Here's the next installment! Sorry for the delay. Work and real life can really play havoc with things, eh?

Thanks muchly for the comments on the last chapter. It was good to hear from people! Just as a reassurance, the end to this is in sight: I've got chapter 9 pretty much finished, chapter 10 kinda of blocked out (an unexpected scene popped into my head, and I'm dithering about using it) and I have the last two chapters written. It's just the inbetween chapter or two that I have to mess with now! Wish me luck, okay?

Disclaimer: As always, I appreciate the opportunity to take these characters out to play. It's a ton of fun.

Too High a Cost
By: Mariel

-xxxxxxxxxx-

Chapter 8

Resolution

The next morning brought with it disappointing news: the cylons had assumed a search grid on the escarpment above them, making it impossible to leave the safety of the gorge. As the time he had hoped to begin their journey to the waiting raptor passed, Adama grew restless, calculating in his head how much time they had left and worrying about how he would now accomplish what he had set out to do.

Keeping her distance, Laura watched him, her concern evident. Beside the concern, however, sat impatience and a subtle hint of anger.

Adama didn't appear to notice.

In their company for almost forty-eight hours now, Lee, Kara, Helo, and Sharon were all too aware of the increasing tension between the two leaders. The way they tended to avoid one another was obvious, and what few discussions they'd both been part of had been cool.

Now the four watched from a discreet distance as a conversation between Adama and the President grew increasingly heated. Though they kept their voices low and their reactions restrained, they were plainly not pleased with one another. Finally, Adama rose abruptly and walked off.

The four younger adults watched wordlessly as the President stared at his retreating back a moment, then stood and, just as she had the day before, strode into the woods after him. The determined look on her face did not bode well for peaceful discourse.

Raising one eyebrow, Kara gave Lee a sideways glance and asked, "Should I intercept her?"

The idea was tempting, but he shook his head slowly. "No. I think we've got to let them be." His eyes thoughtful, he added, "It was bad yesterday, but today..." He shook his head. "I always thought they'd find some sort of common ground."

Kara grunted. "I don't know about the ground; I figured the Admiral's rack," she said, convinced that a good frak would probably help the situation between the two immeasureably.

Not shocked by her bluntness, Lee's face was sombre as he nodded and said, "I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd hooked up that way. They've always had a weird connection, and there are things about her that remind me of both my mother and Anne."

Kara's eyes widened in surprise at Lee's mention of Adama's second wife. Her attention diverted, she turned her head towards him. "I didn't know you even knew her."

"I didn't, not really," he admitted, "but I met her a few times. Only once, I think, before she married my father. Afterwards, she only came with him a few times." He shrugged, and admitted, "I wasn't very nice to her. Nothing was said, but I guess Dad just decided not to put her through it. Or maybe it was her decision, and she didn't want to deal with my attitude. Anyway, when I got older, life was busy and I just wasn't interested. I usually saw Dad on his ship, or he visited me at the academy or whatever." He looked down at his hands. "And after Zak died, I wouldn't have seen her because Dad and I had stopped speaking."

"You'd stopped speaking, you mean," she reminded him automatically. Looking at the spot where Laura had disappeared into the undergrowth, she did a brief mental comparison of Caroline and Anne - whom she'd met twice, when dating Zak - and the President. "I liked Anne," she finally said. "For a woman used to getting her own way, she was surprisingly nice. She was very confident in herself, and definitely loved your father. I never saw them together, but they both seemed happy."

When Lee said nothing, she continued, "She was smart, and from the stories he's told me, she could make him laugh." She paused, her lips curving as she remembered. Then, shaking herself from her thoughts, she took a quick breath. "Not many people can do that," she said, her smile fading. Taking a sideways glance at him, she added, "Zak liked her."

Lee made no response. Zak and he had disagreed on a number of points, Anne being one of them. Whereas Lee had been quite content to either ignore the woman's existence or hate her on principle alone, Zak had quietly accepted her, and had even stayed at Anne and his father's home occasionally. Lee, of course, had always adamantly refused. Eventually, 'Anne' had simply become something neither of the two brothers spoke about.

He sighed, wondering if all his choices had been wise ones.

Kara looked at Lee and felt sadness press at her gut - not over what Lee might have missed, but at Adama's loss. No one - not even his son - had given a thought about what the senior Adama had felt when Caprica had been destroyed. Everyone had considered him lucky, thinking his home had been on the Galactica and that with his one remaining son alive and with him, he had lost nothing.

Everyone forgot about his life beyond his ship - they forgot about Anne and his life with her because, after the horribly public breakup of his first marriage, he had carefully kept his second marriage private. It had been something that both he and Anne had agreed upon early in their life together. That it had worked for them appeared evident:He wore the ring that had bound him to her still.

"She was dying," she told Lee quietly. "I didn't know, of course, until months after I met your father. We were talking, and I told him I had met her, and said I was sorry not to have seen her at the funeral. He told me she hadn't been able to come - she'd been in the hospital. That was at the very onset of things. The last year or so, she began to lose ground more quickly. I think the one thing that kept him sane when he knew Caprica had been written off and that she was dead was that he could tell hlimself she hadn't needed to suffer any more."

Lee stilled. He hadn't known. And he'd never stopped to think what his father must have been felt at losing his wife during the cylon onslaught. Taking a deep breath, however, he hardened his heart and shook his head. "So she was dying alone. That's so like my father. Run away to his ship-"

Kara sighed in frustration. "He wasn't running away. He didn't know the end of the world was coming. He was retiring, for gods' sakes. To be with her"

Lee's expression changed slightly. "I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't."

Her voice was cool. She thought maybe no matter how much she loved Lee, she would never forgive the pain he had caused his father at a time when he had least needed or deserved it.

"I never really thought about what sort of life they had together," he admitted. "I was never part of it." He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. "Hell, I was barely part of my father's."

Kara bit her tongue to prevent herself from responding, and let Lee ponder things a little more.

Looking at the spot where the two had entered the woods, he finally said, "No wonder Roslin's cancer affected him so much. They'd become friends, and then to watch her dying..." His voice trailed off.

Kara nodded. Following his gaze, she asked, "So what do we do about them now?"

Pulling himself away from his thoughts, Lee stuck to his original opinion. "Nothing," he said. "They've got to sort this out themselves."

Kara sighed. It was against her nature to leave things alone. She loved Adama, and had grown to respect and like the President. Together, the two of them had kept the fleet united and safe. With the Admiral the way he was, however, and Roslin not quite herself, either, she felt a new uncertainty about the future.

"What do you suppose they have to fight about?" Lee asked quietly.

Kara looked at him askance. "Remember the scrolls we came here to look for? Maybe she's upset we've totally ignored our mission since we arrived here. She may not feel that hiding out from the cylons is enough of an excuse not to be looking for them. Maybe she wants to have a go at finding them and he's saying forget it."

"She'd have said something to us," Lee said.

She nodded in agreement. "I think you're right. Which means I really have no idea what they have to argue about." Her face turning pensive, she told him, "The scrolls aren't important to her anymore. The focus has changed. I don't understand it, but something tells me that all that's really important right now is what's going on between the two of them." She stopped, then shook her head. "They can't continue to be at odds with each other all the time. They're going to have to work out whatever it is they're dealing with."

Lee grunted. "Easy to say; harder to do. Dad's stuck right now. I don't think he's paying much attention to Roslin or their arguments. Hell, he's not paying much attention to anyone."

After a moment's silence, Kara looked at the woods uncertainly and asked, "You're not worried they'll run across cylons?"

"Dad knows what he's doing. I figure they're more likely to kill each other than to be killed by cylons."

She shot him a look. "Not funny, Lee."

"Sorry," he apologised. In a more serious vein, he told her, "I think Dad's pretty sure the cylons aren't interested in looking down here."

"He knows something we don't?" Helo asked.

Lee and Kara started in surprise. Engrossed in their conversation, they had forgotten there were others within hearing range. Looking over at the lieutenant, Lee said, "Most likely. He found us, didn't he? And knew how to avoid the cylon search party. And he has our means of escape." He shrugged, and his eyes took on a faraway look. "He's different right now, though. Even if you factor in the change in him since we left New Caprica, there's something else going on with him, something he's not telling us." He moved restlessly, then stood. Looking down at the others, he said, "I'll be glad when we're all back on the Galactica and heading for Earth again. I'd kill for a little normalcy."

Helo grunted. "I'm not sure I remember what that looks like. Do you?"

-xxx-

Laura stopped uncertainly. After spending so much time in the confines of gray metal spaceships, it was beautiful here on a scale that was almost awe-inspiring. High overhead, streams of golden light shone through the spreading tree branches and rippled their way down to the green, moist ground below. Here and there, broad-leafed bushes trembled as gentle, random breezes caressed them in passing. Looking about her, she paused to wonder at how strangely quiet it was. There were no signs of animal or bird life, and the sound of the waterfall seemed merely a distant groan. She wrapped her arms around herself. The air itself had a presence, each tree and rock and hillock seeming to have an aura that radiated a purpose she could not quite understand. Feeling small and insignificant and oddly disquieted, she examined her surroundings, wondering which direction Bill would have taken. Moving uneasily and feeling as though the planet itself watched her, she turned her steps in the direction of the river.

A few moments later, she stood on its bank and started in surprise when a gravelly voice behind her asked, "Why are you following me this time?"

Dropping the hand that had flown to her chest, she turned and said, "Who said I was?"

Bill looked at her.

Her eyes dropped. "Okay. That was stupid." She paused, then looked at him directly. "I refuse to stop trying."

His eyes narrowed. She had no idea what she had done to him. She had left him hanging for twelve months, effortlessly cut him totally out of her life, refused communication of any kind, and blithely ripped him apart a little more each day with her silence. Her decision had been unilateral and had been a betrayal so personal that he had done the only thing he could do to stay emotionally stable. He'd cut himself off from his feelings and carried on in the vacuum her absence had created.

... and now she was back, devilling his days with her betrayals and his nights with memories. The way she had left him, followed by the way she'd reappeared and acted as though betrayal had never happened...the way she insisted on insinuating herself back into his life...

He couldn't allow it. Not then, and certainly not now. Not now that his decision had been made.

"You refuse to stop trying?" he repeated. "You're not trying. You're nagging. Give it up, Laura."

The bitterness in his voice cut her.

"Bill-"

He raised his hand. "Stop. I don't know why you're doing this, any more than I understand why you've done half the things you've done, but your hounding me won't change anything. Just be thankful there's a way off this planet and that you're going to be on it. This will be over soon, and you'll be able to concentrate of getting everyone to Earth."

She stared at him, her breath catching in her throat as the thought suddenly hit her that perhaps the distance between them had grown so great that it might never be breached.

What would she do then?

Looking at him, she felt the fear of that slide down her spine. How could they go on this way? How could she look to the future with anything but dread if this was what they would continue to be to each other? She felt tears of loss and frustration well up in her eyes, and turned her head away quickly while she tried to regain her self-control.

Clenching her fists, she inhaling sharply, gritted her teeth, and grasped desperately at her frustration and anger. Turning, she railed at him: "You are so frakking stubborn! We can't go on like this!" She stopped, and angrily wiped a tear from her cheek. "There's got to be something-"

He looked at her, refusing to allow himself to be moved. It was too late, he told himself. Too late to change anything. When he saw her lift a hand to brush away a tear, his face tightened. Interrupting her flow of words, he asked, "Is this a new tactic? You think crying is going to help you get your way?"

The words and the scorn with which they were laced snapped what little control Laura had left. Drawing her hands up swiftly, she hit his chest with clenched fists. He stood with his arms at his sides and made no move to stop her. When he didn't respond, she growled in frustration and hit him again. And again. Soon, she was pummelling his chest with both fists.

"I hate you!" she said, punctuating her words by slamming her fists against him rhythmically. "Listen to me! You can't do this!"

After withstanding her blows for as long as he felt necessary, Bill grabbed her wrists. Undaunted, she continued to struggle against him.

Enraged at being trapped and still trying to hit him, she cried out, "Gods, why don't you feel anything? Dammit! React to something!" Twisting within his grasp angrily, she demanded, "What happened to you?"

He held her hands up above shoulder height so that she could not gain purchase to kick, and their bodies crashed against each other. She moved against him, pushing against him with her body, trying to throw him off balance. "Let go of me!" she exclaimed as she threw herself futilely against him.

Her movements against him slowed as physical awareness of him reached her brain.

"Let go," she said, her voice less forceful.

Suddenly overwhelmed, her motions ceased completely. His hands were warm and strong on her wrists; his face was inches from hers, his body tightly pressed to hers. She could smell his scent, warm and familiar and totally his. Mesmerised by the stormy blue of his eyes, she listened to her heart beat madly in her ears and struggled to take a ragged breath.

With a sharp, sudden scream, something familiar and white hot awakened between them.

As though on cue, awareness of their surroundings crashed over them, the air abruptly filling with the sound of falling water and winged creatures and rustling leaves. Unconsciously, they both inhaled quickly..

Then their mouths crashed together.

End
Chapter 8