The sound of her voice was different – his ears were sensitive like that these days. She sounded raw, husky even, hoarse. He tried to hide his concern from the press, kept his hands under the table, resisted to touch her trembling arm. She had one of her bad days. It showed.
She smiled at him with tired eyes – a trip to Tauron was her cover, a jet lag her excuse. If only he could believe the lie. Instead he worried, found his face paler than hers, more lines around his eyes. He mourned his job, three months to go – the members of the press had found their theory. He nurtured false assumptions.
Laura smiled, smiled at him and clapped her hands. Everything slowed down around her. Richard nodded and got up. A hug, a kiss on her cheeks and she sat down. I deserved what you gave me and everything you didn't. It was his turn now. He stared at her. A heartbeat, then another - Laura looked at him until he spoke. "Thank you, Madam Secretary." More silence before his speech began.
"Madam Secretary?" Billy Kekeiya poked in his head. "The President on line one."
"He can wait," the smile on Laura Roslin's face told him more than he intended to know.
Spotting the uneasiness on her aide's face, Laura waved off her own remark and nodded. Her sign for him to connect her. Had she ever been that innocent herself? The sound of his voice reassured her that if ever, she wasn't anymore.
"Laura, did you..."
"What the frak do you think you're doing?" She cut him off right away.
"So you got the papers?"
"Now don't you know me well," her tongue hissed at him like a canon loaded with sarcasm.
"It was, ..."
Don't you dare play the it-was-a-mistake, forget-about-it, my-fault card now. There's just so much I can take of that," Laura was upset. "I thought the deal was off."
"It is." Richard tried to soothe her.
"The documents tell another story."
"I signed them, I know." He sighed.
"These are not some of your dear-fellow-citizens letters you should've signed without reading..."
"The Attorney General decided to go against me in the matter." It was a statement rather than an apology.
"Against the President of the Colonies? Rodney is reckless, he's not suicidal." Laura shook her head.
"Wouldn't be the first member of my administration to go up against me."
"Oh, come on! You could've ordered him to drop it." Laura voiced her boiling anger.
"I ordered you, too, remember?"
Laura paused. "I never asked you to treat me differently."
"You make it hard not to," Richard answered calmly.
The silence that feel upon them was familiar and unpleasant.
"I need to see you tonight," his voice was almost pleading her. "Please. I need to talk to you in person." He whispered in the receiver and listened to her breathing.
"Laura?"
"Where are you right now?" Laura asked after a while.
"Headed to the Quorum of Twelve, budget meeting." He waited for her to reply. "You know these meetings, Laura, you never know how long..."
"You asked to see me, not I..." She tried to find the right words.
"I will try to..." Richard tried to interrupt her.
"I am fine, Richard." Her voice was suddenly cold. "Just promise me to stop the charges."
The President sighed. "Alright, I got to run."
"See you later," Laura whispered.
"I'll bring the revised papers."
"Of course you will," she waited for him to hang up. Hesitation: a moment too long. She wondered what else he wanted to say until she heard his assistant's voice begging him to run along. Then the click. Gone.
"Before I answer your questions, please let me say thank you, Secretary Roslin," Richard averted his eyes from the press to look at her. Laura faked a smile for the cameras before she noticed what he was doing.
"Without your dedication this agreement would never have been signed." He nodded to the union leader's approving "Hear, hear!".
"This isn't the first time that you saw an opportunity and acted on your instincts to improve a situation for people or a cause you believe in. That is never an easy thing to do for a politician. We have so many wars to fight and lose more often than we win. I admire your resilience, Laura, and your courage."
Stance started to clap his hands.
"An agreement is only as good as the partners who design it. You never lost faith in finding common ground. You never let us step down from our responsibility. You fought for this deal, this new beginning. Your trust and your commitment made it possible for us to present this understanding with the teachers' union."
The union leader stepped up to shake her hand and mouthed a thank you into the cameras.
"An administration consists of many capable partners. Change emerges from ideas. I want to use this moment to acknowledge the effort of every single member of our outgoing administration. Together we have faced many storms. Together we will keep working for change."
Richard leaned in to place a soft kiss onto her cheeks.
"I hate you," Laura whispered onto his neck.
"You're welcome," Richard smiled against her skin and felt a tear running down her face.
"I asked you not to tell anyone," Laura's voice was sore from coughing.
"I didn't." He paced around in his office. "I spoke to a specialist, that's all."
"I don't want to see a specialist. I consulted one, the diagnosis was clear." Laura lay down on his couch to rest.
"I still don't understand why Diloxin is not an option." Richard tried to plead with her. She only shook her head.
"I am not going to discuss this with you again. I am taking the Chamalla. Period."
"It might be charming to be stubborn on the job, Laura. It's definitely not a virtue now." He looked at her with stern eyes.
"This is not your decision, Richard. This is mine, as Laura Roslin, no title attached. I don't have to ask for your permission." She didn't flinch away from his gaze. "You will have to accept the facts, Richard. I know that's not your strong side, but that's your problem, not mine."
"I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm just asking you to embrace other options." He sat down next to her and put up her legs to rest on his.
"I carefully weighed my options, Richard, and I'm so tired of having to explain myself to you over and over again."
"I'm just trying to support you." He massaged her calves and feet.
"And I appreciate it, but let's be clear about this: your concern and your uninformed advice is not helpful." Laura closed her eyes to the relaxing feeling of his hands on her skin.
Richard remained silent. He had indeed argued with her on most days in the past two months. Eight weeks of ups and downs, of good days and bad ones, better ones and worse. He had found himself unusually drawn to her – not in a sexual way but otherwise. She had scolded him for pampering her, for praising her work in front of others, something he had long stopped doing before. He knew that she was moody every now and then on most days, grumpy even, sometimes unjust. He used to care until, one day, he found her unconscious in her office. Her cancer scared him, her attitude, her ignorance. Richard tried to talk to her, tried to understand – it always ended with her on a bed or his couch, eyes closed, shutting him out. She was bearing with him, that's what he sometimes felt she did. He stayed anyway, to her surprise and his own. It was one thing to lose the presidency, another to have her slip through his fingers.
"Did you talk to Stance?" Laura changed the subject like she used to these days.
"I did," Richard sighed. "I'm not sure that we will get what you want."
"Just talk to them. There is always common ground." Laura looked at him soothingly.
"It's easier when you are there with us in the room. You speak their language. I don't." Richard moved his hands up and down her legs.
"Whatever will you do without me?" Laura chuckled but the joke was lost on him.
"I don't know." He didn't even try to hide his sadness.
Laura cleared her throat – quickly. "Let's get this over with. A good note for your presidency to end on."
She smiled at him in that way of hers: wickedly, seductively, innocently. An intoxicating mix. He almost believed that this was her final gift to him. Anything that bought him some time.
"She has that way of quiet disapproval," Richard answered one of the many questions from the press. "She has her way of getting away with it with a smile."
Laura had a hard time holding it up for the cameras. The flashlights hurt her sensitive eyes, blood was pounding in her head.
The questions had erupted around her after Richard's well-meant stunt. Stance, the union leader, used the moment to further his cause and Richard enjoyed some of his last moments as the hero of the Twelve Colonies. She hated public attention, always had. She was happy to do her job behind the scenes – something Richard had often benefited from but never understood.
"Madam Secretary, ..." A particularly annoying journalist tried to learn too many secrets from her about her work and life. For a moment Laura was tickled enough to drop the bomb, one of the many about the secrets she had grown accustomed to hide. Mistress, lover, affair – there were many words that occupied her mind. Cancer another thought that paralyzed her for a moment too long to go unnoticed by the gossip-trained eyes of the colonial press.
Tauron was brought up again. The negotiation marathon. She nodded and forced herself to smile. She was so tired of the lies. So tired of it all. His presidential smirk, the flowery phrases, the handshakes and the posing. She wanted to run away and yet she stayed.
"Please don't," her voice sounded annoyed as she shied away from him.
Richard frowned. He was so tired of being sorry, so tired of her mood swings and the daily ups and downs. He hated to worry, hated to see her stoned although he knew that the Chamalla was easing down her pain and got her through the day. He was irrational, selfish even – he didn't know how to nurse somebody, least of all an unwilling patient, proud and stubborn like Laura.
He knew what she would say if he left her now. Not that he hadn't considered it – he had tried to leave her like she said he should. "What took you so long? It's not as if the sex you signed up for is worth it anymore." She was cynical like that these days.
She had refused to see him for two full weeks. She wouldn't let him come near her on her worst of days. She wasn't vain – she just didn't want to see him. He wished it would relieve him, the way she turned away from him to suffer alone. He had always disliked the company of sick people – their whining, their pain, their voices. He disliked not seeing her more.
"I told you not to come," Laura mirrored the expression on his face.
"I wanted to." He followed her into the kitchen.
"Did you hear from Stance?" Laura changed the subject as usual.
"I did."
"What did he say?" Laura took the whistling kettle from the stove to brew some tea.
"Literally?"
Laura suppressed a chuckle and nodded. "So he still thinks you are..."
"...a moron, yes. He was quite blunt about that and didn't miss the opportunity to tell me how much he prefers to talk to you."
"I'm sorry," Laura smiled at him and pulled the blanket closer around her shaking body. "So no progress at all? Is that what you came here to tell me?"
Richard returned her smile with melancholy eyes. "I came here to see how you were doing."
"You asked me that on the phone."
"Yes, and you lied." Richard observed how she added honey to her tea and tried to shrug him off. "Why don't you call when you need something?"
"I don't need anything. I am fine." Laura prepared a second cup of tea – her way of saying that she wanted him to stay. Actions were easier than words sometimes.
Richard sighed to himself. "So what do we do about the union? I really don't think we'll find a consensus without you."
Laura took her cup and walked into her living room. She sat down on her couch and rested her feet under her body in warm socks. "There's always a way."
She raised her hand to stop him from applying her words to her own situation.
"Then tell me what to do." Richard looked at her. It was the first time he openly asked her how to proceed. He had done so many times – the intelligent woman behind the President. He had never admitted to her how much he valued her ideas though. Only once in a fight he regretted now. It seemed ages ago. Every week a lifetime now.
"Secretary Roslin," Laura was ripped out of her memories again.
"Excuse me?" Her voice sounded small.
Is it true that you're having an affair with President Adar?"
Laura stared at the cameras for a moment.
"Several sources have hinted..."
"Hinted?" Richard interrupted the journalist who kept addressing Laura.
"It's alright,"she waved him off. "Let him ask his questions."
Richard glared at her longer than he should have to hold his cover.
"Madam Secretary, are you having an affair with the President?" The journalist dared to repeat his question – more demanding than before.
Laura Roslin smiled. It was a warm smile – her headache still pounding, her heartbeat calm like her voice. "Yes."
The silence was abrupt. On the quiet followed a storm – heavy, unrelenting, noisy. Flashlights rained on her, cameras clicked a hundred times a minute, questions overwhelmed her. She heard her name called then his – the press attacked them like vultures. The presidential security detail tried to shield the podium from the outraged mop. Richard stood, paralyzed – he was lost with words for the first time in his career. Laura smiled at him. It felt good to have one secret of her chest. Her smile was apologetic in a way, soft. The kind of smile he couldn't resist.
When she got up, the room around her was bouncing in slow motion. She squeezed his hands with one of hers. The kiss she placed on his haggard face was long and deep.
"I love you." Her lips vibrated against his skin. She was lost in a moment with him alone.
When she let go of his hand, she left. She simply walked away. Able to breathe for the first time in weeks, she shielded her face from the light and the mikes that flooded the room.