Disclaimer: BSG (2003) and all the characters are property of Ron D. Moore. I merely borrowed his playthings to play a bit in his sandbox.
Enjoy! L
Chapter 3
They spent another hour in the warm autumn sun, drinking coffee and eating ice cream, until Laura received a text from Kara, telling her that she had come home early and if the two of them wanted to make plans for the evening, they could take Sophie home now already. Bill, who was looking at her and obviously wanted to find out who she was texting with, only received a sly smile from his wife as a reply. „Sophie honey, your mummy is home early and wants to know whether you'd like to have dinner with her instead of us." Sophie looked up from her sundae, her face covered in chocolate ice cream. „Mummy is home already? Yaaay, I can't wait to tell her about what happened today..." She looked at her grandfather who was glaring at her over the rim of his glasses. „I mean, because we had so much fun in the park and now even ice cream, right, grandpa?" With a nod, Bill approved of her reply, even if the girl didn't know that their little secret was not a secret any longer anyway.
How in the name of the Gods had he even thought that he could have kept such a ridiculous secret from Laura, he wondered. The only motivation that really would have kept him from telling her was that he often felt insecure when it came to what he should and should not allow his little girl to do. He knew that he mostly was too lenient and gave her more freedom of choice than he'd given his two sons. Certainly, he was aware that the relationship between father and son was supposed to be different than this one, but still. And when he saw Laura dealing with issues related to Sophie, being it her stubbornness, her occasional phases of defiance or when she tried to convince them that she needed to have another cuddly toy when they went grocery shopping together – his wife was much more accustomed to handling kids and even if he'd been in the military all his life, for most of the time in a leading position, this was a completely different matter. Of course, Laura knew all about his struggles, and she was happy to tease him about it, although they also regularly had serious conversations about the topic and she tried to convince him that he was indeed doing very well with their granddaughter and that she was proud of him for being the main babysitter Sophie had.
He must have been caught in his musings because he suddenly felt a hand on his left thigh and when he looked up from the table he'd apparently been staring at for a while, he detected a pair of sparkling green eyes, regarding him with an amused look on her face. „Sophie, I think we can leave now, grandpa is with us again." The blonde girl, whose face obviously had been wiped clean in the meantime, hopped of her chair and started packing the books and and toys that had been stacked on their table until now. While Sophie was busy doing that, Laura gently cupped Bill's left cheek and leaned over to him. Still smiling, she whispered into his ear: „Honey, you know what we're going to do tonight now that we don't have to babysit our charmingly crazy squirrel-loving granddaughter? How about seaside, wine, dinner, sunset, walk at the beach?" Slowly, she straightened her back again, her fingers still softly stroking his cheek. Bill put both hands on her upper arms, carefully pulled her closer to him again and pressed a soft kiss on her lips where he lingered for a few seconds before he quietly mumbled his approval of her plans, adding „And I'm sure the evening won't end there..." with a crooked grin on his face which was welcomed by a low hum from Laura.
Without warning, however, they were pulled apart by an angry-looking Sophie, glaring at the two of them accusingly. „Grandma! Grandpa! You're not supposed to whisper when there are other people with you. That's mean. What were you talking about?" The two of them exchanged a short look of surprise before they recovered themselves. „Nothing, honey other than that we think you are going to have a lovely evening and so are we," replied Laura and slowly extracted herself from Bill's embrace and got up from her chair, taking his hand and pulling him up with her as well. Sophie was still scrutinising them suspiciously, but after Bill had relieved her from the bag, she took Laura's other hand and was happy to leave the park with them, chattering all sorts of stuff about what games she would play with her mum that evening.
Almost an hour later, Bill and Laura had left Kara's and Lee's place and were now heading for their favourite restaurant by the beach which was famous for its fresh seafood. Bill's hand was drawing lazy circles on Laura's thigh while she was driving and humming a jazzy song. When they arrived at Santaniello's car park, Bill quickly got up to open Laura's door for her and gently took her hand in hers to help her out of the car. „Oh, we're a gentleman tonight, aren't we?" Laura teased him with a twinkle in her eye. When she finally stood in front of him, she placed both hands on his broad chest and pressed her face into his shoulder while Bill put both his arms around her and held her close to him, breathing in her scent. They stood like this for a few moments, listening to the soft sounds of the sea.
„Bill?" he heard her quiet voice against his chest and hummed in response. „You know, sometimes, I wonder how we deserve to have such a beautiful life. I mean, our children, Sophie, our friends, both of us still in jobs that we enjoy, and then, of course, we have us." She looked up at him and he was surprised to see that she had tears in her eyes, but was still smiling. Carefully, he wiped away the trail that her tears had left and kissed her forehead. He pulled her closer and mumbled into her hair. „I know, Laura. I know. It's more than I ever could have dreamt it would be like. But I guess we both have had our fair share of unhappiness in our lives, maybe we just deserve a happy ending?" He could feel her smiling against his face and she replied with a steadier voice. „Yeah, maybe we just deserve that, Bill." Slowly, she pulled away from him, planted another kiss on his lips and tucked her arm under his. „Well then, let's go and be even happier, what do you think?" With a chuckle, Bill put his hand on hers and together they strolled towards the entrance of the restaurant.
- TBC -