Laura felt Bill jerk away from her and for one, horrifying instant thought he had been shot – which, she realized a moment later, was silly because there had been no shots fired. She could hear him scuffling about in the dark next to her and noticed the roving light of the Centurion's eye turning towards him.

She felt around for her gun. It would do the Cylon no damage, she knew, but it might distract it long enough for Bill to do… well, whatever it was he was planning. At least, he godsdamned better be planning something…

She found the gun, clicked the safety off and fired as best she could at the little red light, and pulled the trigger again, and again, and again, and—

"Cease fire!" shouted Bill's voice, and the shock of it made her pull the trigger again. Bill yelled and she was afraid she'd hit him, but then there was a loud clunk right in front of her and the red light wobbled. Clunk, clunk, clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk and it fell to the ground and went out.

"You okay?" Bill asked.

"Yes," Laura said breathlessly, nodding even though of course he couldn't see her.

"Good." The flashlight clicked on and once she'd gotten used to the glare she saw him standing behind it. "We've gotta go," he said, lifting up his bag and putting his gun back in its holster.

Laura pulled her boots and jacket back on and took the proffered hand to pull her back to her feet. Gathering her own bag and gun, she followed him out into the tunnel –

at whose end there were two more Cylon-eyes moving back and forth.

"Frak," Bill muttered, and he grabbed hold of her and they ran in the opposite direction, turning the corner just before the Centurions opened fire.

"Give me your bag," Bill commanded, shining his flashlight back and forth between the four tunnel-mouths now in front of them. Laura obliged without hesitation and Bill threw the bag down the left-most tunnel before taking her once again by the hand and pelting down the next tunnel over.

They had barely been running for a minute when another Centurion stepped out of a side tunnel and aimed its guns at them. Bill cursed again, throwing his gun at the Cylon's head for a second's distraction while he pulled Laura around a corner into a small cavern.

"Do you see another way out?" Bill demanded, standing at the entrance with his back to her and firing down the tunnel with the second gun he had retrieved from his bag.

"Give me the flashlight."

Bill obliged, tossing it to her over his shoulder. She almost dropped it.

"I can't see anything," she said, scanning the room, trying not to sound panicked… But the walls were smooth on all sides, the ceiling was a mess of stalactites with no cracks in it wide enough to fit even her hand…

"I count at least five heading this way, if we have to make a break for it we should do it now," Bill said urgently.

"I think… wait." There was a small pool of water on the far side of the cavern, it looked deep… Laura ran over and plunged her hand into the icy liquid, feeling for a wall or other obstruction at the back… and there wasn't one. "I think we can swim underneath here," she called. "Bill, the Centurions can't be fully submerged in water, it gets into their wiring and fries it."

Bill hesitated for only a fraction of a second before he risked a glance back at her and said, "Go!" He started edging towards her. "I'll be right behind you!"

Laura steeled herself and stepped into the freezing water. She was shivering uncontrollably before she was fully submerged, and by the time she was on her knees in what felt more like liquid nitrogen than water the only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that half a dozen Centurions were about to come around the corner and gun her down.

She took two deep breaths and went down, plunging underneath the rock. She heard a muted splashing as Bill jumped in behind her, and a slightly less muted "Frak me that's cold!" immediately afterward.

The underwater cave widened as she pushed herself forward, but that was only a small mercy. There were still rugged outcroppings of rocks at various intervals, and the flashlight died mere seconds after having been submersed in the water.

Laura pulled herself along carefully, using the outcroppings as leverage, and hoped and prayed that she would find somewhere to go back up into the air before she and Bill both drowned – and that she wouldn't miss it in the darkness.

Said darkness disappeared abruptly, though, to be replaced by a fluorescent green glow – Bill must have decided to use one of his lightsticks. Immeasurably comforted by the fact that she could see, even if it was in a low, sickly light which cast strange dark shadows, Laura forged on.

Then, putting a hand above her head to grab a stalactite, she thought she felt air.

Suddenly feeling like her lungs were bursting now that she'd found a possible way out, she said another small prayer and kicked her legs. She was propelled upwards into a dark, damp-smelling cave and was immediately assaulted by cold, shiver-inducing, breathable air.

Laura gulped it down as if she'd been starved of it for a lot longer than the minute it had actually been, feeling happier than she had in months simply because she could breathe again.

That was when she realized that the light no longer seemed to be moving.

She looked down, afraid that she might be blocking Bill's way up, but all she could see beneath her were the shadows of her own legs treading water.

Her heart started to beat faster in fear and her breath came in gasps, not ideal if she was about to go diving again… which she was, because there was nothing else for it.

Laura forced herself to breathe deeply, and sank back down into the water-filled cave below. It was much more difficult to hold her breath this time, consumed as she was with an almost mind-numbing panic. She followed the light… where was he where was he…

Ah. There.

The strap of his bag had become tangled in a small cluster of stalagmites, and he was floating there limply, obviously having used up too much oxygen struggling to get free. One of his hands was still loosely holding the lightstick… and a knife.

Well Bill, at least you got something right, Laura thought, ripping the knife from his grasp and cutting the straps of the bag to free him from them. She could see how he had failed at this; the places she had had to cut it in would not have been easy to get to.

But enough of that. Come on, Bill, she thought at him, collecting both lightsticks with the hand she still held the knife in and pulling him bodily towards the surface with the other. Somehow she managed to shove his heavy form up into the cave ahead of her, but when she surfaced and knelt by his side she realized that he wasn't breathing.

"Damn you, Bill, do you know how long it's been since I took first aid?" she muttered, positioning herself next to his head and pinching his nose. "You'd better hope I remember this right," she told him, tilting his head back.

She put her lips to his and blew two quick breaths into his mouth. Looking up, she put a hand on his chest, trying to feel it rise. "Come on, Bill…"

Nothing. She pinched his nostrils again and again lowered her mouth to his for two breaths and pulled back. "Bill? Bill, come on." She slapped him lightly, futilely on the cheek.

She tried again, and this time when she released his nostrils and put her hand on his chest she made herself put on her most severe schoolmistress voice, the one she only used with children who were particularly stubborn, and said, "William Adama, if you don't wake up right now, so help me, I'll—"

Bill coughed.

Laura let out the breath she had somehow been holding even while speaking, and helped him turn his head so he could cough up the water onto the ground rather than his admittedly already soaked self.

"You'll what?" Bill croaked after a moment.

"What?" Laura asked, distracted by stroking his cheek in relief.

"You were saying," Bill said, hauling himself up onto an elbow, "that if I didn't wake up you would do something. I didn't get to hear the end of the threat."

"Oh…" Laura shook her head slightly, knitting her brows. What had she been going to say? "Die, probably," she said weakly.

"Ah." Pulling himself into a sitting position, he cracked a smile. "Can't have that, can we?"

"I'd rather not at the moment, no." She attempted a smile.

Bill nodded understanding and reached for one of her hands, squeezing it comfortingly. "We should keep moving," he said, making to get up.

"What? Bill, you just drowned!" Laura protested incredulously.

"That's true, but I doubt the Cylons will care. Not to mention the lightsticks. We need to get as far as possible before they run out."

"Okay…" she said uncertainly.

"Laura, I'm fine, thanks to you," he reassured her – a little too briskly to be completely convincing. "Really. Now, where's my bag?"

Laura looked back at the water and he followed her gaze. "Ah," he said. "Right." Slowly, he got to his feet. "I guess that's all our luggage, then," he said, gesturing at the knife and the lightsticks still lying at her side.

"I suppose it is," Laura agreed. She gathered the items in question and let Bill pull her to her feet – though not letting him take quite as much of her weight as she would under normal circumstances.

"Just one thing…" Bill said, as they made their way out of the cave. "If we live to tell this tale, I'm the one who resuscitated you, alright?"

Laura scoffed. "Why? Are you afraid to admit you needed help from a girl?" she teased.

"Not exactly," Bill said amiably. "But I could do with the ego boost."

She guffawed quietly, shaking her head. "We'll see."

"That's all I ask."

The walked on amiably for a few minutes, at as brisk a pace as they could. It wasn't until they stepped out into a larger cavern than the previous ones that Laura suddenly realized that she was still shivering, and said, "Bill, we're both soaking wet. If we're not careful we're going to freeze."

Bill seemed to consider this. "As long as we're on the move we should be alright. We'll worry about it when we stop."

"…Right."

Laura worried about it now. If they were to come all this way just to succumb to hypothermia and frostbite … Well, it would be embarrassing, for a start, but mostly deeply depressing.

Still, there was nothing she could do about it now, so she followed Bill through the maze of caves, trusting that he at least knew roughly where they were going – he did look at his compass from time to time – and hoping that the lightstick would last as long as possible.

Then she started to get hungry. She tried to ignore it – after all, all their rations had been lost – but then she saw, quite by chance, food growing on the wall.

"Bill," she said, tugging his arm. "Food."

"Where?" he said, looking up suddenly as if he'd been pulled out of deep thought. He followed her gaze. "You're kidding."

"No." Laura let go of him and plucked some mushrooms out of the little alcove she had spotted them growing in. "These are edible."

"How do you know?" Bill asked suspiciously, looking at the little white bulbs as if they might jump up at him in some kind of pro-active poisoning attempt.

"I took my students mushrooming a couple of months back. I wouldn't be a very good teacher if I hadn't done my homework, would I?" She popped a mushroom into her mouth. It was slimy and really quite disgusting, but it was food. "Try one," she said.

Bill eyed the proffered mushroom dubiously, but picked it up and put it in his mouth.

He made a face. "You're sure these are edible?" he asked.

"Positive." Laura ate a couple more of the mushrooms and then began gathering them up to hold them against her chest with one arm. "Provisions," she explained.

Bill shook his head, but took the lightsticks and knife from her when she asked him to. When she had picked enough mushrooms to last them for the next two days, after which they would hopefully be rescued, she took his arm with her free hand and they moved on again.

"Happy now?" Bill asked blandly as the pace of their footfalls picked up again.

"Perfectly." Laura smiled beatifically.

"Hmph."

They walked on.

The glow from the lightstick grew dimmer and dimmer, and eventually, when she had tripped over obstacles in the dark more than once and dropped several of her mushrooms, Laura asked if they shouldn't break the second one.

"Not until this one's really gone. It's still got about a half hour of life left in it." She thought he shook his head to punctuate this, but it was getting harder to tell again.

"Alright…" she said, reluctantly ceding to his logic. "But it's your fault if we both trip and break our necks."

"If that happens I'll take full responsibility," Bill assured her.

It was Laura's turn to utter a "Hmph."

Then things suddenly seemed to be growing lighter again.

"…Do you see that?" she asked him uncertainly.

"There must be a gap in the rock up ahead. We should be near the surface."

The light was still faint, but it was definitely gray and not that pallid shade of green Laura was getting so sick of. Might there even be a way out at the source of it? Perhaps they wouldn't have to eat those mushrooms after all…

Sadly, the source of the light became apparent all too soon as a narrow crack in the ceiling of the next cave they came to.

Bill looked at his watch and then up at the light. "The sun's going down," he said. "We should stop here for tonight and save the other light stick for tomorrow."

Laura sighed, but she knew he was right. She put the mushrooms down on a relatively dry piece of ground, grabbed a handful of them and chewed while she looked around their new, less-than-inviting quarters.

The cave was smaller and rounder than the one in which they had spent the previous nigh—wait, day – and the ceiling was low enough to make standing straight impossible. It was slightly less damp, it was true, but as Laura herself was more damp she didn't see this as much of a selling point.

"You should try to get some sleep," Bill said, lowering himself to the ground near the least lumpy-looking part of the cave wall.

"I could say the same for you," she replied, reluctantly sitting down next to him. The stone was cold behind and underneath her, and she had the distinct impression that the water still in her clothes would start to freeze if it got much colder. And this was all while she was still relatively warm from their long – gods, it must've been almost twenty hours… – walk. She felt exhausted, but the fact that she was starting to shiver again made her think that closing her eyes was a bad idea. She didn't really like the sound of freezing as a way to die, even after having tried the more painful alternative of cancer.

"Bill…" she said. She could see that he was trying not to tremble with cold himself, and noticed for the first time that he was wheezing rather heavily. "Remember that 'cold' thing we said we'd worry about later? I'm worrying."

"Don't. It'll be fine." He didn't sound terribly convincing.

"Bill—"

"Here, give me your hands," he said, shuffling closer and reaching for them before he'd even finished the sentence. He rubbed one hand and then the other between his own, breathing on them to provide more warmth. It wasn't enough.

"Bill, this isn't going to work," she said, though she couldn't help a smile at his effort. "Your hands are as cold as mine. Colder, probably. You did die earlier today."

He tried to ignore her for a moment, but then he looked up into her eyes and let go. He didn't take his hands back, but held hers with his left and moved the other up to finger the damp, cold fabric of her sleeve.

Then he cupped her chin in his palm and kissed her.

Oh…

Oh, that worked.

He pulled away and she could see sheer, unadulterated terror in his eyes. Restraining herself from laughing at the way this unaccustomed expression made him look like a little boy caught in the middle of the night with his hand in the cookie jar, Laura smiled and nodded, trying to reassure him, and pressed her lips to his again.

Even as she felt the heat rising in her chest in response to his careful caress, Laura thought about the mechanics of this particular way of keeping warm. She had read more than a couple of trashy romance novels where such things featured as plot devices, but she had no idea if it actually worked in reality. However, she couldn't think of anything better, and if she was going to die she could think of worse ways to spend her last moments than having sex with William Adama.

Not that she had thought about having sex with him before, of course.

Well. Not much.

Not a lot, anyway.

Then he slipped his hand under her shirt, and all her thoughts just… fizzled.