Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore and the Sci-Fi channel. The title is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1.
Chapter 18: What dreams may come
Laura was following the red-haired girl again, whom she now recognized as her future daughter. The girl led her into the opera house, as before, but as they kept walking, the walls transformed from the shiny golden ones of the opera house, to an earthy brown-orange color. Though the arches remained, the area took on a rocky, cave-like appearance. The girl ran over to a large triangle on the stone floor. At one corner, Laura saw Hera. A blonde girl sat in the other corner, and the red-haired girl seated herself at the top corner.
As she walked closer to the scene, Laura noticed that all three girls were playing jacks. However, they were not playing the game by the usual rules. Instead of letting the ball bounce once and trying to pick up as many jacks as possible, the girls bounced the ball a certain number of times that differed between the girls. The number of jacks differed as well. When each had bounced the ball a certain number of times, the girls scooped up the entire collection of jacks. Laura filed the numbers of bounced and jacks in her head as she continued to observe the scene.
Caprica and Athena appeared in the room, stepping over to claim their daughters. Holding Hera, Athena stood on the corner of the triangle. Caprica followed her example, then looked to Laura. "The Three Sisters Prophecy must be fulfilled. We are one people, or we are nothing." Then the room around her began to shake.
Laura gasped and woke herself, squirming to sit up quickly. Her movements woke Bill, who had curled up next to her when he returned the previous night. She breathed a sigh of relief that he was with her. "Laura, what is it? Are you alright?"
"I had the dream again, but it was different. It wasn't in the opera house, but a cave. And there was a triangle on the floor and it's going to take me a while to figure all this out," she explained.
He glanced at the clock behind him. "Why don't you head over to the shower while I make breakfast?" She nodded, pondering the dream as the spray of warm water hit her.
Later when she had dressed, she found a cup of coffee and a plate of what looked like Aquarian toast with syrup were waiting for her at the desk. She sat down to take a bite. "Mm, Bill, this is fantastic."
Smiling over at her from where he sat on the couch, he replied "It's something that the humans here call 'French Toast.' Funny how much it reminds me of Aquarian toast."
"I was thinking the same thing. So what happened when you went to see if Dr. Sorenson was settled last night?" Laura inquired.
Bill choked a little on his coffee. He responded after having cleared his throat a few times. "Let's just say I think I interrupted something."
She raised an eyebrow. "'Interrupted' how?"
"Well, I found Jack there and a bunch of boxes behind him. Apparently she brought a lot of files with her. But then there was a pair of women's pants on the floor and then I could hear her voice from the bathroom asking if he had seen her towel," Bill admitted.
Laura laughed heartily. "What did you do after that?"
Bill took a sip of his coffee. "I ran the other way as fast as possible."
"You could have misinterpreted what you saw," she reminded.
He shrugged. "I didn't want to stick around long enough to find out."
She drank some of her coffee. "Regardless of what you did or didn't interrupt, we still have to see him today."
Bill took a bite of his toast. "We?"
Laura rolled her eyes. "Yes, we. Don't tell me you forgot already. The ultrasound has been scheduled for a week."
"This business with the premiere and the Cylons has me a little distracted. About what time is it for?" he inquired.
"0800. Then you have the rest of your shift and I have another meeting with Lee. He and I will try to find a way to diffuse the situation between ourselves and the premiere. At the very least, D'Anna will have more to say on what should be done. Mind you, I'm not taking suggestions from her, but she is the Cylon leader and she might have an idea we hadn't considered," Laura relayed.
"At this point in time, she'd probably tell us to nuke him and forget it," Bill commented with a smirk.
Laura smiled back. "You're probably right, but I'm still hoping for a civil answer."
Later as they entered Life Station, Bill and Laura noticed several of Morgana's people leaving. Having seen them by the door, Morgana headed over to the admiral and former president. "Hello Madame President, Admiral. Is everything alright?"
"For us, yes, and it's just 'Laura' these days. We came for an ultrasound that was scheduled," she stated. "Why are your people leaving?"
Morgana folded her hands in front of her. "Since I was fired, they have been recalled. The only consolation is that there seem to be less injuries up here to treat these days."
"I'm sorry to hear about that. You seem to be helpful up here though," Laura told her.
Morgana smiled politely. "I try. I'll tell Dr. Cottle that you're here. I am glad the two of you stopped by, actually. I found a file that you may find very interesting."
She disappeared behind a curtain, leaving Bill and Laura to stare after her. A moment later she returned with Cottle. "Well this is a first. Usually I have to phone ahead to get you two to show up."
"I wasn't going to let this be forgotten. Dr. Sorenson mentioned a file though," Laura reminded.
"We'll talk about that in my office after we finish the ultrasound," Cottle responded.
Morgana raised an eyebrow. "Your bedside manner could be improved."
Cottle leaned close to her and whispered, "That depends on whose bedside I'm at."
She blushed. Laura smirked, having overheard him. He led them to one of the beds and retrieved the monitor. Once everything was set up, Laura and Bill watched as an image materialized. Bill stood on one side of Laura while Morgana took the other. "The baby looks normal. Everything seems to be fine," Morgana remarked.
The other doctor nodded. "Growth rate is normal and the heartbeat is strong. She moved a lot too."
"Yes, I know she's rather active- wait, you said 'she'?" Laura asked.
"We're looking at a healthy baby girl," Cottle answered.
Laura looked over at Bill. "You owe me five cubits."
"I was hoping you'd forgotten about the bet," Bill grimaced.
She chuckled. "I don't forget much, Admiral. Lucky for you I collect my payment in book chapters."
Bill grinned and kissed her warmly. After the equipment had been put away, Cottle ushered Bill and Laura into his office, with Morgana following. He closed the door and Morgana lifted the envelope from his desk. She removed a stack of papers, handing them to the others. Laura thumbed through them, her brow furrowing. "I can't read these."
"They're in English," Morgana began. "English used to be one of the dominant languages of Western culture. When the wars ended and the people of Earth went their separate ways, the group that came here not only froze technology, but also went linguistically backwards. The leaders of that time thought that going back to the root languages would bring humanity back to its beginnings, back to a time of what they considered to be fewer complications. Personally I don't understand that decision, but if we had been speaking English, then we wouldn't have understood your people."
Cottle cleared his throat. "Tell them what you found."
Morgana rolled her eyes. "No patience at all with you." She turned back to the others. "These documents are dated fifty years ago. A doctor from the other humans returned to us."
"How come he didn't get caught like my people did?" Bill inquired.
"According to the documents, no one knew of it because of the lack of technology. The doctor, whose name I have made out to be 'Gardener,' kept a low profile and no one had any reason to suspect that he wasn't a native to this world," Morgana replied.
Laura raised an eyebrow. "I think the bigger question is what he was doing here."
"He was part of a small group who knew the truth about Terra Prime. I was not even aware of what I'm about to tell you until I read this file. Technology has been made to adjust the weather system, but far more modifications were made to the nature of the planet that I was ever aware of. In order to make the planet habitable, the humans had to reform not only the weather, but also the seismic activity," Morgana mentioned.
"So this might have something to do with the tremors that the premiere was complaining about?" Bill supposed.
Morgana nodded. "Precisely. When they found the planet, they saw that it could support life, but in order to build shelters the earthquakes would have to be neutralized."
"The planet with no technology has an artificial environment," Cottle added.
"A computer system that dealt with magnetic resonance was put in place, but it needed to be adjusted every fifty years. Apparently Dr. Gardener was not the only visitor to Terra Prime. But going back to his file, he established a new computer system in some of the caves on the planet. The directions are in the file. I suspect that he was worried if someone would make it back for the next adjustment," Morgana explained.
"I still don't get what specifically needs to be done every fifty years," Bill stated.
Morgana folded her hands in her lap as she perched on the edge of Cottle's desk. "It has to do with the configuration of the magnetic poles. The poles on this planet change more frequently than those of Earth. As a result, the magnetic resonance represses the seismic activity needs to be realigned to compensate for it. Gardener's computer was more than a standard computer though. Three sets specific number code needs to be put in so that the system can be accessed. The first allows access to the general computer. The second opens the grid so that the adjustments might be made."
"And the third?" Laura probed.
"That's where it gets a bit murky. As you can see," she pointed to the papers that Laura held, "the report digresses into sketches and equations."
Laura looked over the sketches, stopping when she came to a triangle. "Has anyone found this place aside from Dr. Gardener?"
Morgana sighed. "Honestly, it's the first I've ever heard of it. As I have mentioned, there are directions in the file though."
"Now that you know what the problem is on your planet, what are you going to do about it?" Bill questioned.
"Admiral, I wish I knew. The premiere probably will not believe me, nor am I inclined to show him any of this. The date given for the adjustment is next week. The only thing I do know is that if this does not get fixed soon, no one will have a planet to live on," she conveyed.
"I'll talk to Tyrol," Bill mentioned.
He and Laura stood. "While you do that, I'll have a chat with D'Anna and see if diplomacy on her end is still an option."
"Good luck with that," Cottle told her.
Laura used the admiral's office to contact D'Anna. After a lengthy pause, she heard D'Anna's voice over the wireless on the secure line. "Laura, I hope you have a good reason for this that includes strangling that wretched man that I met yesterday."
"I know you're upset, D'Anna. First of all, I apologize. His behavior was rude and inexcusable. I was hoping that together you and I could come up with a reasonable solution to-"
"Reasonable? Laura, the only reasonable way to deal with him would be to drop a few bombs on the man, if you could stoop to calling him a man," D'Anna interjected.
Laura took a deep breath. "As tempting as that is, we signed a treaty. Right now I'm trying to find a peaceful resolution to this mess."
"I signed no such treaty. There is nothing but my own good will stopping me from blowing that… that… idiot out of existence," D'Anna expressed.
"I realize that. Perhaps if you did sign a treaty-" Laura's attempt at persuasion crashed.
"If I have to deal with that man again, one of us will not be leaving the room alive!" D'Anna yelled before ending the connection. Sighing, Laura made her way to CIC.
Bill had finished talking to Tyrol as she entered the room. "How did it go?" he asked.
"Absolutely lousy. She's got half a mind to nuke them and is only refraining from doing so by 'her own good will' as she put it," Laura told him, running a hand through her hair.
"Sounds like we might be looking at an all-out war if things can't be settled," Tigh mentioned, having heard her. He, Hoshi, Gaeta, and Dee were the only ones on duty that day, since people had slowly been moving down to the planet. They were aware of Laura's condition, but none of them realized the implications.
"I'll welcome any suggestions you have, Colonel," Laura stated.
"We fixed something they needed. Have the Cylons fix something they need, or find a way to get some damned good blackmail," Tigh replied.
Bill nodded. "As much as I like the idea, things aren't that simple. I've got Tyrol and his men looking for those other caves. With any luck, they'll find something that we can use as leverage."
Laura glanced at the viewscreen, her gaze focusing on the planet that should have been a comfortable home. She reached back to rub a persistent ache out of her neck. "Gentlemen, if you don't mind, I'm exhausted and I still have a meeting with Lee in two hours, so I'll be leaving."
As she began to move away, Bill wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her softly. "I'll be home for supper."
She smirked at his domestic act. "I'll have it ready."
His gaze followed her until she had left. "Pathetic," he heard Saul say.
The admiral turned to give Saul the 'Adama glare,' but both men ended up chuckling instead. "So when are you going to marry the woman staying in your quarters?" Bill goaded him.
"She doesn't want to get married until after the baby's born. I don't know how to be a parent! I don't even know what to name the kid," Saul grumbled.
"Unfortunately it's one of those 'learn as you go' things. No one's ever ready, myself included," Bill responded.
As Laura walked down the hallway to Bill's and her quarters, she found Caprica at the door. The blonde woman looked pale. "Caprica, are you alright? How long have you been standing here?"
Caprica rested a hand on her abdomen, her expression scrunching in pain. "I just walked here from Saul's quarters. It hurts. I never had pain like this before. I… didn't know who else to go to."
Taking a deep breath, Laura took Caprica's hand. "Come on. You're coming with me to Life Station. If you're in labor, you don't need to be standing in a hallway."
(A/N: Yes, the last verbal exchange between Bill and Laura was taken from the episode "The Oath." My thanks to Guardian Ghost, Mythtern13, McGonagallFan, WonderfallsOnDaisies, Whas' up, and carolann for reviewing :D)