The Asian man stood there in the doorway of the Grand Central Hotel, unspeaking, while Laura fumbled in her purse for a handful of bills. When she offered him the cash, he nodded once, slipping the bills into a pouch under his tunic. He walked to the stairs, still carrying the basket piled high with their freshly laundered clothes. She caught a whiff of sunshine and fabric dried in the open air as he passed her and went up the stairs to their rooms. She walked after him, smiling to herself. There were advantages to living in a hotel with no laundry facilities…one less task she had to learn while pretending it was nothing new.

Taking the basket from him, she nodded at his slight bow and watched him go back down the stairs and leave the hotel. Immigrants, unfamiliar with the language, the customs, yet they seem to be making their way,she mused. For a second the fresh clean smell of laundry was replaced with the rancid stink of a detention cell and she felt herself shifting so her back was against the wall. Too soon to think about settling again…too many wounds needed healing.

She started putting away their clean clothes, and a stray thought went through her mind, so normal it was frightening. We need to start getting some warmer clothes. The weather's going to turn soon.

She knew Galactica was still searching for them. She knew she and Bill wouldn't be here when the weather turned. The children would get used to another teacher after she was gone, the library would grow…the Bullocks would have dinner in a couple of months and some of the beans she'd helped Martha can last week would be on their table.

She could feel the plaster walls and wood floor shift to metal, shrinking down and around her. The familiar steel bulkheads ofGalactica, of Colonial One, had felt so sheltering after New Caprica, so safe and welcoming as the Fleet had jumped away. She was just now realizing she'd started to dread going back. Her lips tightened as she shut the dresser drawer harder than she'd meant to. The people didn't need any more pipe dreams. Neither did she. Maybe they could send a party to harvest seeds after they got back, add some variety to the botanical ships.

After they got back.

Bill was spending more time on business between Swearengen and Seth Bullock than he was checking the Raptor, she thought. They'd need to talk about that soon, maybe hire a wagon from the livery and ride out to the Raptor together on the weekend.

She hummed tunelessly as she straightened up their rooms. The toe of her boot snagged against something that had slipped under the bed. Bending, she smiled as she recognized the ripped chemise. She examined it to see if it was worth mending and thought of yesterday afternoon….Bill had just ridden back from the Bullock place and had been in a wild mood, looking at her like he'd thought he'd lost her again. He'd thrown a whirlwind of questions at her: Was she tired? Did anything hurt? He had stared at her until she could feel his gaze flicker over her skin like summer lightning.

She ran her hand over the rips in the fabric. He'd been frantic to get to her skin, yanking and pulling, lips at her throat as he ran his large warm palms over her breasts. He'd given her nipples scant attention as he focused on the fullness, trying to hold as much as he could in one hand, pressing almost to the point of pain. It had been practically clinical until he finally eased off with his hands and brought his lips down to cover each flushed tip in turn.

Somewhere in there she'd heard the worn cotton rasp in a final rip as the frayed seam gave way.

They'd finally used the opening in her underdrawers then, skirt up around her waist and her black stocking-clad legs over his shoulders, his pants barely clearing his crotch as he barely took time to feel for her readiness with hasty fingers. The easy glow he'd started with his mouth against her skin was overwhelmed by his hot need that seemed to come out of nowhere.

He had frakked her hard then, her half-lying on the bed, one slim hand gripping the bedpost against his frantic thrusts. She'd almost asked him to slow down, to wait, but his blue eyes had flared almost black with need that started to spark an answer deep inside her. His face had been twisted into a dark violent mix of love and…something else—anger, fear, she wasn't sure.

He hadn't waited for her, but choked out her name at the last as he poured into her, arms shaking against her legs, hands clenching like shackles around her thighs until he finished. He had collapsed against her breasts then, after a final half-sob. His face had been wet against her cheek as she waited for his heart to stop pounding against her, him whispering "I'm sorry, Laura," his lips against her ear.

They'd stayed there, his head against her breasts, everything between her legs feeling sticky and sore, her arousal a faint shimmer low in her belly. She'd just moved his shaking hand down lower when they heard a hesitant knock on the door.

Groaning, she threw his arm off her chest and got off the bed, watching him roll towards the wall, his back towards her as she tugged on the red wrap and tied it over her bare breasts, tugging her half-petticoat down over her twisted damp underdrawers. Cursing at a repetition of the timid knock, she gathered up her discarded garments and dropped them to the side of the bed, out of sight, while she growled a sharp "I'm coming!" through gritted teeth. She cracked the door enough to accept E.B. Farnum's stammered offer of a supper tray in their rooms, then shut it firmly again, turning to look thoughtfully at her temporary husband.

Cottle finally flipped over the page of the chart with the ugly black dot, the end point that had been so wrong, thank the Gods.If the President ever learned that two Raptors had landed in isolated areas to gather samples before offering rescue, she'd throw both him and the Admiral in the brig or out an airlock.

He had turned the page over that held her ID photo—it had felt too much like lying to her face. There'd been three communications between him and Adama, and each one had gotten more heated. Cottle had pushed for their return, or a chance to examine her himself. Bill had stubbornly pushed back, trying to hide his fear that Laura would insist that they return to the Fleet, not waiting until Cottle knew what was causing her remission. The lies were building up as a select few officers made excuses for Galactica's holding pattern.

Cottle was hearing rumblings from the crew…some were anxious for the last vectors to be plotted around the interference, remembering the feel of dirt under their feet and longing for it again. These tended to be crew and civilians who had visited once or twice to New Caprica's surface, returning to the safety of space instead of trying their hand at settlement.

Others of the fleet were quieter, and those were the ones who came to sick bay alone, eyes down, reporting nightmares and cold sweats, old injuries flaring up and acting like they didn't know the cause. These were the ones who wouldn't feel safe until they were all the way back up into the black, as far from planet dirt as they could get.

Tigh was driving him crazy as well, knowing something was up and unwilling to stay sober long enough to even try to put the pieces together. He'd come in when he'd struck out again with Lee and Mr. Gaeta; flask sticking out of a grimy uniform pocket, eye patch askew and greasy, his one good eye red-rimmed and bloodshot. Cottle suspected that Tigh would fortify himself before these forays into sick bay with a few shots done with a wild-eyed drunken Starbuck. Apparently there wasn't enough alcohol on board to get her to the point of coming with Tigh to ask about the Old Man, or maybe she had sensed that Tigh needed to come alone to ask his need-filled questions.

"You'd tell me if you knew something, wouldn't you, Doc? If they found…remains down there, hell, I can see needing to keep it from the rank and file for now, but"—he'd turned his patched eye towards Cottle then, his other eye starting to glisten. "He's my best friend," he'd growled. "You'd tell me, right? Wouldn't keep something like that a frakkin' secret from me?"

He'd assured Tigh that Cottle would tell him if he learned Bill was dead (Laura, too, although Saul had been less vehement about her), and tried to tell himself that wasn't a lie. There were times when he almost resented the distance between Tigh and Lee that kept Tigh from making these desperate inquiries from Bill's own son.

Grumbling, he lit another cigarette. Probably just as well, he thought. Lee had enough on his plate without being wet-nurse to a terrified, bitter alcoholic. He hoped the fallout, when it came (and fallout over these kinds of things always came around, one way or another) wouldn't be disastrous. A man could still hope.

Cottle slipped the recon shots Lee had brought him out of their sealed folder. Nice-looking planet, he thought. Reminds me of Old Caprica.He readied the petri dishes, vials and reagents, arranging them on his lab table again as he waited for the first team to arrive.