"Bill." Laura breathes out happily as he pushes back the curtain surrounding her cot, "Thank you."

He nods in recognition and sits in the chair aside of her bed, clasping his hands together in his lap, "How are you feeling?"

"Better." She sighs and moves herself to a sitting position, "Bill, what's happening to me?"

"What do you remember?" He questions, his face steeled but his eyes conveying all of his concern.

"What do you want me to tell you, Bill? I have all of these memories of us, of the fleet, of finding Earth, but somehow Admiral Cain and Billy and Starbuck are alive. I don't know what's real anymore."

"Laura, what's the last thing you remember before we found you in the CIC?" He questions again, reaching hesitantly out and placing his hand atop hers, "I'd love to hear everything." He offers her a small smile, his eyes momentarily closing before he focuses on her, "Whenever you're ready."

Establishing a timeline would be best, she thought, hesitantly proposing her question to the man in front of her, "Have you been shot?" Her voice is almost inaudible, but Bill nods his head solemnly in response, "Did Admiral Cain... did she... try to assassinate you?"

"No." He looks up at her, his blue eyes sparkling wildly, "Why would-"

"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." She recites the verse from Pythia, "Bill, where I came from, that place, wherever the hell that was, we lost lives. We watched our friends fall, and we waited until it was too late to say the things we had to. Bill, I love you." She declares through a watery smile, gently grazing his lips with hers. She opens her eyes and grins, shocked when she is met by fire in his eyes, the kind she only saw when he was ready to kill.

"I'm sorry." He manages to bark out through clenched teeth as he clicked one handcuff around her wrist and the other to the side of her cot.

~oOo~

"What the hell, Bill?!" The brunette exclaims from behind her desk aboard Colonial One, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest and her glasses resting precariously on the tip of her nose, "I am not a cylon. Think about what you're saying!"

"I have thought about it!" He yells back, slamming his hand into the strong oak of her desk, "You are here. She is there. But she is you! She told me about the future, about finding Earth. She knew that I'd been shot. She told me Starbuck and Billy die." He shakes his head, his gaze falling to the floor.

"I am not a cylon." She defends again, "You know that is the truth."

"I also know when cylons die, their memories are transferred into their new bodies. They remember everything from their previous lives."

"Madam... President..." Billy interrupts hesitantly from behind the curtain, "May I say something?"

"Of course." She responds, pulling the curtain back and allowing him to enter, "What is it?"

"Well," he glances back and forth from the Commander to the President, "She wanted to speak to Admiral Adama. And she told me the last thing she remembers was being in life station and that her cancer was back. She said she was dying."

Laura looks down at her hands, her fingers trembling violently, "Gentleman, I'd appreciate it if you left now."

"Laura, I don't think that's a good idea." Bill argues and she holds up a hand to silence him.

"Go."

~oOo~

She couldn't be a cylon, could she? Could she have been mechanically engineered to destroy the remnants of the human race after they looked to her for leadership? Could she have been controlled all along? Living out a predetermined destiny of which the cylon God had created for her? She doubted it. But then again, who would be better as a sleeper agent than the Colonial President herself?

Tossing and turning in her rack long into the night and early hours of the morning left Laura with no sense of reality to cling to. Pushing herself up from her rack with a frustrated sigh and wrapping her robe tighter around herself, she headed out into her office. There was only one thing to do to ease her restless mind, something Bill would no doubt disapprove of: Sneak onto Galactica.

Donning the teal top and grey slacks she had worn earlier that day, she gently tapped awake her sleeping aide, "Billy."

"Madame President." He blinks the sleep from his eyes and looks up at her confusedly, "It is you, not the other one, right?"

"It's me." She offers a small smile, "But that's actually why I need your help."

"Any way I can, ma'am." He rises from the chair outside her quarters where he slept, "What is it?"

"We're going to Galactica." She replies mischeviously, "Let's go."

"Why?" He rubs his eyes and looks at her, stifling a yawn with his hand as he buttoned up his brown jacket.

"I want to talk to her. I want to know everything she knows and experience everything she's ever experienced."

"Madam President," Billy looks at her sympathetically, "No one other than you, me, and Commander Adama knows that she even exists. I mean no disrespect, but I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"I'm going over there." She explains calmly, "You can either come with me or stay here."

The President's proposal left Billy torn between two evils. He could either follow his instincts that told him not to go, or follow his sense of duty and accompany Laura to Galactica. Offering his hand to help her up into the raptor, it was clear his sense of duty had won out. Now, all he could do was hope the trip went smoothly.

~oOo~

How she had managed to evade the squadron of marines that acted as her protective detail was still a mystery to him, but Billy knew better than to question it (or her for that matter.) Standing in the landing bay of Galactica, Billy looked to Laura, awaiting instruction. It was nearing three in the morning so the staffing was light, and most of the faces they saw now were completely foreign. As long as they could sneak into Life Station without Bill, Colonel Tigh, Starbuck, Lee, or anyone else in the Commander's inner circle spotting them, they'd be in the clear.

What was she doing sneaking around like this anyways? She was the president of the twelve colonies (who may or may not be a cylon,) she shouldn't have to act like a teenager out past curfew.They had made it nearly halfway to Life Station when one of Bill's marines stopped them.

"President Roslin." The man smiles, placing a hand on his gun but leaving it hang at his side, "Mr. Keikeya, what brings you on such an impromptu visit to Galactica this early in the morning?"

"I'm not feeling well." Laura lies, covering her mouth as she coughed, hoping the visible stress etched into her features would seal the deal, "I'm on the way to Life Station."

"Madam President, I can't let you do that. Commander's orders." The marine explains, "But if you come with me to a conference room, I can bring Cottle for you."

"No, no." Laura shakes her head and waves her hand, "I... I'm not sure it's not the cancer again." She says slowly, clutching the fabric of her shirt above her left breast, "I'm in a lot of..." She starts to sway theatrically and Billy catches her, helping her to stand as she pretended to compose herself.

"Madam President, are you okay?!" Billy asks worriedly. He gently cups her chin and forces her to look at him but she pulls away.

"Billy I'm," she lets out a ragged breath, "I'm fine. Let's just get to Cottle. Please."

"I'm so sorry Madam President." The marine looks at the duo sheepishly, stepping out of their way and allowing them to continue to Life Station, "I hope everything is well."

"Me," Laura coughs as she and Billy head down the corridor, "too."

~oOo~

"Oh my gods, did you see his face?" Laura laughs, still clinging to Billy as they made their way to Cottle's.

"It was pretty convincing." He quirks an eyebrow at her, "I had no idea you could act like that."

"Something else I picked up from politics." She rolls her eyes and lets out a puff of air as they arrive at Life Station's hatch, "I'm not worried about Cottle seeing us anymore." Laura shakes her head, "Clearly Bill doesn't want us here and I have no doubt that marine turned tail and ran right to him. Are you ready to go in there?"

"When you are, Madam President." He offers an awkward smile and opens the hatch for her, his mind running faster than the fleet's FTL as he thought of all the ways this meeting could go terribly wrong.

~oOo~

"Madam President," Billy taps the sleeping woman awake, "there's someone here to see you."

"Okay, thank you." She nods, reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes. She expected Cottle, Bill, or maybe even Kara and Lee, not the woman that walked carefully past the curtain and into her makeshift quarters.

The two women just stared at each other for a moment, each trying to find the differences between the other. They were nearly identical, except for a few differences in the lengths and shades of their hair, they were the same woman. How was this possible?

"You're... Me..." The woman in the bed finally speaks up, her eyes wide with confusion.

"And you're me." Laura smirks, crossing her arms over her chest and sitting down next to the bed, "Are you a cylon?"

"Not unless you are." She retorts, clearly more Laura-like than the President had expected.

"Then what are you? Where did you come from?"

"Four years." The Laura in the cot replies, closing her eyes and leaning back against the mound of pillows, "We run from the cylons for four years before we finally make it out. And then I... Or we... Die."

"How do you know?" The President asks, trying to stay calm in the face of her apparent death, "How do you know all of these things will happen if you're not a cylon?"

"I don't know how I know." Her eyes are still closed, her chest rising and falling evenly, "But I can tell you everything that's happened before, and everything that will ever happen in this fleet. I've lived it. Somehow, I've experienced it all. I was in Life Station, and I was dying. We had just found Earth," she scoffs, "and it was a frakking wasteland. I burned Pythia and lost my frakking mind right there in front of Bill."

"What?" Laura asks shocked, "What do you mean Earth is a wasteland. The scrolls said-"

"Oh, frak the scrolls!" She exclaims, "The scrolls predicted the slaughter of the human race! They predicted a rebirth of humanity, and that Kobol would lead us to the prophetical Earth. Have you been to Kobol yet? Kobol brought us nothing but death! The scrolls predicted that too! Earth was a cylon colony. They called it the thirteenth tribe, and it was nuked thousands of years ago. I suppose while I'm at it, you'd like to know the names of the final five cylons?" She quirks and eyebrow, "Or hasn't D'Anna told you about them yet? Did you know Baltar becomes president and runs this fleet straight into the ground?"

"Laura!" The curtain surrounding the two women is quickly pulled back, revealing a furious Commander Adama, "What the frak do you think you're doing?!" He hisses, grabbing her forearm strongly and leading her out of Life Station.

~oOo~

"I should throw you in the brig." Bill states bluntly, pacing back and forth in front of the couch where she sat in his quarters, "What the hell were you thinking Laura?"

"I'm thinking," she crosses her legs and places her hands in her lap, glaring at him over the rims of her glasses, "that neither one of us -or me, or her for that matter- know what we are. I can't be a cylon Bill. We both know that. But what I don't know is how she knows these things. She was dying, wherever she was before. She told me about Earth, about the 'final five cylons,' and that Baltar becomes President and destroys this fleet, our fleet."

"I'm going to have to declare martial law, Laura." He looks at her sadly, momentarily stopping his pacing to rub his forehead and pour himself a glass of whiskey, "I can't have you leading this fleet knowing at any moment the switch could flip and you could send us right into an ambush."

"I would never-" she stands up quickly and crosses her arms defiantly.

"And neither would Boomer." He responds, "Trust me, that woman in there, whatever she is, whatever you are, she told me things. She's told you things. We have to keep this between us, if word gets out to the fleet, we'll have a riot."

"So what do you want me to do?" She asks, her voice full of disbelief as she poured herself a glass of whiskey as well, "Step down and let Gaius Baltar run this fleet when Future Me just said he destroys everything?"

"That's exactly what I'm asking you to do." He answers quietly, reaching up to cup her cheek, his calloused hand scratching her soft skin, "I'm sorry Laura. We'll figure this out, I promise." He offers a hesitant smile, leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth, "My marines are outside, let them take you back to Colonial One. And don't act like Ellen this time," he teases, "always causing a scene."

"Thank you." She whispers almost inaudibly, shaking her head in thanks beneath his palm, "I'll call you later."

"Good night, Madam President."

~oOo~

In a mere matter of hours, Bill Adama's life had been completely turned upside down like a viper in a tailspin. Laura Roslin, his friend -and maybe something more- the President of the Twelve Colonies, had shown up unannounced in the CIC, which wasn't unusual, had she been aboard Galactica to begin with. Then a frazzled Billy Keikeya tells him that he is sitting aboard Colonial One with Roslin at that very moment, setting off sirens and bells in the Commander's head. What the frak was going on? What in gods' names was Laura? Could she be a cylon? Or a new breed of humanoid the fleet had yet to encounter?

The thought made his skin crawl. The thought that Laura, his Laura, could be the thing that he had spent the majority of his life protecting the colonies against, the thought that he had become so fond of her in the past months doing nothing to ease the blow.

The things that Future Laura had said to him were beyond mind-boggling. He wasn't sure he could deal with losing Kara, she was like family to him. And Billy? Gods, he knew Laura put her heart and soul into that boy, hoping one day he would take her place. They were surrounded by death, and Future Laura told them there was nothing but more to come.

Future Laura. How could he even begin to understand her parting words earlier that evening? "I love you." The words had ricocheted around his skull until he had a headache. How could she love him? How could he be feeling so deeply for a woman that may or may not have destroyed humanity, who may or may not be a second attempt at assassinating him? He didn't know.

But if there was one thing he did know, it was that Laura Roslin was a human. It was that she and she alone could command the dwindling population of humanity during a mass extinction with the hopes of bringing them to a new planet. She couldn't be a cylon, and even if she were, he'd refuse to believe it.