CHAPTER 12

Bill was restless. He had been so sure that he'd packed the mystery that he'd been reading and yet he couldn't find the book anywhere. He rummaged through his duffle bag a second time, pulling out socks and shirts, deodorant and razors, scattering the items across the quilt-covered twin bed. He came up empty handed. He had packed in a hurry; he'd probably left the book on his coffee table. Carolanne was always picking up his books, usually abandoned face down and open, or closed and bookmarked wherever he'd last been reading them. She'd shut them with an irritated snap and stuff them into his overcrowded bookshelf. It was a repeated argument, her nagging and his grumbling when he couldn't find one because she'd "relocated" it. You were so good at avoidance and withdrawal, Bill. With Galactica and those useless pieces of paper-filled cardboard, is it really any wonder that I strayed?

Bill rose and padded into the living room to take a look at the bookshelf he'd spotted earlier. On the way, he noticed a book that lay closed on an end table with a bookmark peeking out of its top. So Laura was a bookmark-user, not a bend-a-corner-of-the-page offender. Bill smiled and enjoyed this small tidbit of trivial information. He wondered if she were like him, always leaving a trail of books in her wake like footprints. Bill picked up the shiny new hardback, feeling a little intrusive as he did so, and yet unable to resist. He glanced first at the title on the spine: Blood Runs at Midnight. A mystery. Much like its owner – how appropriate. Bill opened the book to skim through the reviews at the beginning, when a small yellow sticky note nestled on the inside cover caught his attention. The note was so short that it was impossible not to read it on a mere quick glance.

Join me in my office at your convenience. R.

Bill closed the book and placed it on the end table where he'd found it. His pleasure at discovering something to read evaporated as quickly as water disappears into cracks of pavement on a too-hot day. Bill probably wouldn't have thought much about the message, an innocuous little invitation for a meeting, if he hadn't seen them together. If he hadn't seen the way the man hovered over her. The way he always seemed to have a hand resting against her back or the grazing of his fingers against her forearm when he leaned in, too close, to whisper something in her ear. It dawned on him then, that night on Galactica, how the president had left the table and how Laura had also vanished soon after. She returned; he didn't. Were the rumors true then? Was it a lovers' quarrel that had her sleeping alone in a quiet little alcove on the vast ship while Adar paced and waited for her to return, bed empty - wanting?

Had she returned?

Bill told himself that it didn't matter. It was none of his business. He barely knew her. And yet unease crept under his skin and burrowed its way into that place of denial, into that expanding place even deeper in his heart that had already begun to care about her. He glanced at his hands, at the left one where his wedding band used to be. An indentation remained at the base of his finger where the ring had pressed against the skin, reminding him of his fatally flawed marriage and the haunting regrets that would remain, like melancholy ghosts, even long after the mark faded. Gods, but he wasn't ready for this.

Slipping back into bed, Bill lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. Laura needed a friend. They could be friends, couldn't they? Friends. It sounded so safe and polite. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the weight of her head against his neck and the soft press of her body against his. Her proximity surrounded him still. A wisp of her scent, a fragrant intermingling of lavender and vanilla, lingered in his memory. He could still feel the way the coolness of her skin warmed as the heat of his own seeped into her. He wondered, in some remote corner of his mind, what it would be like in another context to hold Laura, for a reason entirely unrelated to heart-bending grief.

It's not for you to know, Bill. Leave it there.

Sleep was fitful. Instead of listening for the hum of engines or being on the alert for an emergency call, Bill listened for Laura. He knew, with absolute certainty, that at the first sign of distress from her, he would be up and out of that bed. The feeling was as instinctual as the rhythm of his breathing. It was an absolute – as grounded in the fabric of reality as the stars scattered across the heavens above.

He slipped in and out of sleep throughout the night. Dreams came and went with each tick of the clock on the nightstand. Bill dreamed that he was digging a grave, hands sweaty and blistering from the effort, face gleaming with sweat. The sun had almost completely vanished; he'd have to hurry before he lost the light. His limited dream-awareness prevented him from knowing whose grave it was that he dug. But as he pried another shovel full of dirt free from the clumped earth, he realized that it didn't matter – his heart was so heavy it may as well have been his own. He dreamed of a voice, rich and lyrical, topaz-colored and ineffably lovely. But it faded into something thin, almost transparent, the mere hint of a voice – and when it finally dwindled away completely, Bill felt something essential in him fade, too. When morning finally came, the light blotted out the memory of those evasive dreams – as waking often does.

The smell of coffee greeted him as he pushed the covers aside and his feet made contact with the cool hardwood. He walked slowly toward the bathroom, the grip of half-sleep still clinging to his body and his brain. He emerged a few moments later and found Laura sitting on the floor of the living room going through stacks of sheet music. There was a pile of crumpled Kleenex in her lap. Her hair was damp, making the color a deeper shade of auburn. The white terrycloth bathrobe that she wore seemed too big for her small frame.

"I hope I didn't wake you, Bill."

"Not at all."

"I left a towel and a facecloth for you in the bathroom if you want to take a shower. There's a pot of coffee on the counter and some muffins in a bag. There's a little bakery down the road; I took a walk."

"Thanks." Bill watched her as she continued to separate pieces of music into different piles. He motioned his head toward the pages that surrounded her, like scattered leaves, like memories. "Why did you stop playing?"

Laura stopped. She removed her glasses, and her eyes, like two sharp push-pins, dug into Bill. "While I truly do appreciate your support last night, I think I'll pass on this little therapy session."

Bill sat down on the floor next to her so that they were at eye level and he regarded her calmly, unfazed. His voice was even. "I'm not leaving."

"What?" Her eyes narrowed in irritation.

"I'm not leaving, Laura. If you want to spend the rest of the weekend being defensive and caustic with me, that's fine. But I'm not going anywhere."

Bill watched as she processed that piece of information. She expelled a quick breath of air, eyes flaring, and opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her before she could get a word in edgewise.

"I miss my son," said Bill. "Every day. Some days are better than others – but not a day goes by when I don't think about Zak. I never wanted him to race. I gave him money toward his first car." His lips quirked into a tentative smile. "This hideous neon blue and red racer that he had his heart set on. I kept telling him no. But he wanted it so badly – racing was in his blood, he told me. Eventually, I gave in. He was so happy. Ran a few races, did well….and I remember thinking, maybe this will all be okay." Bill swallowed. "And then it wasn't. I know what you're going through and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that it's ever easy but for frak's sake, let the people who care about you help you through it. Now you can tell me to go to hell."

"I'm sorry about Zak, Bill. And for the record, this isn't all one sided – if you want to talk about it, I'm a good listener." She paused. "Especially since it prevents me from biting your head off – which I've done a lot lately."

"Thank you – for offering to listen; not for biting my head off."

Bill saw the frail hint of a simile in her eyes. Laura looked down at her hands. "I'm not angry with you." She sighed. "Not really. You just….for some reason….have a knack for – "

"Pissing you off?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed vehemently.

"The feeling is quite mutual."

Laura laughed, a bright bell-like sound that turned into a giggle. "At least we can agree on something."

Bill smiled and it felt like a reflex brought on by her laughter. "So really – why don't you play anymore?" He skimmed his hands over a piece of music spread out on the floor and almost accidentally brushed his fingertips against hers. For the jolt that the near contact sent through his body, he might as well have.

"You're persistent."

Bill didn't answer; he merely looked at her intently. Years in the military had taught him that sometimes the best way to get someone to talk was simply to say nothing at all. Apparently, Laura Roslin wasn't so susceptible to his interrogation tactics because she merely regarded him with an aloof silence. Bill decided to wait her out. A half a minute passed and turned into a full minute. Bill was about to try another strategy when she finally spoke.

"It's like a switch, you know," said Laura. Her voice was plangent, soft. "You turn the grief off but there are other things on the same circuit and you can't separate them. The music is so much a part of what we were. The house was always full of it. My father and I with the piano. My mother's singing. Cheryl with her flute and Sandra with the violin. After the accident, I did play….and sometimes it felt good. But other times, it was just such a reminder of the way things were but also how different they had become. It was too much." She shrugged. "So gradually I put my music away, literally and figuratively."

"Lee heard you play once. He couldn't stop talking about it."

Laura flexed her toes. "I remember. It was at a party Kara had for my birthday. We played a duet and then I played something by myself. It was a couple of years ago." She shifted to catch a patch of sunlight that was peeking through the windows so that she could feel it against her back.

"Do you miss it?"

"Every day."

"Kara's very good, you know," said Bill. Laura smiled; her features rearranged themselves into the look of a mother who was very proud of her daughter. The look suited her. "You taught her."

"Yes, since she was very little. When did you hear Kara play?"

"One of the lounges on Galactica has a piano."

Laura brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them, resting her chin against her hands.

"Bill, I'd like you to stay – not because you have to. Not because you feel obligated to cater to the 'poor grieving woman' but because you want to." Laura took a quick breath. The invitation felt almost – intimate – and she felt instantly vulnerable. She fiddled with the cuff of her robe. "I mean - it's good. Us. Getting to know one another. Kara and Lee want us involved in the wedding plans, Gods help us."

"Heh….I didn't even plan my own wedding."

"You and your wife – "

"Eloped. We were very young." Laura's eyes wandered down to Bill's hands and she couldn't help but notice that he wasn't wearing his wedding ring today. Her eyes darted quickly back to his face.

She covered her surprise with a quick question. "Is that why you're a little apprehensive about Lee and Kara?"

"I wouldn't say I'm apprehensive, Laura. Just cautious." He shrugged. "But it isn't for me to decide. And just for the record, I love Kara. She's amazing."

"I feel the same way about Lee."

"Another thing we agree on."

Laura's eyes twinkled as she pushed back a few strands of red hair. "Probably best we don't get used to it."

Bill grinned. "Probably not."