She turned to glare at her reticent husband. The air crackled between them with the potential for angry shots to be fired.

Alert klaxons blared through the Battlestar Galactica instead.

"Sitrep?" Adama barked into the comm unit. Another attack. Laura jumped to her feet, looking to where Liam sat on the couch. He pulled headphones from his ears and looked scared. She motioned for him to stay where he was.

"Launch alert fighters. Prioritize any raiders heading for the civilian fleet," Adama ordered. He stood at his desk with the comm in his fist. "I'm on my way with the President."

The fire in her husband's eyes drove the fatigue away from Laura. He strode to the hatch stoic as ever, but there was an icy blaze in his eyes that sent shivers down her spine. Her Admiral. He'd fully taken on his role again too. He was the fierce protector of the Fleet. He was the man who brought rooks and nuggets aboard his ship and turned far too many of them into his adoptive children. Every Cylon attack put those children in danger.

She fell into step behind her husband as they moved toward the hatch. She could hear the pounding of footsteps of men and women running to action stations. Even in their quarters, she could feel their determination. They would do their damndest to beat the Cylons back. Again.

Laura had been aboard Colonial One when Tigh announced the first Condition One since the destruction of Yashuman. That was weeks ago. The Cylons had been hitting them with suicide runs as the Fleet spent weeks on the run. Without any way to track the human refugee fleet, Cylon forces spread out to planets with natural resources. The Colonials' need to replenish oxygen, water, metal, and fuel forced them to seek out the resource-heavy planets where groups of Cylon raiders often waited. It was a game of spiders and flies and space was one nasty web.

Raiders would sometimes be lying in wait when the Fleet jumped to a new system. If not, there was always a chance they could find the Fleet eventually. It felt like the enemy constantly barreled toward the humans as hard and as fast as possible.

Machines were logical.

They used hard facts.

Cold reason.

The raiders weren't prone to cheap sentimentality or irrational fears. They calculated. They analyzed. Their algorithms knew that individual raider squadrons were no match for the power of four Battlestars. It was suicide.

The Cylon turned death into their own macabre weapon.

They had taken to smashing themselves into civilian ships before Colonial vipers could intercept. It was the perfect strategy. Damage and casualty reports were mounting. If the raiders died and resurrected quickly enough, the Cylon fleet could learn the Colonials' location and jump in.

They attacked whatever vessels they could reach first, snatching away the good and the young. The survivors imagined how their friends had died. They pictured a mass of terrible sensations: the impact of the blow, the heat of an explosion, the hoarse howl of people, the rush of venting air, the sudden pull of the vacuum of space and death.

Now the fleet had been found again. People waited to see if the grim reaper would find them this time.

Under her feet, Laura felt the vibrations of the ship as she walked. It was harder than usual. It was how battle aboard a battlestar felt–maneuvering thrusters and gun barrages jarring the ship. She and Bill were nearly at the hatch.

His hand was on the door. Before he could turn the handle, Bill was thrown off his feet. In the second it took for him to collide with the bulkhead, Bill realized a Cylon raider must have successfully made a suicide run into Galactica. Instantly, his mind was with the men and women under his command who he already realized must have been lost at the impact. Even the heavily armored Galactica could not fully protect her crew against this new brutal Cylon tactic.

Compartmentalize. Mourn later.

An alarmed cry caused his blood to run cold and time to slow for Bill. Laura. His head whipped around just in time to watch the impact finish throwing his wife to the deck.

Time stopped.

He saw her and the million dangerous things around his quarters. The tables had sharp edges. There were hard corners to his desk. He had weapons displayed. There was a sword over his couch. Books were falling from his swaying bookshelf inches away from Laura. He moved in a flash, covering Laura's body as the ship continued to lurch, throwing them around like ragdolls. Explosive decompressions? Another raider's impact?

They're supposed to bring an infant into this environment?

Objects fell around him, hitting his shoulders and back, but he stayed crouched over his wife's body to protect her. Despite the negligible height difference, she was much smaller than him. Her body was more vulnerable. There was a tiny life she was determined to hold onto.

He looked toward Liam and saw him taking cover between the couch and table. Good. He was a smart boy.

Bill swore when a glass decanter fell on his head. The glass shattered and rained down around them. Laura's startled cry had him pulling her firmer into his arms. He wouldn't let her move until the ship stopped trying to throw them about. It was only a couple of seconds, but Bill was pierced by how terrified the situation made him. Keep her safe, his instincts ordered.

Everyone aboard Galactica had hit the deck before, but most colonial warriors weren't impossibly pregnant women. In those seconds all Bill cared about was his family. Not Galactica. Not the people under his command. Laura. Liam. Baby. Bill felt a desperate need to ensure that nothing threatened the woman he loved or his unborn child still undetectable inside her. Holding her on the ground sent every protective urge Bill felt toward her into overdrive. He would defend her against anything and everything no matter the odds.

The ship stilled. He was instantly checking her over.

"Laura! Are you alright?"

"You're bleeding, Bill."

"Fine. But are you alright?"

"Mom!"

"Yea?" Laura felt dazed. Her head had collided with the deck. Without warning the lights blinked out. The Adamas were plunged into darkness.

Laura was overcome a feeling of dread.

In that moment of darkness and shadow, an image from her latest vision came to life there in front of her. It stood staring down at her, surrounded by a lightless void. Leoben. She could see every detail of the phantom, as if he'd stepped straight from her latest prophetic nightmare. He reached a hand down to her, his hand open to help her stand. His mouth formed words. It took her a moment to hear them.

"Laura… Laura… Laura… I have something to tell you," he said, and his voice sounded like a distant echo. Her scream caught in her throat.

The lights came back on and strong arms were still around her, helping her upright, checking her over for injury.

The lights flickered out again, and the image of Leoben emerged from the shadows again. He crouched down next to her and Bill, and she flinched away when the Cylon reached toward her abdomen. Laura gasped in alarm and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Laura felt her breath catching in her chest as she panicked. Stay away from my baby!

In the dark Bill felt his wife tense and her arms wrapping around her stomach. What had she felt that he could not? Whatever was wrong, there was nothing he could do. He hated feeling so helpless. Then the anger hit. The Cylons threw death and destruction at them with all their might, and he couldn't even keep his wife safe in their quarters.

The lights came back on.

"You have to get to CIC, Admiral," Laura ordered in a shaky voice. She knew he couldn't stay to worry about her. She was so dizzy from hitting her head and so shaken from having a vision while awake that she couldn't stand yet. Liam was there in a second, grabbing her hand. He had always been observant and caring. She squeezed his hand.

"Are you OK, Liam?"

"I'm fine. Promise. What about you?"

"Yea. Bill, you have to go."

"Take care of your mother," Adama ordered Liam before making for the hatch. Still, with his hand on the handle, he paused and looked back. He never would have hesitated twenty years ago. Then a fierce redhead had come into his life and claimed his heart so thoroughly he had finally truly understood what it meant to be bonded to someone.

"Go," she insisted. He did. He hated it, but he left.

Striding into CIC, Adama observed the situation. The Cylons were still not appearing on DRADIS. His pilots' voices over the comms confirmed they had the remaining raiders in their sights. One by one the other Cylons were destroyed as the Fleet's FTLs reported ready. One of the civilian ships reported damage from a Cylon impact, but their ship was just small enough to land in the flight pod of the largest battlestar. Once they landed, Adama ordered the Fleet to jump.

After they jump, the Colonials waited. Each jump the Fleet was vulnerable. Vipers had to visually scan the area to confirm there were no Cylons waiting for them. There was nothing this time. If they were lucky, this time the rag-tag fugitive fleet would be able to jump without the Cylons finding them.

…

"So, have you been able to work in a stress free environment like I recommended?" Cottle's gruff, patronizing tone left Laura scowling at her physician. She hated sickbay. The unique smoke and antiseptic smell, its grey walls, and scratchy beds caused morbid memories of her own death to creep up on her and try to unnerve her. If memories of her own demise wasn't bad enough, Cottle had the bedside manner of a cankerous, old grizzly bear. She also really didn't like the feel of his clammy hands. Sickbay just wasn't a fun place to be, but Laura refused to let a little thing like her own death cause her to shirk away from anything. Each appointment she marched into sickbay with her usual 'let's get this over with' attitude. Cottle tried not to take it personally.

The doc took her readings. Out of the corner of her eye, Laura could have sworn she saw his lips moving as if searching for the usual cigarette they held. Laura noticed her grouch of a doctor had stopped smoking around her since learning of her condition. She wondered if the lack of smoke was a subtle sign of affection from Cottle, or if it was a result of her throwing up on his shoes when she caught a pungent whiff of cigarette smoke. She wasn't sure which she preferred.

"My days are spent being the pampered politician I've always wanted to be," she growled.

"Then why is your blood pressure through the roof?" Cottle frowned. Her blood pressure was one of his biggest concerns.

"The Gemonese want more water rations, the press wants to know everything, the captain of the Botanical Cruiser is having trouble producing crops, there's an outbreak of STDs on several ships because everyone wants to frak everyone and everything when they think they're about to die, and somehow I offended the Chrion's captain."

"The rant make you feel better?"

"No."

"Anything I can do?"

"Can you teach the fleet about safe sex?"

"You're the teacher, not me."

"Just what everyone likes to keep reminding me," Laura said, giving him a glare that made him want to throw up his hands in surrender. How did people irritate her and live to tell the tale? He could because she had a soft spot for him, he could mentally boast.

"Where is that... charming lug that convinced you to marry him?" Cottle asked, glancing at the empty chair in their curtained off area of sickbay.

Feeling tears well up in her eyes, Laura only offered a simple, "he's busy."

"He's still panicking about…"

"About his old wife carrying a baby while leading humanity on the run from our mortal enemy?" Laura sighed. "Hell, you're not thrilled."

"I'm concerned. In fact, roll up your sleeve. I'm putting you on an IV for an hour. You're dehydrated and not keeping enough nutrients down. You've actually lost weight," Cottle grumbled but paused for a moment, "and you're not old, young lady." Laura's laugh filled the air as a tear fell.

Cottle didn't comment at how eerily serene Laura stayed when he took her elbow in his gloved hand. He wasn't a gentle person by nature, but he tried to be careful with his president and friend. She didn't flinch at the needle he forced to pierce her skin. She actually frakkin' joked about it all being strangely familiar. Cottle wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at her levity, so he settled for threatening her. Marines would come after her if she tried to leave before he decreed that she was done with the IV. Predictably, Laura huffed indignantly but fished some papers out of her briefcase and settled onto the bed.

She laid back on the pillows and flipped some papers onto her lap. Her groan was louder than she meant for it to be when the first thing in her pile happened to be the fleet newspaper. They're on the run for their lives and under constant threat of attack but the press had already gotten a fleet newspaper organized. Go figure, Laura sighed. She remembered how the Fleet never ran out of paper. Food, yes. Medicine, yes. Lubricant, yes. Toothpaste, yes. Common sense, oh yes. Oh, yes. There had always been paper though.

Laura looked down at the latest headline. 'Laura Roslin, Our Damnation or Salvation?' It was blazed across the paper in irritatingly bold lettering. How do we never run out of ink, she wondered. How original, was her next thought. Scoffing, she turned the page and swallowed what would have been an obscenely loud moan of frustration at what she saw there.

She rubbed her forehead with her hand. 'Tom Zarek, Man of the People,' was the title of a smaller headline. Her old foe hadn't gained the instant attention of the whole fleet this time because the hostage situation had been averted. Still, Zarek was a name with weight from before the Fall. Laura Roslin could feel how heavy his presence was as in the fleet as if it was coming through the paper and settling in her bones. She scanned the piece. It looked like he and the rest of Astral Queen's crew had been making themselves useful throughout the Fleet. It looked good. Benign. The lack of overt threats from Zarek sent up a red warning flag in Laura's mind. Swallowing her distaste, she dutifully read through the other articles and made notes in her mind. She'd made it half way through her papers before Cottle finally felt gracious enough to release her.

Cottle watched Laura leave sickbay before picking up the phone. He called CIC and demanded to speak to Adama on a secure line. Dualla was smart enough to quickly comply.

"You're a bastard, Bill."

"What have I done this time?"

"Where have you been?"

"Doing my job in CIC."

"Your ass should have been down here and you know it. I don't care how much the idea of losing her scares the shit out of you. At her next appointment I expect to see you too."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not going to let her die. So please tell me you're not delusional enough to think you're protecting your heart by holding her at arm's length right now. Now act like the fearless viper jock and war hero you supposedly were an eternity ago and park your sorry behind in the chair I set by your wife's bed when she has an appointment down here!" Cottle slammed the comm unit down and pulled out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves after reaming his commanding officer as hard as he had, he pulled three cigarettes from the pack and lit them. He'd earned a treat.

...

Laura strode through Galactica on her way to the hangar deck to board Colonial One. Her ship was docked in Galactica's to help preserve fuel. Her guards kept a respectable pace behind her, eyeing everyone who came close to their charge with wary eyes. They were already absolutely loyal to her, and they kept vigilant for that reason despite knowing Galactica was the safest ship in the fleet for her to be on. The whole crew was absolutely loyal to their Old Man and would have been respectful and deferential to Laura by that simple fact alone.

Then the gossip spread.

Pilots whispered about how their president called each of them by their callsigns. Deckhands remarked at how she knew their names and spoke respectfully to them (unlike some of the hotshot pilots who thought they could be rude to the enlisted knuckledraggers). Laura Roslin became the stuff of legend when she was heard telling Saul Tigh off for being rude to the civilian captains.

Laura walked the corridors deep in reflection, smiling and nodding to passing crewmen.

In life there was always a chaos factor to consider, a bit of unpredictability life could throw someone's way. Besides the Cylons, Laura thought she'd gotten her dose of chaos out of the way for the day after her vision of Leoben. Then there was Zarek's unexpected article in the newspaper.

Laura forgot the rule of three. She nearly collided headfirst into Baltar in the corridor.

"Excuse me, Doctor Baltar!" she said, stepping away from him. Or had she jumped away?

"Madame President," the jumpy scientist greeted.

"How is your work going?" Laura asked, already suspecting he'd have nothing new to report.

"It's uhhh," Baltar muttered, shifted, and swallowed. He tried not to squirm as his imaginary Six slipped her arms around him from behind, scraping her nails along his stomach. He was quickly distracted by the press of Six's breasts against his back and the heat of her breath against his neck.

Her hair is such a beautiful shade of red, Baltar thought. Baltar felt Six tense at his stray thought for the politician in front of him. President Roslin looked at him as if she was unimpressed. Baltar realized he should reply.

"I've. Well, I've tried new DRADIS scanning protocols to no effect. I have some new…ideas. It's all taking longer than expected. Unfortunately."

'She can see right through you,' Six purred in his ear. Baltar moved his neck to give her better access as her lips went searching for his pulse point. She trailed kisses down his neck. I wonder what she'd be like in bed? Gaius thought and yelped when Six's kiss became a sharp bite.

"Unfortunate. Too bad you're, supposedly, one of the best scientists left to us," Laura taunted in a level voice, tilting her head to the side to observe the strange man.

Suddenly Laura closed her eyes and let out a slow breath as her hand rested against her stomach. Baltar felt Six's arms leave him. The imaginary Cylon dressed in red walked over and circled the Colonial's president.

'Somethings different this time. She's different.' Baltar raised an eyebrow at his imaginary lover. 'Have you read the Pythian Prophesy, Gaius?' Six asked. Baltar shook his head.

"I'm...I'm going to do my best, Madame President," Baltar said, addressing the corporeal woman in front of him while trying not to let Six make a fool of him.

'Stop undressing her with your mind Gaius. You're making me angry.' Six growled.

"I have no doubt." Laura scoffed, before maneuvering around Baltar and continuing through Galactica's hallways as if they'd never crossed paths.

'She's carrying the sign of God's plan,' Six murmured, watching Laura walk away. She turned back to Gaius and stroked a hand down his cheek. 'God's plan works in mysterious ways,' she sighed, smiling. Gaius grinned as his vixen trailed her fingers up into his hair. Six slammed Baltar as hard as possible into the bulkhead next to them. 'But don't touch her! I wouldn't like it very much,' she threatened in a dangerous and teasing voice. She held him against the wall while passing crewmen rolled their eyes and kept walking.

…

Kara was happy. Sure, later she would catch hell from the Old Man and/or the President for buzzing a few of the civilian ships, but it was worth it to hear the comms explode in a wild static of disgruntled indignation. She was in a good mood after Lee had pulled her into a storage closet for some fun this morning. It was more discreet than their pilot's bunks. Boomer and Chief had already taken Kara's preferred spot by Galactica's water supply, but Lee had rolled with it.

Kara grinned. They'd get a billet to married quarters soon enough and they'd have all the fun they wanted. She couldn't believe they were getting married. It was happening. She giggled and then shook herself firmly. Get ahold of yourself, she ordered. She was Starbuck. Cocky viper jocks had reputations and images to maintain despite the enthusiasm the end of the world had given her fiance.

She was eyeing another civilian ship and thinking wicked thoughts when her comm sparked to life again. Ice filled her veins when she heard a familiar voice.

"I know you're out there harbinger. The stream has brought us together again. We need to talk."

…

Author's note: I would love to hear what you all think. I feel like I'm in a weird writing slump, but I'm trying to keep going. If I waited for a chapter to feel perfect, we'd be waiting a long time for the next post.