Sometimes a dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming. Bill Adama walked through the brightly lit forests of Kobol, unaware that his surroundings were nothing more than a landscape of the imagination. In the beginning of this nightmare, he breathed in sweet fresh air and listened to the birds while the sun beat down on his skin. He didn't question where his feet were taking him, though he held neither map nor compass to guide his way. He headed in the right direction, knowing someone was waiting for him.

"Laura?" he called, seeing red hair peeking out from above a fallen tree. Moss grew on the bark, covering the long-dead trunk and little white flowers poked out amidst the surrounding grass. Without realizing it, he'd started to grin at the idea of snatching a few secluded moments alone with his wife as he pulled his body over the log.

He looked down. A guttural, anguished cry ripped out from his throat at the sight of Laura's lifeless body discarded among the foliage. Dropping to his knees, Bill yelled her name, checking her neck for a pulse, but the blood on the surrounding leaves warned him that he'd find none. The cold knowledge that she'd miscarried and bled out on Kobol hit him. But that didn't make any sense, he thought frantically. No, he'd found his pregnant wife exhausted but very much alive and knife-wielding.

'You're afraid of what would have happened if you'd have come down too late,' he said to himself, realizing this was a nightmare. It wasn't real, but it still felt like he might die from the pain in his heart looking at her.

'Suppose you know how to bury her,' whispered a sadistic part of Bill's subconscious. A deep, instinctive part of him was always terrified at losing again the woman he loved, and he tried to claw his way back to reality.

Waking, covered in a cold sweat, and gasping for air, Bill pulled Laura tightly back against him. The tension from the nightmare melted away as her warm body stirred, roused from sleep by his reflexive actions. His old body protested against sleeping on the ground, but the pain was worth chasing his wayward President down to Kobol, Adama once again willing to do anything to bring her home. Needing to feel the baby's presence, he rested his hand on the curve of her stomach, the swell having become noticeably larger in their time apart. He pushed his nightmare back, feeling assured that everything was alright.

"She's moving," Laura said sleepily. "Fluttering." She burrowed under the blanket for warmth as she woke reluctantly. She covered his hand with her own, interlacing their fingers over her stomach. "Are you alright, Bill?"

"Just a nightmare. It's passed."

"'Sokay, I understand," she mumbled, turning in his arms to face him and nuzzle the soft skin of his neck, feeling the stubble on his chin gently scratch her forehead. "We've spent most nights apart—that was one of the prices that came with our fleet marriage. Despite being on the run, waking up at your side for the past almost three months has been wonderful," Laura snorted. "Did I just say that?"

"Yeah, you did," he chuckled, enjoying the way Laura liked to be with him and how she didn't take for granted the simpler joys of marriage. "We meant our vows."

Laura thought of how cold and lonely it had felt at night when she'd started to lose hope that he'd miraculously come back. She remembered the night after the funeral, when she could stop shivering and holding the folded flag. Shuddering, she knew exactly what kind of nightmares might plague them both.

"It's ok, Laura. I'm taking you home today," he promised, sensing her thoughts. Against his neck, he felt her brows furrow as she frowned in a look of concentration. There was a hard set to her jaw, warning him that he wasn't going to like whatever she was thinking and that he'd have more luck preventing the sun from continuing to rise than talking her out of what she was about to suggest.

"We've got to go back to the tomb," she said, and he certainly didn't like the sound of that at all. The scowl on his face must have given him away because she fixed on him with a determined look. "Bill, we need to go back. I know I can't explain why, but it's like something is calling me there."

"You're going to have to do better than that," he said in a commanding tone that all the officers under his command would have instantly obeyed, but it only made her want to object vehemently. So she did.

"Excuse me?" Laura pulled back, giving him a warning look. Bill wasn't sure whether that particular glint in her eye said 'I'm the President and you have to listen to me' or 'I'm your wife and you have to listen to me.' Either way, she had that familiar dangerously determined expression that meant she was going to do whatever she wanted.

"Laura..."

"Please, believe me," she said, her eyes softening just the slightest bit. He sighed, frustrated at a planet that was full of too many things that he did not understand and could not control. This was the planet of the gods and he was still an atheist. He was living through the apocalypse again, but this time he was one half of two promised leaders written about in ancient scripture. The other leader looked at him, hoping he could see past his misgivings, past the myths and prophecies he was thoroughly sick of, and have faith in her.

"Damn it all. Alright!"

Dressed, they emerged from their tent, Laura cringing at the bits of dried blood on her clothes and Bill holding his rifle. Morning mist stretched between the trees, dew beading on the leaves and grass. It made the hair stand up on the back of everyone's necks. There was an uneasiness in the fresh air of the dawn, along with a hint of smoke from the campfire, beside which Lee and Kara waited, perched on some rocks. They looked up when the older couple joined them.

"You heard it too," Kara said, noticing the expression on Laura's face. The Adama men shared a look of two men who'd rather have an ordered world where things made sense, but who'd reluctantly accepted a life with these particular women did not allow that.

"The arrow?"

Grabbing it from beside her, Kara held it up for them to see. It was heavy for such a small piece of metal. "Had to clean Dagon's blood off it."

Bill Adama motioned for one of the marines on duty to step over.

"The President and I will be leading a small group up to survey the Tomb of Athena, then heading back to Galactica," he began, laying out further orders about how he wanted the prisoners escorted back to Galactica and the marines from Valkyrie and Galactica to rendezvous back on their ships. Some of them would have to travel back down the mountain, Adama having only been able to land two raptors on the narrow ledge by the Tomb.

None of them wanted to remain on the planet longer than necessary. Laura in particular was itching to get back to Liam and Zak. Her heart wouldn't be fully at peace until she'd seen them and held them both in her arms. And they had responsibilities to the Fleet that were never forgotten.

"Let's go find this tomb of yours," Bill said, remembering how he'd used that reconciling line once before on Kobol. 'Every minute of everyday since then has been a gift… from you,' he'd told her, and Laura's slight smile told him that she was also remembering their conversation from long ago. Kara stood, grabbing the sidearm she'd requisitioned while Lee readied his own rifle for the coming hike.

...

"It's already open," Lee said as the Tomb of Athena came into view.

"Gotta love when something unexplainable and unexpected happens, don't you think?" Kara said, the sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Well, you never handled things staying status quo very well," Lee quipped, grinning at his words having meant them as a compliment and clearly trying too hard to get back into Kara's good graces. He fumbled a bit when Kara sent him a scathing look that could have melted the metal off a viper. "Well, um, I meant you are good at dealing with the unexpected… and…"

"You're walking on ice there, fly-boy," she warned. Meanwhile Laura and Bill were cringing and trying to muffle their laughter. Lee had the decency to blush scarlet and bite back a sharp retort.

"Here," Kara began, tossing him the arrow, "make yourself useful and put it where it belongs. Apollo should be able to handle the Arrow of Apollo right? I don't need to tell you what to do with it like I had to last ni…"

"Kara," Bill warned. She smirked as they watched Lee turn even redder while notching the arrow into the Sagittaron statue.

The tomb door slammed shut. They were plunged into an absolute darkness, and for a few long moments nothing happened. Encased in stone, their skin prickled as they waited. An instinctive fear at being buried alive, abandoned by friends, nagged at each of them.

Laura gasped when the first star appeared above their heads, a dot of pure white light. It hung high in the sky and around it flickered into existence dozens, then hundreds more sparks of light, bringing the sky to life. Gazing upward, eyes more open than they can be in the fullness of day, they took in the beauty of the night sky unmarked by any light on the ground. It became clear they were in an eerily familiar field that grew lighter as one star grew and shone brighter and brighter. Holding up their hands, they tried to shield their eyes from the blinding radiance.

Seemingly coming from all directions, a thundering voice spoke to the four, "You answered the call." The group trembled, their eyes completely shut, as they tried to reach out for one another.

"What the frak is this?" Bill demanded.

The mysterious voice then spoke directly to Bill, and he realized it was coming from the blinding light. "Surely even Admiral Atheist has the wisdom to believe what his senses tell him," the voice echoed into the sky. It had become clearly feminine, yet still powerful and daunting. "I am one of the Twelve who once lived on Kobol. Now... we are the One."

At this, Kara remembered in the back of her mind Sharon's, Leoben's, and Baltar's seemingly unending ravings about a single Cylon god. Tentatively, she asked, "The one?"

"The Lords of Kobol are the One True God and the One True God is the Lords of Kobol. The new is made of the old and the old gives way to the new. Nothing is ever really lost and everything always moves forward."

"I don't believe this," Bill Adama muttered to himself.

"Do you think yourself strong because your rational mind doesn't believe in fairytales? Do you fancy yourself wise?" the voice asked. The light got brighter and warmer—almost burning—and Bill dropped to his knees as the being overwhelmed his mind with its power and splendor. It was terrifying in its awesomeness, and his mind came close to the edge of breaking under the weight of limitless potential and infinite possibilities. For an eternity and a second he drowned in a sea of forever and felt like a single grain of sand on an endless beach.

In a distant-sounding voice, someone begged for it to stop, for him to be left alone. Having proved its point, the experience lifted from him, and Bill found himself being held up by Laura. Her arms were around him and her head buried against his shoulder, her own eyes unable to stand light.

"Did you ask us to come here? Why is all this happening?" Laura asked. She helped Bill rise to his feet despite the shaking in his legs as some of the being's radiance rescinded. Only Laura would dare to use her full presidential tone against a Lord of Kobol, but she was rather cross after what the being had done to the Admiral. He quietly gasped for air, trying to catch his breath while she continued to hold him steady.

"It is time for these unnatural cycles of time to end."

"Can the light show end too?" Kara demandeed, covering her eyes. Her usual piety had been abandoned in favor of irritation at feeling small and powerless. As asked, the light faded and they were able to open their bleary eyes. It felt as if they'd been looking straight at the sun, and they each tried to rub the sting away.

Before them stood a woman who may as well have been one of the twelve statues once placed around the Forum on Caprica come to life. Her skin was white and luminous like marble and she wore purple robes, which flowed around her like fabric even finer than silk. Crowned with a golden battle helmet and bearing a heavy spear, it was undoubtedly Athena. She radiated severity and majesty. Each of the Colonial warriors gripped their weapons—at the ready, just in case.

"Zarek did his part. He played his role and brought you to me so that we may finally talk," she said.

"You're responsible for what Zarek did?" Lee asked, horrified.

"You think freewill and destiny are so different?" Athena scoffed, raising an imperious eyebrow. Your choices bind you to your destiny and your destiny becomes but a single thread in a larger story. It's beyond mortal comprehension and yet…" She looked between Laura and Bill before glancing down at the pendant Laura wore with its etched symbol meaning 'soulmate.' "It's ultimately so simple."

"Well, I like things good and simple, so maybe you can explain to my poor little human brain what you want, just like the President asked?" Kara said.

The commanding Athena reared back, offended at the petulant tone of the mortal. After a moment she decided not to hurl her spear at anyone. Mortals were prone to their outbursts after all, and there was a tale to tell. "It all began on Kobol long, long ago," Athena said, her voice wistful and sad. She wove a story awesome in its scale. Telling them first about the Lords of Kobol, she explained that they were beings of great strength and wisdom with powers of creation that brought forth many beautiful and good things.

As she spoke, Laura, Bill, Lee, and Kara remembered learning this in school—about how chief among the Lords of Kobol there were the Twelve. At the pinnacle of majesty and power, ruled all-knowing Zeus and fierce-spirited Hera. Together, they led the Lords of Kobol in the creation of humanity, and the Golden Age of Kobol dawned with gods and humans living in harmony. Athena recalled streets made of shining alabaster, lush trees bearing fruit bursting with juice, streams of sweet water, and gleaming cities.

"What rose so high and beautiful then fell to darkness," she sighed, petting the owl that had come to rest on her shoulder. It hooted sympathetically at its mistress, nuzzling her cheek. "Hades came, marching up from his lair, each footstep like thunder and his black armor clanking. Behind him, he'd gathered an army of discontented gods and humans. He struck out against my father, and the battles began." She told them about the wars that engulfed Kobol, burning the forests and poisoning the streams. Hades, jealous of his brother's place, waged a devastating struggle. Athena remembered how the dark times stretched like a never-ending stormcloud on the horizon and how humanity lost faith in their creators as many of them became casualties in the fight. Athena stood there dominated by sadness, a solemn grief etched on her ageless face as she remembered a world that could never be restored. Her despair was a heady blackness that radiated from her, choking out some of the stars and causing the human's throats to constrict until Athena pushed away her memories of a beautiful and harmonious world.

"We created the Cylons, didn't we? To protect us," Laura guessed, and Athena nodded gravely.

"Humanity was unwilling to trust the Lords of Kobol with their safety. They lost faith. Some of them even made sacrifices to Hades so that they might be spared in the struggle. It didn't matter," she said. They learned that Hades had been able to turn some of the Cylons against their creators, just as some humans turned against their creators. "The Twelve became desperate. Kobol was consumed with war. Humanity struggled for survival."

"Desperate people do desperate things," Bill said. He declined to elaborate or admit that desperate people often do stupid things. He had a feeling they were about to learn that.

"They do. We called upon forces even more powerful, even more elemental than ourselves to create a weapon."

"The orb in my dream," Laura realized in a breathy whisper, and Athena nodded.

"It's called the Orb of Time or the Orb of Kronos. 'This has all happened before, and will all happen again,'" she said. With a wave of her hand, distant forgotten memories passed through their minds, whispers of timelines long forgotten. Laura saw a time when she was once named Ila and learned that she died in every timeline without standing on the promised land. Adama saw himself returning over and over again to Galactica, always commanding the ship in any time and space. Starbuck always dominated the heavens in a viper flying by Apollo's side and was adopted into Adama's family. Each circle of time Apollo saw, he realized he lost the people he loved too soon. The memories Athena shared ebbed and flowed away, and the humans felt staggered by what they'd seen. They wondered if they were hopelessly trapped in these cycles of time repeating itself.

"Time, we soon discovered, was one thing no one should meddle with," Athena continued, telling them about how desperate the Lords of Kobol became to see the Hades' destruction undone. They used the Orb to undo much of the damage and Hades was ultimately defeated. "Then, terrible things started happening. Machines stopped working. Healthy crops died overnight. Cities fell apart. Men and women grew old too quickly and died. Nothing was right, and every time the Orb was used, things got worse. To escape, Cylons built great ships and left, unable to eek out a living on Kobol any longer. Humanity was the next to leave, unwilling to trust their creators any longer as Kobol became uninhabitable. You've felt it, haven't you? The sense that something is not right here? The sense that you cannot stay here? You can't survive here?"

They all looked at one another, realizing that all of them, even Adama, had felt it. The planet, for all its beauty, felt doomed and cursed. There was something wrong with the ground they walked on, and something urged them to leave. Athena, seeing their realization, delivered the most important bit of information yet.

"The barriers between the cycles of time are already weakening, allowing people to sense other times long gone. The Orb is out there. The Cylon known as Cavil used it to reset time after his last great battle with you. Another cycle and reality will not be able to sustain itself. What's happened here on Kobol will spread throughout the universe. We gifted you with your memories, now your people have the ability to recover the Orb when the time comes."

"You want us to do your dirty work?" Lee asked. "I don't believe this!"

"We no longer permit ourselves to interfere directly in mortal affairs. We certainly shouldn't interfere more than we already have—granting memories to a chosen few, along with a few other blessings," Athena said, a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips as she glanced at the bump Laura couldn't hide.

"Then why the prophecies? Why the visions?" Laura asked, feeling Bill tense beside her.

"You and Pythia are the only humans ever to hold the Orb," Athena explained simply. At Laura's look of protest, Athena seemed to remember how linear humans were. "You'll hold it one day."

"Maybe we can use the damn thing to restore the colonies," Bill muttered to Laura.

"That would risk all of reality!"Athena warned and the light around her became like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with deadly cold. It warned them away from thoughts of using the Orb, as they felt her fear. "It must be destroyed."

"Goody. A quest," Kara said with no small amount of sass. "We've already got a job. Find a pretty little planet for humanity to live on."

"Continue your journey, but stay alert. You'll find what you seek if only you look," she smiled at them, and the light grew around her once more, forcing the humans to shield their eyes. "I must go. I made my choice and abandoned corporeal existence when I threw myself from the Gates of Hera as I watched humanity leave." Laura and Kara protested, having more questions they wanted answered. But the light grew strong and white around them.

'Tell me what weighs on you. Ask me what you will,' a voice whispered in Bill's mind as he turned away from the light.

'Why does it seem like everything is trying to take her from me?' His mind screamed out at her invitation. 'Don't you dare take her from me again,' he said as his heart twisted with fear that the timeline would repeat. His nerves were frayed at the experience in the tomb. He shook as white light enveloped him. He tried to look at it, thinking the being cruel, horrible, and beyond what he wanted to deal with.

'All will die. The gift of mortality is a terrible beauty. But even in death, the Lords of Kobol can never take her from you, you'll always be reunited. You were sealed before them following the ancient customs. Only the two of you can break the bond, and you never will. You'll never be free of her because you don't want to be,' the voice soothed.

The light faded and they stood back in the Tomb, the door standing open while sunlight and birdsong poured in.

"They have one hell of a sense of humor," Lee muttered.

…

Home was her family. Material wealth had proven transitory. Their worlds and most possessions were now no better than dark mush after snow. The people remained, ready to rebuild and endure, and her family persisted. Bill watched Laura catch sight of her sons waiting on the hangar deck, pushed to the front of the gathered crowd. Their faces were eager and excited, and he felt a deep contentment at knowing his family was complete and happy once more. It never failed to amaze him. He hovered close as Laura jumped out of the raptor and hauled Zak and Liam into her arms, very little concern for decorum standing between mother and children, even though there was a practical swarm of people on the hangar deck.

Personnel were everywhere. The press were held back by determined deckhands. Vice President Wally and a beaming Billy looked on from the higher observation ring. Laura gave her beloved aide a smile and wave. There were even members of the Quorum who'd managed to come aboard to see their president return safely. The people's excited chatter was practically deafening. It was a madhouse, and Adama would not let the inmates run this asylum. He held up his hands, commanding the crowd to silence.

"Allow us to make a statement, please," he said as the crowd quieted and the press whipped out their recording devices, practically drooling with anticipation. The people's rapt attention focused on him and the President who'd come to stand next to him.

"We have struggled since the attacks, trying to rely on one another. But our strength and our only hope as a people is to remain undivided," he said, his deep voice resonating over the crowd. Beside him, Laura intertwined their hands, a rare show of public affection, but an obvious display of unity. They were the united and determined leadership of the Fleet, promising the people that this was a front they could rely on.

"Many people believe that the scriptures are the letters from the gods and will help lead us to salvation," Laura continued. "Maybe they will. I do know this: 'The gods lift those who lift each other.' We must lift up one another and see this journey through together." The crowd went wild.

"Together," Bill repeated as the emotion of the crowd washed over them, reassured and jubilant.

…

Author's note: I'm thinking of adding a timeline to the end of the next chapter showing when things happened in this fic. There was a lot of extra lore adding in this chapter! I'm excited to finally reveal it. So excited to hear what people thought!