Laura Roslin awoke to find that she was not dead, which was all in all quite a relief.
In addition, she was practically warm.
She stretched her legs carefully under the pile of almost dry clothes. The makeshift coverings were definitely helping to contain the heat, but the source of it was undeniably the naked man at her back. Gray light was beginning to filter through the crack in the ceiling once again, so she turned to face him and shook him lightly by the shoulder.
"Bill, it's morning."
There was no response, so she shook him harder and raised her voice. "Bill."
Stirring, he started to mumble something, but was interrupted by a hacking cough.
Laura felt her stomach twist in sudden worry and hastily put a hand to Bill's forehead.
No wonder she was feeling so warm. He was burning up.
"I think you have a fever," she told him as he began to sit up. His eyes were still unfocussed, and at first she thought he hadn't heard her.
"'S nothing," he said eventually, groggily. "Less get goin'."
"Oh, I beg to differ." Laura grabbed his clothes from the pile and tried to help him into them, but he waved her off irritably. "You need to eat something at least, before we start walking again." She started to pull her own clothes back on.
"I'm not hungry."
"And I'm starving. That's proof that you're sick." Laura fetched a handful of mushrooms and held one in front of his mouth. "Eat," she commanded.
Bill glared.
Laura raised an eyebrow.
He gave in, grudgingly letting her feed him a few of the vile things. She ate the rest of the small handful herself and put the remainder of her stash in her pockets.
Bill was fully clothed now and heaving himself up using the wall as leverage. Laura dearly wanted to lend him a hand, but she wasn't sure his obviously suffering masculine pride could bear such an offense. Instead she picked up the knife and unspent lightstick and asked, "Which way are we going?"
"That way," he said, pointing, and Laura had taken two steps before he said, "…No. It should—Hmm." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from one of his pockets and stood under the shaft of light coming from the ceiling to examine it.
Laura went to look over his shoulder. He was looking at a map of the cave system. Thankfully the paper it was on was fairly durable and had survived its underwater stint without much damage, but Laura's worry increased when she realized that Bill had had this map with him the whole time and yet only now felt the need to refer to it. He had been carrying the information around in his mind and now, it seemed, it not longer fit.
"Where are we?" she said, deciding not to mention to him this extra little indicator that something was wrong.
"We must be here," he said, pointing. "Which means we're facing…" he consulted his compass, "this way, so we need to go that way." He turned and began to walk in that direction.
"Can I see that?" Laura asked, hating to second-guess him but at the same time unable to ignore the niggling feeling in her brain…
Bill gave her the piece of paper without comment and coughed again as he continued walking – which he was doing a lot more stiffly than yesterday, Laura noticed. Taking the map, she saw what it was that had been niggling her.
"Bill…" She tugged lightly on his sleeve. "We can't go this way. Look, there's no way out of the tunnels from there. We need to go around this way."
It took Bill a couple of seconds to understand what she was saying, and Laura thought he was going to try to argue with her. But he just said, "You're right. I'm sorry," and turned to walk in the direction she had indicated.
For some reason this bothered her more.
Trying to put her worries aside for the moment – after all, there was nothing she could do – Laura cracked the second lightstick and they once more started to trek through the dark.
She took Bill's arm again, though this time with the express purpose of being better positioned to catch him if he happened to stumble. Scratching her cheek absentmindedly, she was surprised to find it hot to the touch. Probing further, she discovered that the entire area around the large cut she had sustained during their flight through the forest two days ago was swollen and oversensitive to the touch of her own cold fingers, and when she touched the cut itself they came away sticky.
Well. It seemed Bill wasn't the only one who needed to see a doctor.
He coughed again then, and she instinctively tightened her grip on his arm.
They walked in relative silence for several hours, Laura preferring to keep talking to a minimum lest it result in a coughing fit. Bill did not object, nor try to initiate any conversation beyond what was necessary.
The lightstick became dimmer and dimmer, and eventually Laura asked to look at the map again.
"We're not going to get out before we lose the light, are we?" she said, scrutinizing it.
"No," Bill said simply.
"Damn."
"We'll manage. Just try to memorize the map, we'll find our way."
Laura did as she was told, but the addition of another worry was not pleasant.
They walked on, and gradually the light disappeared.
Then they were left in darkness.
Tightening her hold on Bill still further, Laura checked that the knife was still secure in her back pocket and reached out to touch the wall. She didn't let go of it for more than a second as she and Bill went on through the tunnels. Time was not so much of the essence anymore as certainty of their location, after all.
Twice she had to let go of the wall to catch Bill when he started to fall, having not been careful enough in his step. After a while she was almost glad she couldn't see him – his coughing had worsened and he was now unreservedly leaning on her for support, and she had no desire to watch him deteriorate. She only hoped that they would make it out into the open before his condition grew more dire.
Then the next time Bill stumbled she couldn't catch him, and ended up falling with him onto the cold, damp stone of the tunnel floor.
Getting to her knees, Laura wiped her muddy hands on her pants and reached out for Bill to help him up. She managed to pull him halfway to a sitting position, but then his strength seemed to give out and he fell back down to the ground.
"Laura," Bill said – gods, he sounded sick – "I think you should go on without me."
"No," she said firmly. "Absolutely not."
"You've got a better chance alone, without me slowing you down," he tried to reason.
"And you've got a better chance with me, so stop yammering and get up." She got a better grip on him and heaved. "Come on, Bill."
Bill seemed to have seen the futility of objecting, because with her help he now managed to get to his feet once more.
"Ready?" Laura asked as he put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.
He took a deep breath – which unfortunately did sound more like a deep wheeze – and said, "Lead on."
Laura pulled his arm over her shoulder and did so.
Their progress continued to be slow, and they had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Laura asked Bill during one of their mushroom-eating breaks if he with his trained military mind could make some kind of estimate, but he was just as clueless as she. They stood up and soldiered on.
And then they saw light.
It was so faint at first that Laura wondered if she was imagining it, seeing things in the dark… but then Bill's dark outline became visible beside her once again, and Laura couldn't help grinning even as she saw that he looked as bad as, if not worse than, she had feared.
The outside world came into view once more, through a crack in the wall of the next cave more than large enough for a man to squeeze through.
"That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," Laura declared as they stepped closer.
"Mmm." Even Bill now had a trace of a smile on his lips.
They climbed carefully out and into the sunlight, Laura keeping a close watch on Bill to make sure he didn't suddenly fall and crack his head open or tumble away down the mountainside. Enjoying the late afternoon light and the fresh air, they stood still for a moment before tackling the next part of their journey.
Thankfully they were not too far up the mountain, and after their short break they managed to clamber down to the forest below in fairly good time.
Once they had reached the trees, however, they began to be shot at.
Bill pulled her to the ground – or pushed, more accurately, as he was already leaning on her heavily – just as she caught a glimpse of metal through the foliage. The mechanical clanking sound of the Centurion's walk grew closer, and Bill turned to her and said, "Laura. This time you really do have to go."
"Bill…" Laura looked helplessly from him to the source of the ominous noise.
"Don't worry." Bill grinned, and for a moment he almost looked like himself again. "I have a plan." His expression grew more serious, silently pleading with her, and he cleared his throat and said firmly, "Now go." He reached out and pushed her with what she was had the strong impression was all his strength, which got her on her feet before she could think about it, and then he slapped her on the buttocks, which surprised her so much that she just started running.
When she initial shock wore off she slowed down and dared to look back over her shoulder, but she couldn't see—
She ran straight into somebody's chest, and gasped in terror before she turned around and saw that it was Galen Tyrol.
"Madame President," he said, looking amused.
"Former president," she corrected, slightly stunned. Then, when clarity abruptly returned, "Admiral Adama! He's over there, I left him…"
"Already on it, ma'am. If you want to come with me and, uh, out of the line of fire, we can probably get your cheek looked at…"
Laura put a hand up to touch her cheek, then wished she hadn't. It was far more swollen than it had been earlier, and the cut itself was sticky with pus. The itch she had been almost successfully ignoring all day returned with a vengeance when her fingers touched the wound, and would not go away even after she left it alone.
"Yes," she said, pulling herself together. "Thank you, Chief."
Tyrol smiled and led the way back to another cave – but this one was well-lit and warm, and moments after they arrived Bill was carried in and tucked into a bed, with a medic attending immediately.
Laura finally allowed herself to feel some relief.
Eleven hours later the rescue ships arrived and took them home.