Authors Note: This fic has been completely rewritten in 2020 from its 2014 publishing date. The original was quite sloppy and I no longer wanted it up. Rather than remove it I decided to rewrite it in a fashion more comparable to my other works.

It is set some vague place between Baltar's announcement as a presidential a candidate (The Captains Hand) and the actual election. I would assume that there were actually weeks if not months of campaign so this is all before Lay Down Your Burdens I. Though it is an AU fic it is cannon compatible. It assumed an Adama/Roslin established, though secret, romantic and physical relationship. It contains mature subject matter and is intended for older teen and adult readers. The content of the story is not meant to be offensive to anyone's point of view in anyway and don't necessarily reflect my own but I felt I would take the subject at hand in the most realistic direction possible. It was written in an attempt to take the often unrealistic genre of baby!fics and explore a more gritty and un-idealistic approach that remained true to character. If you are negatively triggered by related content please avoid this fic.

Feedback welcome and appreciated!

LLA

For A Night:

Infirmary aboard Battlestar Galactica, 1100 hours

Her awareness drained out of her like sap from a damaged tree. The doctor's words didn't echo in her ears nor did they sink into her mind. She began to hear nothing but humming, the kind that drummed lightly in large empty spacing trying to fill the void. She felt nothing but numbness. Had she become flush or her skin pricked with goosebumps she couldn't feel it. She was checking out. Checking out of her body. Turning off her mind. An involuntary avoidance tactic that had both plagued her and protected her for years. It never lasted long, but for a few moments it served as her only form of escape at times when her feet couldn't carry her away.

Laura nearly jumped out of her skin at the metallic sound of Doc Cottle deliberately hitting his clipboard against a metal surgical cart. The shrill noise reverberated in her ears and just like that she could see him again. She could feel the cold re-circulated Sickbay air against her skin, the hard examining table

beneath her thighs and she could hear his grumpy gravelly old voice once more.

"Madam President?" he repeated as a medic stuck their head into the curtain break worried over the clamorous noise. He waved them off and waited for them to exit before he continued. "Laura?" he tried, his voice less than confident and his prominent brows furrowed in obvious and atypical concern.

She winced at the sound of her name and cinched the neck of the thin infirmary gown tight between her fist as if suddenly feeling too exposed.

"Yes," she managed through a dry mouth, still trying to focus and compose herself from the loud banging that had obviously done what Cottle intended and regained her attention. "Yes. I hear you."

"I said," he went on, lowering his voice now that he was at least fairly sure she wasn't going into shock any longer, "…that I could… take care of this for you. Later this week, at some point when you can clear your schedule for a night."

He watched her as she tightened her arms around herself. Her mouth still hung slightly open but her eyes had resumed their focus.

"You would only have to stay a few hours, maybe until the morning. I'd alert your aide and arrange a raptor to take you back to Colonial I as soon as I thought you were ready. You would recover there, mostly," he explained as plainly as possible, an attempt to encourage her in his own gruff way, that he was ready with a plan of action.

He watched her expectantly, awaiting her response.

Laura licked at her lips but her tongue, still void of any moisture was of no use to her as she started to speak.

"Doctor…" she began shakily, "what you are suggesting…it isn't legal any longer. A law of my own recent doing, I'm afraid. You know that," she said, looking past him again to some vague spot on the curtain behind him as she hugged her arms across her body even tighter.

"Madam President," Cottle said again, but her eyes had begun to glaze over once more. He was losing her again.

He placed the clipboard down on the surgical tray with one hand and took a cigarette out from behind his ear with the other. He held the rolled tobacco out so that it was inches from her face.

"Madam President," he said a little more forcefully, waving the cigarette in front of her eyes and drawing it slowly back toward himself like a pointer, trying to guide her attention back to his. It worked and she

winced as she focused on him again.

"Laura," he continued, in a manner far more gentle than usual. "Listen to me. We say it's the flu, a 48 hour bug or food poisoning. Gods know it wouldn't be the only case we get of it in a week with the grub we have around here now-a-days," he went on intently. "You should understand; you have my complete confidentiality on this matter. There will be no paperwork, no notes on your chart that would

be discernible to anyone but me. It would just be me and one medic. Ishay, probably. Someone trustworthy, I assure you," he promised, putting the unlit cigarette between his lips and waiting once more for Laura to speak.

When she realized she couldn't squeeze herself any tighter if she tried she forced her arms to her sides placing her palms against the cool thin sheet that covered the exam table. She shook her head and sighed deeply.

"People would ask questions. It would leak out. Somehow it would leak and then what?" she asked him more rhetorically than not.

"I assure you, Madam, it wouldn't." Cottle affirmed, standing up straighter.

He almost looked slightly offended at her lack of trust in his word but it faded quickly.

"What kind of president would I be if I broke one of my own policies? And so soon after enacting it?" she asked.

She felt herself starting to cross her arms again.

She forced them back down and nearly tucked them underneath herself to stop them from moving.

"Young lady."

She made her eyes meet Cottle's again and he grimaced.

"It seems to me that you are coming up with an awful lot of obsticals here. This isn't the time for policy and doctrine. This is about your health and safety," he started to shake his head. "You can't tell me that you would seriously consider going through with…"

"No," She interpreted quickly before he could finish. She didn't want to hear it again. "No…but I just…I don't know. This is all just..." Her lips stopped moving and her voice trailed off.

Cottle put his cigarette into his lab coat pocket. He picked up her chart from the tray again and held it in both hands as he moved closer to her.

"I know, Laura," he said nodding and extended his arm to put an uncharacteristically friendly and gentle hand on her shoulder. "I know that this is unexpected, shocking and upsetting to say the least. Please just know that my goal is to ensure your health and your privacy. Those are my only concerns," he vowed earnestly.

Laura nodded and looked down at her lap.

"Could I have a few days, Doctor? I just need a little time. It might take me that long to clear my schedule and I just have some things that I need to get in order before I…"

"Of course, of course," he said, removing his hand from her shoulder and looking down briefly at the chart. "But I must advise you, Madam President..." he said, back to the formality. "…that this be taken care of as soon as possible. Waiting too long will only make it harder. It complicates things. A longer recovery too. If we do this now it won't take much to get you

back on your feet," he said tucking the chart under his arm and retrieving his cigarette and lighter from his lab coat pocket.

"I will be in touch," she answered, looking up with forced assurance. "Thank you, Doctor."

Cottle turned to walk away, finally lighting his cigarette then pulling the curtain back. He turned once more to look at the woman on the table. He had a strange feeling in his gut watching her with her head down, eyes in her lap and practically sitting on her hands. She looked small. She looked devastated. He had never seen her look like that before. Not even as he watched her on what was supposed to be her deathbed. She had always had this bright air about her and a sturdy confidence that seemed unbreakable even in the face of her own demise. As a physician he

saw people at their worst all of the time, had broken countless bad diagnoses. He was used to it. Still he couldn't help but feel sad for this woman.

She looked deflated.

"Laura," he called once more as he stood half way through the curtain.

She looked up at him with something that could

have been called a smile, if he had never actually seen her smile before.

"Really…don't wait too long to get back to me," he advised her.

She nodded and waited for him to depart through the curtains leaving only a few wisps of smoke behind him.

Laura sat there for a short while after Cottle left. She still couldn't think beyond the moment. Usually she felt as if she couldn't stop all of the thoughts and visions she had; considering their applications before they were even fully formed in her mind three and four steps ahead. But this, this had stopped her in her tracks. Her mind wouldn't let her think of it right then. Perhaps it knew the force of the anger and bitterness that would come soon. She had to get out of there before it emerged.

She got up, grabbing her clothes from where they rested on a stool beside the bed.

She dressed herself as swiftly as she could, took a solitary moment to compose herself and then she stepped out to find Tory and return to her ship.