"I don't know why we're bothering with a priest, considering you're an atheist."
"You're not. I need to respect your wishes."
She tugged on his hand, signalling him to stop. He turned back, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
"You've always made it clear that you don't believe what I believe, but you never mock me. Thank you."
He grinned and leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Since Kobol, we've managed to find a common ground on nearly everything."
She stood on tiptoes. "Some things are easier than others." She whispered her words into his mouth.
"And you're still sure you agree on this? It's not too late to back out."
"I want to show you, and my Gods, that I'm committed to you."
He frowned at her choice of words.
"What?" she asked, sensing his anxiety.
"If I don't believe in your gods, or that your priest has any more power than any other man, I need to find another way to prove to you how committed I am."
"And just how were you planning on doing that?" she asked throatily.
He squared his shoulders. "The traditional Tauron way, I suppose," he announced.
Bill staggered on the spot at this new memory from last night.
Ahead of him, Laura spoke over her shoulder, "I'll put some tea on."
He reached up and touched the tender flesh behind his ear.
"No," he snapped, dropping his hand away abruptly.
She looked up from where she was now pinning back the loose flap that served as a door to her tent. "No?" she asked, uncertain.
"You don't have coffee."
"Only tea," she confirmed.
"Why don't you ever have coffee?" he groused.
She flashed him a reproachful look over the top of her glasses. "I didn't realise I was running a restaurant, Admiral," she tossed back testily.
After a long moment, she loosened her grip from where she was squeezing the canvas tightly and took a few tentative steps towards him.
"What's wrong?" she asked, skimming her fingers lightly over the collar of his tunic.
"I'll go and get some coffee," he replied vaguely.
"Okay," she said slowly.
"Better check in with Helo, too. You'll be alright?"
She grimaced. "I'm a big girl now, Admiral." She dusted sand off her skirt. "I'll go and clean up a bit more while you're gone."
"I can't believe we just had sex fully clothed," she murmured.
"I can't believe a lot about tonight."
She giggled as she scrambled down to the base of the mattress to remove her socks and shoes.
"While you're down there..."
Her head whipped up, her eyes widening, feigning shock.
"I just meant, you could take off my boots... What did you think I meant?"
She gave him a mock scowl. "I didn't realise I would automatically become your handmaiden after we were intimate," she muttered, removing his boots nevertheless.
She crawled back up to snuggle against his side, her fingers idly playing with his dog tags. "You're too accustomed to throwing around orders."
He chuckled and stretched his neck to look down at his wriggling bare toes. "Yeah, but I'm not accustomed to you following them."
She snorted, but then they both froze and fell silent as they heard Tory's voice outside the tent once again.
When the ex-Aide's voice finally drifted away into the distance, he hooked his fingers around one of the thin straps of her top, sliding it down and off her shoulder. "So... You wanna fool around some more?" he asked.
She never replied. She was fast asleep.
Bill felt his heart contract in his chest for a long moment before it once again expanded and began to pump blood through his body.
He clutched a tent pole for support and bent his head, closing his eyes in a concentrated effort to evoke further memories.
When none surfaced, he thought again about Laura's earlier comments, searching for any clues in their conversation that might point to her realising they'd done more than merely sleep together. She mustn't, he conceded. She had fretted whether or not they'd had sex earlier, and when he'd admitted to passing out, she had given no indication that she'd done the same thing.
Soon he became aware that some of the passing settlers were giving him curious looks. He forced himself to straighten and continue back to Laura's tent.
A few minutes later, outside her door, he paused, unsure. He called her name out softly, loath to enter unannounced.
"Laura?" he called again, a little louder, when she never replied.
There was still no response, so he hesitantly flipped back the tent flap and peeked inside. Laura was on the mattress, seemingly asleep.
He stepped into the doorway and stared down at her.
She lay on her stomach, her folded arms cradling her head. The red dress was gone, replaced by a faded pair of blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Her hair was hanging in damp curls around the bare skin of her nape and shoulders.
"Bill?" she mumbled sleepily as soon as he'd determinedly dragged his gaze away from her unknowingly sensous form in search of a pen and paper to leave her a note.
"Hey," he greeted her gruffly, returning to her side and crouching down.
"Everything okay?" she asked. Her eyes wandered over his mushed up hair. His heart skipped a beat; he was sure her attention lingered a moment on his ear. "With Helo," she specified.
"Yeah, fine. I ran into Lee too. Told him 'bout the wedding."
"How'd he take it?"
"Maybe it got him thinking about Zak," he commented, lowering his eyes, hoping to find the pattern of the tatty sheet covering her mattress distractingly interesting.
She hummed noncommittally before quietly asking, "Is that what happened to you? When you went in search of coffee? Memories of Zak?"
"No. I did have a couple of pangs of loss," he admitted, shutting his eyes as those same emotions threatened to engulf him again now. "But that was earlier, before you woke up, after Sam came around."
He let out a contented sigh when her fingers danced along his cleanly shaved jawline. "Just then; you were leaving?" she asked.
"Didn't want to disturb you."
His whole body tensed when she giggled at this statement.
"I was disturbed the moment I met you," she murmured, her voice deep and throaty.
"Yeah?" he asked in a strangled tone.
Her lips gently pressed against his.
He opened his eyes. She was giving him one of those smiles that always made him want to adjust his uniform.
"I remembered something," he husked.
"And?" she prompted.
He inhaled audibly, fortifying himself. "We may have done more than just sleep last night."
She touched his bottom lip and he automatically drew her finger into his mouth, suckling gently. "I know," she confirmed.
His legs refused to hold his weight any longer and he dropped onto the mattress beside her with a disgusted grunt. "It would've been nice if you'd let me know," he accused as her hand fell away.
"I don't know everything," she insisted in a clipped tone. "I had a small glimpse come back to me at the river. What do you remember?" she asked, turning the tables.
He frowned. "You said something about having sex fully clothed." He ran a hand across his face, and stared up at the roof of the tent. "I'm sorry."
She rolled over to hover above him. "Why are you sorry?"
"Fully clothed probably means I frakked you like some two-cubit hooker behind one of the bars." She snorted, but he went on, "Or in one of those galvanised steel sheds which were recently erected to serve as amenities blocks. Your skirt up, my pants down," he grumbled, disgusted with himself.
"Oh, Bill..."
He reached up to cup her cheek which was again dimpling from her sweet smile.
"I'm serious. You deserve more than some dirty frak in the bushes."
She tilted her head and kissed his palm. "Or upon some sandbags?"
"My back is starting to go."
"Go where?" she giggled, hooking her leg over him and effectively adding more weight onto his back.
"I'm an old man, remember," he muttered, caressing her leg as he changed its angle. He soon realised that though he'd triumphed when it came to lessening her weight, he'd failed when it came to placing her in a less arousing position. She was, more or less, straddling him.
"Is that more comfortable?" she asked innocently.
Her breasts were directly in his line of sight. "No," he groaned.
Her hand crept down and stroked him. He had started to harden a while ago, just from listening to her talk, and his half-erection leapt for joy at her slight touch.
"For an old man, your flesh still seems willing enough. Maybe if we get my weight off of you." Her voice took on an everyday, routine intonation, like they were talking about sorting out their laundry instead of their limbs. "I could perhaps squeeze into this space between your legs." She bent and her nose nudged just below his belt.
He gripped her tightly by her upper arms and flipped her over onto her back.
Like a sprightly youth he hadn't been in over twenty years, he jumped up from the sandbags. Next, he gripped her hands and drew her up onto her feet.
"Let's go," he growled in his most authoritative tone.
Bill rubbed his temples. "We made it back to the tent," he said with more confidence than he felt.
"I believe so."
"But you're not sure."
She thumbed his moustache gently. "We can never be sure. We'll never know whether or not our recollections are reliable. Are the things we're seeing really our memories? Are they hallucinations thanks to the cigarette? Or are they simply dreams that we had after we fell asleep?"
Her questions caught him unawares, and he silently mulled over them.
"Dreams that we are hoping to come true?" he mused.
Her lips somehow found a small, bare piece of skin near the collar of his uniform.
He inched up her t-shirt, spreading his palms and fingers over her back.
"Perhaps..." He lost his train of thought when she wriggled closer.
"Bill?" she breathed against his skin.
"Mmm?" He lowered his hand and pressed against her ass, contemplating if he preferred the way the denim held her snug, or the way her shape was more exposed in the loose red skirt. "Maybe..."
"We should try these things again in the cold light of day, just to be sure," she finished for him.
He tipped his head just a fraction so that he could kiss her slowly. She sighed into his mouth.
His hands swept up again, ascertaining she wasn't wearing a bra. "And perhaps..."
"Perhaps this time we might try it without clothes," she suggested, burying her hands beneath his tunic.
He chuckled, but then quickly sobered, knowing he had to confess the rest of his memories, whether they were reliable or not.
"There's something else," he said. "Something you should know."
Her hands stilled and she leaned back to meet his concerned gaze.
"I don't know...I think we may have..." He wasn't quite sure how to phrase his confession now. "Last night, I may have gotten a Tauron wedding tattoo."
"A wedding tattoo?"
"Yes, behind my right ear." Her eyes automatically focused on his ear. "For you," he added.
"For me?" she whispered.
"If I did," he ploughed on, "it means that my love stops with you. I shall never love another. I shall always be faithful to you."
She hummed and he bent his head, inviting her to brush back the thick wavy hair to inspect the area behind his ear.
Instead she began to unbutton his tunic, pushing it from his shoulders.
"Laura... Do you want me to get your glasses?" He looked over his shoulder, checking where she'd left them.
"No. It's okay."
She yanked at his tanks, and manipulated them up and over his head with minimal assistance on his part.
"Don't you want to look?" he asked, perplexed.
"No. It's okay," she repeated, looking and touching his scar instead.
He held her hands still.
"What do you mean? Don't you want to know?"
"I thought I did, but now I know I don't. What if it isn't there?" She shrugged. "You'll decide you don't love me? You'll go out and be unfaithful to me? Of course not," she went on, answering her own questions. "Whether or not we're married, whether or not you've engraved a symbol on your body as a sign of devotion to me, is irrelevant. I don't need a ring. You don't need a tattoo. You and I; we just are. I didn't want to believe that for a long time, but it's true."
He brought her hands up to kiss each one reverently.
"I love you," he vowed solemnly.
She looked away; taking a deep, unsteady breath. "I don't know..." She captured her bottom lip between her teeth. "I don't know if I can..."
His thumb caught the tears that spilled out from the corners of her eyes. "I do," he said, lifting her chin until she had to meet his gaze. "I do," he stressed.
They swayed together, their mouths meeting for a series of deep kisses, their tongues clashing, no longer tentative or shy.
"I do," he kept repeating as they broke away to breathe.
"I do," he murmured the two words over and over against her lips.
Her head flew back and he latched his mouth onto her elegant neck.
He only half-listened to her incoherent mutterings: cries to her Gods, to him, to make it stop, to make it never end.
"I do," she sighed as her entire body trembled and she reached orgasm.
He woke, their naked bodies entwined, as close as they could be without him being inside her still.
He sensed she was awake too and gently kissed her forehead.
If her whispered words were simply a dream, one which he was hoping to come true, it didn't matter. If his memory was unrealiable, it didn't matter. It would, he decided, still be added to his list of happy memories.
"A happy memory to hold onto when we need it," he whispered.
She hummed quietly. "One that will help get me through the lonely nights on the planet," she agreed.
The End