She wakes up in Life Station, to the feel of Bill's hand in her own, the pungent smell of cigarettes and the irate voice of Jack Cottle.
"You wanted to go the his and hers route, I could have just given you a bandage and you two could have played doctor. I swear I don't know why I keep patching the both of you up!"
The good doctor sounds disgusted but the image he invokes actually brings a smile to Laura's face. Matching injuries instead of toothbrushes and towels, how very end of the worlds, how very them.
"Hmm," she answers him as she opens her eyes and immediately closes them again to ward off the glare from the overhead lights. "A curious sado-masochistic streak perhaps?" Her voice sounds rough, feels it.
"Laura," Bill's voice is laced with concern and his breath is hot on her cheek as he leans closer, she relishes the feeling for a moment before opening her eyes and smiling up at him.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself, how are you feeling?"
"I'm fine." And it's the truth, even though on closer inspection she finds her hand aches horribly and is in a cast and the cast itches; that, and her throat is sore, her mouth parched.
"You let me be the judge of that." Cottle cuts in. He takes her temperature, checks her pupils, fiddles with her IV. Throughout the examination, her eyes never leave Bill's blue gaze.
Finally, Cottle steps back into her line of sight. His scowl is impressive, but there's something behind it almost like laughter. "Do you have any idea how many bones there are in the human hand, young lady?"
Laura shrugs, takes a moment to sip at the water Bill's procured for her, then smiles up at her grumpy doctor. "Twenty seven."
"Frakking schoolteachers." He almost cracks a smile but then his scowl intensifies. "And do you have any idea how many of those you managed to injure with that little stunt you pulled, huh?" As she starts to answer his question, he stops her with a glare.
She tunes him out as he starts to speak of hairline fractures, green breaks, even tunes out Bill's concerned eyes. What happened down on earth is already becoming vague, but at the same time, the epiphany she had looms larger with every passing minute, it is the one thing that overrides all others, she knows it in her gut, knows it beyond the telling of it; this is not the last of their journey, this is not how it's all going to end.
Cylons had walked where humanity had dreamt to go and Earth is a wasteland.
"… you messed yourself up for a good long while," Cottle's voice drones on, "especially seeing as how your whole system is already weakened, and now you'll have to nurse a broken hand while you recover your strength, good job."
It takes a moment for his words to sink in.
"Jack?" Her throat is still tender, her voice raw with hope. Bill's grip tightens around her good hand and when she looks up at him, she sees her own naked apprehension reflected back at her. "What are you saying?"
"Well, I wanted to make sure there were no adverse effects from your stay on the Baseship and your ill advised trip down to Earth, so I ran some tests while you were out …"
"Cut through it, Jack. It's either better or worse, which is it?"
"Neither, really, which frankly is strange enough in and of itself," Cottle says, and at her exasperated look hastens to elaborate. "You should be doing worse with the break in treatment, but it seems that between the Diloxin and the Chamalla and the Cylon DNA still in your system, we've managed to slow things down."
"How?" Laura remembers the gifts her dead gave her, the feeling of strength and life and love, thrumming through her veins.
"I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out. This is good news, Laura. It means we have more time to beat this thing, it means that for now, you have a break." He stubs out his cigarette in the nearest kidney dish, pats her on the knee. "I suggest you get some rest, fatten up, build up a bit of resistance, while I delve into your results further and try to determine a course of action."
"So I'm still dying," she says, somehow needing to say it aloud, "only slower?" Beside her, Bill sucks in a breath. She doesn't dare look at him, knows precisely the look on his face, knows she can't bear to see it there.
"If you want to look at it like that, then yes. But I'm going to figure this out, find out how to beat the cancer into submission for good this time." Cottle looks at her beseechingly, asking her to believe him, believe in him.
"Thank you." Laura sits up, swings her legs over the side of the bed, slips her feet into her dusty boots. Bill is instantly by her side, kneeling to tie her shoelaces, and Laura gratefully rests her hand on his shoulder while she tries to find her equilibrium. Her head is spinning. She needs to speak to Bill, although she doesn't yet know what to tell him, what not to. She needs to talk to the quorum, deal with the press. She needs to figure out her next step.
Bill finishes tying her shoelaces and comes to stand beside her, and she nods at him, then turns to Cottle, bestows a smile upon her doctor and friend. Something in her expression must have him rattled because he slips a cigarette between his lips but forgets to light it.
"Now get out of my sickbay and remember, don't overdo it, young lady."
"You know me, Jack," she says, as she squeezes his arm.
Cottle scowls, finally remembers his cigarette. "Hence the advance scolding," he says as he lights up. He takes a deep drag, watches her intently through the smoke as he exhales. "Seriously, Laura. You need to eat a proper meal, relax, get some rest."
"I will. I promise," she says, "as much as I can."
"But they won't let you, they never do." He sounds disgusted, looks it.
"Thank you for taking such good care of me," she says. Her hand trails along his arm, her fingers entwine with his for a moment. It almost feels like a goodbye, one he doesn't acknowledge.
"You be back here in two days, young lady," he says instead. "I'll have the rest of your test results back by then and we'll figure out how to proceed from there."
She nods, not really listening, her mind already miles removed from sickbay. She's back on Earth, lost in vision, lost in need, kneeling in some holy place where Cylons sat and worshipped. She's still dying and Earth is a wasteland and news of what they found down below is going to break the fleet apart and it's all on her. All of her choices have led her here, have led them here, the last remnants of humanity. She vowed to lead them to the promised land and guided them to Hades instead but this is not all there is, their journey will not end here, in ignominious defeat, and she needs to find a way to convince their people of that.
As they walk out of sickbay together, Bill's hand low on her back, guiding her through the hatch, she hears Cottle start to berate one of his orderlies, notices how the sharp aroma of his cigarettes has permeated the entire area around sickbay, and just like that, suddenly, laughter bubbles up inside her, threatens to overflow. Normalcy in the face of all this madness, it's a comfort of sorts. She's still dying and Earth is a wasteland, but life still goes on too. There's still Bill and al that he means to her, all that they mean to each other, there's still family, there's still time, there's still hope, if they can but hold on together. When the laughter spills over, she follows it home.