Laura sighs as she takes a seat on an empty container, rubbing her hands across her face before grabbing the second vial out of her pocket. She loads it into the injector before jamming it into her forearm and pressing down. She takes a deep breath as she feels the adrenaline flood her system, her cloudy vision starting to clear. She puts the two items in her pocket as she sees a flash of red hair out of the corner of her eye. She looks up and looks around before wading her way over to where the kids were, her eyes widening when she only sees Aurora curled up under the desk taking a nap. Laura shakes the girl's shoulder gently as she looks around, hoping to see a glimpse of the boys.
"Aurora, where are your brothers?"
"Wha?"
"Where are the boys at?"
"I dunno, they were just here. I told them to stay," She says sleepily with a yawn. Laura sighs as she stands, pointing a finger at her daughter.
"Stay put," She commands before ripping off the gown she had been wearing and sprinting out into the corridor. She hears giggles from around the corner to her left and takes off in that direction, following the blurs of red hair as they slip around corners out of her reach.
"Alex! Liam!" Laura yells as she follows them. She eventually catches up to them in a crossway, tugging them behind a stack of crates with a finger to her lips as she hears centurion footsteps starting to get closer. She slips her head around the corner as she hears the footsteps start to disappear, turning back to the boys only to find out that they had disappeared again.
"Frak," Laura whispers, taking off in the only direction they could have gone, her mind instantly transporting her to the Opera House. Laura pauses as she runs into Bill before they both take off down the corridor, watching in terror as the Six picks up Alex and holds her hand out to Liam.
"NO!" Laura yells, trying to run faster as Baltar closes the hatch on them. She bangs her fists against the metal before Bill pulls her off.
"They're going to the CIC, come on," He explains as he takes her hand and pulls her down another corridor, before they burst into the back of the CIC. Laura watches in horror as Liam is snatched away from the Six and a gun is put to his head by Cavil.
Bill pulls her back from racing down the stairs with a hand on her arm. He reaches back and unsecures his sidearm, curling his hand around the grip and descending the stairs slowly himself. He swallows as he watches Baltar negotiate for his son before Saul steps up and offers resurrection in exchange for peace.
As Cavil releases his grip on Liam, Bill snaps his son up by the arm, giving him to Laura as he grabs Alex. Laura sets both of them on empty chairs keeping her body in front of them so they couldn't get away and the cylons couldn't get to them.
Bill shoves them to the ground as the guns start to go off before starting to return fire himself. Laura shoves the boys further under the console they were sitting by, trying to shield them from the cross fire as well as the explosions that were starting to take place throughout the ship.
"Kara get us out of here!" Bill yells out.
"I don't know the rendezvous!" Kara says as she makes her way to the jump console, bracing herself against the rocking of she ship.
"Just...go for Earth!" Bill grunts as he gets tossed against the center console as they jump. He braces himself as one of the towers collapses near him before making his way back up the stairs. Laura grumbles as she rubs her head, swiping blood across her forehead, sighing as she looks up at Bill.
"Well...that went worse than expected," Laura comments wryly before looking at the boys who were huddled together behind her, "You two okay?"
"Yeah," They both respond quietly, nodding in succession. Bill offers Laura a hand up before picking up both of the boys. Liam looks up at his father with wide eyes as he looks around, "Did we do that?"
"No, bub, you didn't do that," Bill assures him before calling out for a sitrep. He sets the boys on top of the main console as everyone starts to mill around. He looks over at Laura as blood trickles down the side of her face from the small wound on her temple, "Why don't you go check on Ror? I've got these two. Probably should have Cottle or Ishay take a look at that."
"I'll be right back," Laura comments as she squeezes his arm before making her way down to Life Station. She finds Aurora sitting on the desk getting her own head patched up by Mona.
"Mom!"
"Hey, butterfly. Quite the pair aren't we?" Laura smiles as she walks closer, checking her daughter over herself.
"Just a small cut on her head, she hit it on the corner of the desk climbing out," Mona comments as she puts a piece of gauze over it, "No stitches or anything."
"Thank you."
"You on the other hand might need a couple," Mona comments as she turns her attention to Laura. Laura winces as Mona swipes a swab over it to clean it up.
"You have the hands of an angel," Laura says sarcastically, as her friend works.
"I can make it hurt more, sassy. I'm sure that would go great with your migraine," Mona comments examining the cleaned wound before taping a butterfly closure over it and coating it in antibacterial cream, "That should do you."
"You know...I think it's gone."
"What?"
"My headache...I mean besides here...," Laura indicates the fresh wound on her head, "...it doesn't really hurt."
"If only we'd thought to knock you over the head sooner," Mona smiles.
"It's not that..." Laura shakes her head before looking at Aurora. She holds out her arms and lifts her daughter down from the desk, pressing a kiss to her cheek, "Come on your brothers' are down in the CIC."
"How did they get all the way down there?"
"They had to be," Laura replies cryptically before leading Aurora down to the CIC. She wraps her arms around the boys before kissing each of their heads and squeezing them tight. Bill puts a hand on her back after he gets done talking to Saul and Kara, "So?"
"The ship is completely broken down. She's never going to make another jump."
"Oh, Bill," Laura murmurs, resting a hand on Bill's bicep.
"But, Kara looked at the scans. Star patterns match with what she saw...what we saw in the tomb."
"We're at Earth," Laura says, a light starting to make it's way back into her eyes.
"Seems we are," Bill smiles, his hand finding hers, their fingers locking together, "We're going to send raptors back to the fleet. Let them know what's going on. But I don't want to pull them forward yet. The surface is populated and who knows what they are capable of."
"It's populated? There's people actually there?" Laura asks, a giddy grin spreading across her face.
"Yeah, from what we can tell, quite a few."
"Where are we sitting?"
"We're still counting...we're down almost a thousand, lost quite a few birds."
"The kids?"
"All accounted for. Lee and Zak are coming up from the deck now," Bill assures her. He looks up as Dee calls out his name.
"Admiral?"
"Lieutenant Dualla."
"We're getting hails from the surface asking us to identify," Dee comments. Bill picks up the handset and holds it to his ear.
"This is the United States Government. Please identify yourselves. Repeat, this is the United States Government. Please identify yourselves."
"You have Galactica Actual on the Battlestar Galactica, by way of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," Bill replies, squeezing Laura's hand. He swallows as there is a long pause on the other end before the voice comes back over.
"We read you, Galactica Actual. Please stand by for additional direction."
"Copy that, Galactica is on standby," Bill comments before replacing the handset as cheers break out across the deck. Laura laughs as she throws her arms around Bill, pressing her lips to his as she holds him close.
"You did it."
"We did it," Bill corrects, smiling as he wraps his arms around the kids, squeezing them close.
[The End]
Stay tuned for the next installment of the series starting later this week!
