Moonlight added to the torch's illumination, faint shadows still being cast along the long muddy street. If she held a shading hand to the window, she could see a serene field of stars over the horizon of the Black Hills. If she had been away from town, maybe on top of one of the dark ridges, she knew she could've made out the constellations. Her chest tightened as she remembered looking up at this same star field, surrounded by her Fleet family, feeling damp grass under her feet and wondering what had just happened.

She wondered what they were doing…who was trying to track them, who was planning a rescue?

How is Colonel Tigh holding up without Bill? She could see Tigh retiring to a place like this…ample liquor, not too many questions, a fight now and then…she thought he'd fit right in with the crowd at the Gem, just another old man trying to hold past damage at bay for a while.

She was still looking through the wavy glass, comparing the stars that she could see to memories of stars seen from the Observation Deck when she heard boot heels outside the door. Running her tongue over her teeth, she tasted the bitter residue from Trixie's hand-rolled cigarettes and the leftover sticky sourness of whiskey. She poured water into a chipped glass and drank, swishing and swallowing as she heard the key turn in the lock.

"Sorry it's so late. Al's a talker." He shoved the door closed. "Pour me a glass of that, would you?"

"It's not very cold." She poured water into a rinsed-out glass.

Bill leaned against the bedroom door, arms crossed. "That's fine. I just need the taste of something besides booze and strong coffee." He sniffed the air. "You were smoking?" He pushed himself away from the door and took the glass, collapsing into one of the chairs with a sigh.

Laura perched on the side of the bed, insteps balanced on the side rails. "Trixie came up. She said it was to help me undress"—

"I thought that was my job." He finally gave her a weary smile.

"I guess she knows how Al gets and figured you'd be awhile. And I was getting more uncomfortable by the minute.…"

His eyes ran over her improvised covering, lingering where the red fabric crisscrossed. His exhausted squint relaxed as his smile widened. "I still love that color on you."

"Well, it's a good thing you do. I think Trixie stays kind of shocked at how few clothes I had." Laura ran the tips of her fingers down the edge of her wrap, forefinger dipping under her camisole into the valley between her breasts. She locked eyes with him as she traced a circle there before stroking the fabric back up to her collarbone. I need to ask Trixie if any shops in town carry clothing in this shade of red. "Need some help with your boots?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice." He stretched his legs out as she slid off the high bed. "Remember how it felt, having back-to-back Quorum meetings, everybody needing to have their say?"

"Hmmm…yes. Don't miss that." She bent to work on his right boot, pulling and wiggling.

"Well, picture that, then picture all that talk coming from one guy. Not that it wasn't interesting"—he took a deep swallow of well water. "I didn't have to say much. He kind of…pulled things out of me, like he could tell what kind of experiences I'd had by looking at me while he talked."

"Things were interesting here, too," she said, tugging at his boot heel.

"I wondered about that. I met Trixie on the boardwalk. She looked like she was in a pretty good mood—said I had 'a good fuckin' woman in Laura Adama'." He grinned, whether at the silly obscenity or the surname, she wasn't sure.

She put the dusty boot aside and turned to his other foot. "She didn't start out that way. Trixie was really depressed over that girl that was killed." She paused, hand on his calf, and looked up, meeting his eyes. The traces of flirtation had disappeared. "So many entanglements, relationships, infidelities, secrets…I kept wishing I had something to take notes with. It sounded horrible, and she seemed to feel so guilty—Sweet Lords of Kobol, it was a tangled mess!"

He frowned down at her. "What did she feel guilty—wait a minute…did Trixie say she was the woman that shot Hearst?"

Laura's brow wrinkled at his question. "You were over there for two hours and he didn't tell you that?"

"He told me about the woman involved, said she used to work for him, but…." He grew quiet as he seemed to be rewinding the night's conversation through his mind. "No, he never mentioned her by name. He talked more about what he and the town went through with Hearst. I guess she made things worse, but I didn't get the impression he held that against her." Shadows played over his craggy features as the lamp flame flickered, deepening the lines in his face.

"I think Swearengen put the blame on superior forces and greed," he finally said. He looked into his glass, swirling the water before speaking again. "Laura, when he started talking about that guy Hearst hiring squad after squad, it reminded me of the early attacks, before we knew about Resurrection ships…how bad it was those first weeks after they hit the colonies. I felt like I was right back there, watching the frakkin' clock count off thirty-three minutes over and over…no matter how many we shot down, Raiders, ships…they just kept coming." The last words were bitten off, the clipped speech of the beleaguered Commander he'd been back then.

"Hey." She rubbed his thigh, bringing him back out of those early weeks. "That was a long time ago."

"Yeah…hearing about all that pressure he'd been under, that everybody in town was under…it frakked with my head for a minute." He leaned back and closed his eyes as the second boot dropped to the floor.

Laura sat cross-legged on the faded carpet beside him, leaning against his legs and mulling over what she'd heard. "I know he was under pressure, but the women involved…it must have been awful for them, too. That Ellsworth woman sounds like she went from one disaster to another. So much loss—husband, lover, baby, her second husband"—

"What?" Bill straightened in his chair. "Al didn't go into all that." He looked down, then shrugged. "Mrs. Ellsworth must be pretty resilient…she was waiting outside Al's door when I left at midnight. It didn't sound like she planned on leaving anytime soon." He rested his hand in Laura's hair, fingers smoothing the unruly red strands as he talked.

"Oh, and Al says the shooter had always been trigger-happy, which was part of the problem. Did Trixie tell you that?" He started unbuttoning his shirt.

Laura got to her feet and began rolling the heavy cotton stockings down her legs. "As a matter of fact, she did. It sounded like she felt honor-bound to avenge her friend's death." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "We've known people like that."

"Well, she should've let Al handle it. She created a hell of a mess."

Stockings still in hand, she straightened. "Are you saying you think it was her fault? She was ready to let herself be killed to protect her town."

He sighed. "Look, Laura, I've had my share of subordinates who've been brave and reckless. That's not always a good way of handling a situation."

"That's easy to say in hindsight. It sounds like both Al and Trixie were trying to do the right thing when all the options were bad."

Past decisions hovered in the air like ghosts, chilling the air until they moved closer. Laura dropped her stockings to the floor and went into his arms, her hands slipping over his waist where his long underwear slid into his jeans. Ghosts kept forming as she rested her head on his chest.

She felt his heart beating under the raised warm scar…death, blood, and sacrifice started edging away. She raised a hand to start unsnapping his long underwear, now needing more than the sound of his heart and the outline of his old injury. She needed his bare skin under her cheek, needed to feel that there were no barriers between them while they tiptoed around old thoughts.

"Cain," she whispered.

"Yeah. We both finally agreed that was the right thing, though. I was ready for it up to the last minute…. You know, even if Kara had done it, she'd probably have been shot a second after she'd killed Cain. I'm not sure what would have happened if it had turned out like that."

Laura shivered as he held her. She was sure. Bill would have gone after Kara's shooter with as much vengeance as Trixie had gone after Hearst. And she was sure if that had happened, in the aftermath she would have gone as far as Al had, if that would've kept Bill safe.

So much blood.

"Bill, did you ever wonder if she had a plan like that for you?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if she had plans for both of us. I'm glad we never had to find out." His arms tightened around her. She wondered if he was seeing Cain's funeral again, imagining different faces, different officers in dress greys, a different body in the casket.

She finally moved away, hands working the knot out of her red top. "Trixie made a rash decision, but I could tell she still feels that whatever she did, she did for a good reason. The blood on her hands staying with her…she reminded me of what that's like. The names I carry, the faces…." She slipped the cherished wrap back into the dresser drawer. "I suppose I could identify with her regret.

"And her living her life now according to political realities…my Gods, could I identify with that! I'm afraid I sounded more like a campaign manager than a teacher when she told me about sneaking around to be with her politically-minded lover."

He unbuckled the heavy belt and took his pants off, throwing them on the seat of the chair. "You identified with a former prostitute who swears like a Picon sailor and shoots people? What were the two of you smoking, Madam President?" He raised an eyebrow while he finished undressing.

She hung her skirt over the back of the chair. "Nothing psychotropic, Admiral. And you seem to be identifying with a crime boss pimp who cut an innocent girl's throat."

He grunted as he sat and swung his bare legs under the covers. "Which was something he felt forced into doing. And I get the impression he's still making himself suffer for it."

"Gods, what a choice. What a place." She rubbed her palm lightly across his late-night stubble, enjoying the soft scratching.

Certain that he was asleep, his chest rising and falling in his familiar rhythm, she gave into temptation and whispered the question that had been on her mind since Trixie's visit. She felt a little ashamed to think it, and it wasn't even that relevant. Trixie hadn't been Al's lover or wife…she wasn't sure how much they even liked each other, to hear Trixie talk. The question still nagged at her.

"If that had been us, if you had to choose between killing me, or killing an innocent person to save others from retaliation for something I'd done, what choice would you have made?" She nudged into his chest as she got the question out of her head, hoping it would drift away unheard.

She was almost asleep when she heard a low "I'd keep you safe and learn to live with what I'd done." She slipped a goose-pimpled leg between his and curled even closer, seeking a little more warmth in this strange place.