Measured Out In Coffee Spoons
Cottle likes the Roslin girl better than he ever expected to. For a flaky believer type, she's got grit and common sense in spades, and it says something to him that she doesn't cry, or blush, or act like he's taxing her with the treatments, such as he can give her.
The girl's sensible. Damn shame that she's not going to live; of all the people they could use on this new colony they're trying to start, she'd be the best to get them started.
"You don't cry," he says, two days after he pronounced her doomed in under a month. "Not ever."
"I do cry," Roslin replies. "Just not in public."
"Someone's always watching you."
"So I do my crying in the shower," she says gamely, lying through her teeth. "Any particular reason you've noticed, Doctor?"
"Just came to mind," he says laconically. This late in the game, she should barely be able to stand. He knows she's hurting. "How much pain medication do you want?"
She knows how little they have left. "I have enough for now," she replies.
"The frak you do," he says. "But you're not going to let me give you any, are you?"
"I can ask later, if I need to," she says. "Thank you, doctor."
He snorts, hands her a bottle. "Don't take more than two of 'em at a time," he says. "And if you do, take five of 'em at bedtime with water on a full stomach. It'll take longer, but you won't feel it. Look like your heart stopped."
Cottle expects to hear a shocked gasp, maybe a remonstrance. Most other women -- frak, most people -- would tell him that was inappropriate and where he could shove his mercy. But she's a sensible girl, the way he hoped his own daughter would end up before the Cylons ended that dream. She nods.
"Thank you, again," Roslin says, her hand curling around the bottle. "I'll speak to you soon."
He can't see his way fit to say the words. Cancer. Dying. Terminal. Can't figure out how to say them, how she could have lied to him about it but told his son. But there's no rage about this lie, and Bill realizes, slowly, that he's afraid of what will happen when Laura dies.
Worse yet, he's simply afraid of Laura's death.
In fact, it makes him want to throw things, that the one stroke of luck the gods have given this fleet, the one hope of the whole frakking universe, is a pale woman who won't see next month. A woman he'd hoped to marry.
He had had a plan. He was going to wait for them to settle planetside before kissing her. To avoid any scandal, any accusation that the military and civilian leaders were too close (another problem Lee didn't have). And he was willing to learn how to please her; Laura isn't like Caroline. Or any woman Bill has ever known.
She doesn't need anyone. Most women, they need reassurance, no matter how tough, they want to be complimented, but Laura is different. Self-contained somehow. She doesn't need, she wants, and she only wants when there is no need.
It made more sense the first time he realized that was what was different about Laura from Caroline, or Kara, or most women. She doesn't need him; there are a hundred people who could serve her needs. But he's the best man for the job, so he's chosen.
And now, before he can ever see what she wants, she is going to be taken away from them.
They sit quietly on both Colonial One and Galactica, drinking tea and discussing politics. He wants to ask if she's feeling well. He can't find words.
"I have to go," she says. "I'm due at a Quorum meeting."
For a second, he wants to tell her to frak the Quorum and stay so they can talk about things, but he nods instead. "Good luck with them," Bill says.
"Thank you," Laura replies, and leaves.
They've just stopped talking.
He sees her at things, but they don't have time to talk.
He looks at her, and she is as wonderful as ever, smiling and listening and leading. Quietly managing all of them, especially his father, who seems to be absolutely enjoying his duty of advising and guiding the president these days.
But every time Lee gets within a certain radius, she swivels and disappears so well that it isn't obvious to anyone they've stopped speaking.
It hits him in the gut when he realizes it's not even his father keeping him away from the president; it's the president herself.
She showed him too much of herself. Those tears that wet his shoulder were more tears than she's shed the entire time he's known her. They were alone together too much.
Someone tried to kill him because they were close, and now Laura Roslin has cut him off without a warning.
He misses her in ways he can't even explain. Worse than he missed Kara, and he missed Kara like crazy when she was gone.
It feels as though he's a step behind, all the time. Out of sync.
Nobody says anything about it. Lee assumes they all think he's still talking to the president. Or they don't know what to say. He doesn't know.
He dreams about her. Nothing deep; in his dreams they talk like they used to and Lee is strangely happy, content to discuss mundane things, politics, et cetera, as long as he gets to speak to Laura.
"I'm sorry that D'Anna used her access to videotape the pilots' lounge," Laura says, for example. "That was uncalled-for."
"It turned out all right," Lee says. "When do we get the hard-hitting documentary about Colonial One?"
"Ohh, I think that's not going to happen," Laura says with a smile. "I knew Biers would end up supporting the military. Anyone who knows the men and women of Galactica knows the job you're doing."
And he wakes up and the pain of knowing they will never speak to each other so comfortably again hits him in the gut like a hangover mixed with bad food at dinner.
Gods, he misses her already.
Her eulogy is going to be awful.
Billy hates the damn thing, because he's done three drafts on the QT, and they're all morbid, horrible pieces of claptrap, worse than that silly documentary that D'Anna Biers did about Galactica.
Whitewash.
Billy wants to tell the story of how he doesn't believe she's a prophet, and that they basically killed her by needing her too much to let her do chemo. Billy wants to tell the story of the woman who bites her lips so hard that they bleed rather than shed a tear or scream over the pain of shots and treatment.
Billy wants to tell the story of how Laura Roslin spent an entire day on the floor of the Galactica brig, raving, and nobody cared enough to spare her ten seconds of attention, because they were trying to pick her motherfrakking corpse.
And she's still working harder for them than they could ever imagine, even though Billy knows the pain is getting worse and worse. She moves slower. More delicately. She gives Commander Adama advice, but she will not see Lee Adama.
Billy wishes he were braver. Brave enough to tell her she doesn't have to be brave anymore. Because that would be a lie. The fleet needs her to be what she is, whole and perfect and apparently stronger than everyone else.
Instead he enables the lie. Says that she's praying instead of quietly cursing how long it takes her to get dressed in the morning. Says that she's busy instead of having a bad reaction to a painkiller.
Does not mention how withdrawn she's gotten. How he has to be careful what he brings her from the kitchens because the wrong smell makes her so sick that she won't eat.
Nobody wants to know the truth. Billy is learning this, and understanding why Laura does what she does. It's not that she's dishonest, after all. It's because nobody wants the truth -- they want to be able to keep going, to have hope, to imagine there is more to life than the hard cold necessities.
So the eulogy will be about holy prophets who never so much as shed a tear in pain, about the Laura who smiled and was lovely and holy. Not the Laura Roslin who will not speak to Lee Adama, who subtly manipulates Bill Adama up and down the field, who is human. She's their hope, so she has to be immortally hopeful.
And the eulogy will be a lie, and Billy will read it without a qualm.