Libran fanfic
Title: Rally Round
Adama/Roslin!
Rated: T
(2875) words, part 5 in the Libran series. Last part with other links can be found here
Sorry it took so long! I suddenly realised I had to add a plot to a plotless fic!
I automatically threw myself on top of her as shards of glass showered across the room. Ignoring her strangled oomph of discomfort, I kept her pinned to the floor and glanced over my shoulder. A cloud of concrete dust was slowly clearing to reveal the night sky. Almost an entire wall of the hotel was missing.
She moaned beneath me and I lifted up, checking her efficiently and impersonally for any wounds. Neither of us seemed to have anything broken, nor could I see any blood. The skin on our arms was grazed and would soon bruise, but all in all we were damned lucky. During the war I’d been witness to a couple of bomb blasts, yet even I was staggered at just how much shrapnel and glass had cut its way into the room with this particular one.
My stomach knotted even tighter when I thought about how she’d been near the window earlier. The thick drapes would have been no barrier, would have offered no protection.
The building let out another shudder and a sound echoed above us. I looked up warily at the ceiling which was also the floor of the second storey.
“Come on,” I rasped, grabbing her hand and unceremoniously yanking her up off the floor.
She resisted my urgent plea. “They’ll be waiting outside,” she cried.
She was right. Mazur’s men probably had their weapons raised and ready. As soon as we poked our noses through that almighty hole in the wall, we’d be the equivalent of plastic ducks in a shooting gallery.
“Maybe they just planted a bomb and took off,” I suggested hopefully, knowing that possibility was ridiculously far-fetched.
She made a doubtful noise at the back of her throat.
I hesitated behind the pile of rubble which was now the centrepiece of the room. It was still multiplying every few moments, producing a fog of dust and smoke which was stinging my eyes and catching my breath. I tried to block out the noise of the building falling apart around us and carefully listened for anything that would give me an idea of where the enemy was situated and how the hell we were going to get out of here alive. Screams, cries, coughs, a car alarm: nothing unusual given the situation, but nothing useful given it either. People were running; boots were pounding across the parking lot. A siren was wailing in the distance, getting steadily closer.
I glanced up at the ceiling again. If we could hold out until the fire or police department arrived... Mazur’s men might be scared off, but then again they could use the cover of confusion to their advantage.
A loud crack snapping with finality propelled me into action.
“We’re gonna have to take our chances outside,” I insisted.
I clutched her hand in mine determinedly. “Let’s go.”
Bill lifted his gaze from the page when it became a blur.
He scanned the Village Green again. There was still the same group of guys he knew playing chess down one end; still the same coffee vendor getting ready to turn his cart around and make another pass through the park at the other end. It was either too late or too early for joggers, but a couple of people were walking their dogs along the park's concrete path. Near the centre of the park, young mothers had just arrived and were setting up picnic blankets for their babies and toddlers to roll around upon under the shade of a tree.
But there was no familiar female figure searching for his whereabouts or hurrying towards him, ready to apologise for her lateness.
Familiar... How odd that she should be so familiar to him so quickly...
Not for a moment did he consider the idea that Laura had decided to deliberately stand him up. And he was trying valiantly not to worry.
He closed the book with a snap and tucked it back into his backpack before swinging the bag over his shoulder as he stood.
He bent and retrieved the brown paper bag which had been sitting beside him. The bun inside had been warm when he’d bought it, but now it was cool and soggy. He broke the pastry up and threw it onto the grass for the birds before he turned towards the corner of the park where he knew there was a payphone.
As he walked, he fished around in his pocket, checking for loose change. He wasn’t sure if her number at the cottage would be listed, but he could try Billy and go from there.
“Newspaper, Mr Adama?”
He turned at the sound of a young boy’s voice. Boxey Troy balanced a pile of newspapers on the plastic cart he dragged around the park each day.
He didn’t want to be distracted from his mission now, so he started to shake his head, but then paused. Richard Adar’s thin face was contorted into a frowning glare in the centre of the Times’s front page.
“Yeah...” He passed the kid a cubit and took a couple of steps away, instantly engrossed in his purchase.
Several other photos were forming a pattern around the president. Each montage was as shocking as the next: police on horses swinging batons at people lying on the ground with their hands reaching out desperately, attempting to ward off injury; women and men scratching at their own faces amid a stinging smog created by tear gas; a row of police, wearing bulletproof vests and masks, linked arm in arm, ready to wade through another crowd of screaming people waving placards.
One photograph stood out; highlighted because it was the only one printed in colour. Four bodies lying on the ground were suffused with patches of dark crimson, their lifeless faces a stark white, their numb lips tinged with blue.
The headlines screamed out an explanation for their deaths as well as Laura’s sudden disappearance: “School’s Out Forever”
*
Laura placed her boarding pass between the pages of Blood Runs at Midnight and clutched the book to her chest as she made her way from the check-in counter. According to the screen she’d just passed she had another twenty minutes before her flight took off.
She would try to call Bill again before then. She'd obtained his number from information and called him immediately after she’d hung up from Tory, and then again before she'd left in a cab for the Thermis transfer station. Both times she must have missed him. Surely, however, he had stopped waiting for her and would have now returned home from the village green. Surely this time he’d answer and she’d be able to escape the reality of this morning for a few minutes by listening to his deep voice.
She stood in front of a bank of payphones and swayed a little, reaction perhaps finally setting in. She hadn’t had time to think since her vacation had come to an abrupt halt.
“Madam Secretary, did I wake you?”
She’d blinked over at the clock beside her bed. It had been just 7 am.
“Ms Foster?” she’d croaked out, immediately frowning at the way the young woman had used her title. Every time Tory Foster had contacted her since temporarily taking over the Education portfolio Laura had cynically noted she'd carefully addressed her as ‘Miss Roslin’. Hearing Tory using the title had been as amusing as it had been surprising. She'd previously guessed Tory had decided to claim ownership of the title on a more permanent basis.
“I suppose you’ve seen the news.”
Laura had sobered instantly at Tory's sombre tone. The cottage came without a television or radio. A situation she hadn’t bothered to rectify.
“No...”
Her replacement had been silent for such a long time that Laura had thought for a moment they’d been disconnected.
“I think you should return to Caprica City, Madam Secretary,” Tory Foster had finally said, breaking the silence but not Laura's sense of dread.
“What--”
“The Teachers’ Union organised a demonstration for late yesterday. President Adar decided the best course of action was to send the strikers a clear message.”
Laura’s stomach had rolled with tension at what the outcome must have been for Tory to be requesting her return to the Colonial capital.
“And...” she’d eventually quietly prompted.
“Four people are dead, ma’am. All teachers. Three male and one female.”
Laura closed her eyes again now, desperate to turn back time and recapture that carefree feeling she'd been indulging in the night before.
“Madam Secretary."
Laura turned, expecting to see someone wearing the uniform of Libran Airlines. Instead she was being addressed by a slender blonde woman dressed in a tight short skirt and a blouse so sheer it displayed the dark purple bra the woman wore beneath it.
"Playa Palacios for This Moment," the woman admitted as she held a microphone close to Laura's face. "Would you like to make any comment about yesterday’s occurrences outside the Caprican City Colonial Offices?”
She blinked. This Moment definitely had a reputation, one as trashy as this woman's wardrobe. How had a member of the gutter press known she'd be at Thermis?
"I'm afraid I can't make any type of statement until I have the full details of the incident," she replied with a vague wave of her hand.
"But you will be calling a press conference to respond to President Adar's accusations, won't you?"
Laura squinted at the way the reporter was enunciating 'accusations'. What sort of accusations could Richard be making? She had been on vacation... What could she...
Her train of thought was interrupted when someone grasped her elbow firmly.
"Ms Roslin will make an official statement once she has returned to Caprica City and spoken to the families of the victims--"
"So you agree the dead were victims? You aren't going to back President Adar's suggestion that they were part of a terrorist cell--"
Her body was propelled away from the telephones and towards the Colonial Fleet departure lounge.
"No comment," the voice of her usher growled as she allowed herself to be swept along and bundled through the glass doors of the lounge. The female reporter stumbled behind them, but with just the slightest gesture from her new companion Fleet security denied her entrance into the lounge. As Laura collapsed into a seat, she could hear one of the guards suggesting Miss Palacios might like to leave the transfer station altogether.
Laura looked up at her saviour. "Bill?" she stammered faintly. "How did you--"
"Read the headlines," he muttered, "thought you might need a helping hand."
She noted the duffle bag draped across his shoulders. A boarding pass was clutched in his left hand. She peered closer at it, trying to read the flight number printed on the top of the ticket.
"Bill?"
He shrugged.
She frowned at his nonchalance. "How did you get here so fast?"
"I have a car," he said, as if that explained everything.
"I'm not sure..." She tried to read his expression but he only stared down at his boots. "I don't need a bodyguard."
"I've commanded two Battlestars," he intimidated that was all the experience he'd need for any situation. She thought of the rows and rows of crew members she'd seen depicted in model form at the museum and wondered if perhaps he was correct.
"We hardly know each other," she felt she should remind him.
"That isn't true," he said softly, his eyes finally rising to meet hers. She held his gaze; a million memories she'd made with him crashing through into her consciousness. None of them could truly exist, and yet all of them were real. In this sterile sober atmosphere of the transfer station, she could no longer dismiss these sensations as ones which were aroused from intoxication as she may have supposed last night.
She looked away first to read the screen above the bar which announced Thermis's departures and arrivals. "My flight's boarding."
He grasped her elbow again and led her through the transfer station, lined up with her at her gate, stowed her carry-on bag in the heavy carrier's overhead compartment, and settled her into her assigned seat, which just happened to be beside one he lowered himself into.
As the spacecraft began its take-off procedures, she sat and unashamedly stared at the man who had calmly disrupted his entire life to apparently accompany her to Caprica. She had had a series of aides and assistants work for her throughout her political career, as well as the occasional lobbyist and publicist, but she'd never had anyone she could discuss decisions with in depth as an equal other than Richard.
Then, he had become her lover...
She sensed Bill Adama could capably fill both these roles in her life. And that sense scared her more than what she would face back on Caprica.
A fun vacation fling was one thing, but this level of commitment was quite another.
And yet, she hadn’t told him to turn around and go home; to save his money and stay in Libran; to leave her alone...
She leaned back and closed her eyes, feigning a tiredness that was probably more real than she would admit even to herself.
Once she was in Caprica, she would have to make some tough decisions; including how to handle Bill Adama’s sudden immersion in her life.
I was going to die.
I couldn't imagine any other way this would play out. I just needed one thing: her to live.
My only plan was shielding her body, taking the bullets for her, and hoping the cavalry arrived in the shape of those emergency vehicles getting closer and closer. Mazur was a coward, so I could only hope his men were as well. She might have a chance of getting away if they were preoccupied by escaping the authorities after my assassination.
I wasn't ready for a car pulling up beside us as we exited the ready-to-collapse building, the high pitched squeal of its tyres adding to the chaos of the post-bomb sounds. I wasn't ready for a couple of hefty men unceremoniously shoving us into the back seat of the vehicle and driving away at such a speed that my head knocked against the centre console, splitting my lip.
"Frak me!" the driver yelled as I was flung around in the seat when the car swerved to avoid something. Next, a volley of what I guessed must be gunfire hit against the back of the car. The driver surged on to our unknown destination though.
In the midst of all this mayhem, her shaking hand found mine. I held it tight.
Bill closed the book when the transfer station security guard signalled he would be the next to be processed.
He answered the guard’s questions with the practised ease of a weary much-travelled passenger. After his luggage was scanned, as well as his person, he strode through the glass doors into the crush of people departing and arriving at the Twelve Colonies’ capital’s transfer station.
After the quiet pace of Libran, and the solitude of space, the hustle and bustle of Capica was always a culture shock every time he returned. It surprised him that, without too much effort, he soon spotted Laura among the throng. He had thought she might have used the cover of the crowd to disappear from his life again. He sensed she might have been making a habit of running away from things in her life for a long time.
He expelled a long breath of relief at being proved incorrect this time.
Her suitcase sat neatly by her feet, so different from the chaotic jumble of luggage she’d had when she’d left Caprica City, and she’d donned thick dark glasses and wrapped a scarf around her red hair. He glanced around the transfer station wondering, given her appearance, whether or not she’d already encountered more reporters. However, he never saw anyone looking out of the ordinary, or anyone looking in her direction with more interest than appropriate.
She looked up suddenly and gave him a small wave. He wasn’t surprised when his heart jumped at the simple movement.
“Evening edition,” she said softly, passing him the newspaper from her lap when he lowered himself into the chair beside her.
He let out a shuddering sigh when he saw the front page.
"This has been some sort of set up," he grunted and she hummed quietly, in agreement he presumed. He tried to remember when the demonstration had taken place. He’d have to make that one of the first things on his to-do list: find out the exact times.
"Someone was taking these pictures maybe ten minutes or so after four innocent people were being murdered?" she mused, proving they were having similar notions.
The front page showed a photograph of Laura. It had been taken just as she’d tumbled barefoot from the 'grape cage'. Her hand was reaching out for a glass of wine one of the attendants was offering her.
Quietly, he read the blurb out aloud: "Secretary of Education, Laura Roslin, lives in up at Libran Tasting while those she works for are gunned down on her orders.”
Adama/Roslin!
Rated: T
(2875) words, part 5 in the Libran series. Last part with other links can be found here
Sorry it took so long! I suddenly realised I had to add a plot to a plotless fic!
I automatically threw myself on top of her as shards of glass showered across the room. Ignoring her strangled oomph of discomfort, I kept her pinned to the floor and glanced over my shoulder. A cloud of concrete dust was slowly clearing to reveal the night sky. Almost an entire wall of the hotel was missing.
She moaned beneath me and I lifted up, checking her efficiently and impersonally for any wounds. Neither of us seemed to have anything broken, nor could I see any blood. The skin on our arms was grazed and would soon bruise, but all in all we were damned lucky. During the war I’d been witness to a couple of bomb blasts, yet even I was staggered at just how much shrapnel and glass had cut its way into the room with this particular one.
My stomach knotted even tighter when I thought about how she’d been near the window earlier. The thick drapes would have been no barrier, would have offered no protection.
The building let out another shudder and a sound echoed above us. I looked up warily at the ceiling which was also the floor of the second storey.
“Come on,” I rasped, grabbing her hand and unceremoniously yanking her up off the floor.
She resisted my urgent plea. “They’ll be waiting outside,” she cried.
She was right. Mazur’s men probably had their weapons raised and ready. As soon as we poked our noses through that almighty hole in the wall, we’d be the equivalent of plastic ducks in a shooting gallery.
“Maybe they just planted a bomb and took off,” I suggested hopefully, knowing that possibility was ridiculously far-fetched.
She made a doubtful noise at the back of her throat.
I hesitated behind the pile of rubble which was now the centrepiece of the room. It was still multiplying every few moments, producing a fog of dust and smoke which was stinging my eyes and catching my breath. I tried to block out the noise of the building falling apart around us and carefully listened for anything that would give me an idea of where the enemy was situated and how the hell we were going to get out of here alive. Screams, cries, coughs, a car alarm: nothing unusual given the situation, but nothing useful given it either. People were running; boots were pounding across the parking lot. A siren was wailing in the distance, getting steadily closer.
I glanced up at the ceiling again. If we could hold out until the fire or police department arrived... Mazur’s men might be scared off, but then again they could use the cover of confusion to their advantage.
A loud crack snapping with finality propelled me into action.
“We’re gonna have to take our chances outside,” I insisted.
I clutched her hand in mine determinedly. “Let’s go.”
Bill lifted his gaze from the page when it became a blur.
He scanned the Village Green again. There was still the same group of guys he knew playing chess down one end; still the same coffee vendor getting ready to turn his cart around and make another pass through the park at the other end. It was either too late or too early for joggers, but a couple of people were walking their dogs along the park's concrete path. Near the centre of the park, young mothers had just arrived and were setting up picnic blankets for their babies and toddlers to roll around upon under the shade of a tree.
But there was no familiar female figure searching for his whereabouts or hurrying towards him, ready to apologise for her lateness.
Familiar... How odd that she should be so familiar to him so quickly...
Not for a moment did he consider the idea that Laura had decided to deliberately stand him up. And he was trying valiantly not to worry.
He closed the book with a snap and tucked it back into his backpack before swinging the bag over his shoulder as he stood.
He bent and retrieved the brown paper bag which had been sitting beside him. The bun inside had been warm when he’d bought it, but now it was cool and soggy. He broke the pastry up and threw it onto the grass for the birds before he turned towards the corner of the park where he knew there was a payphone.
As he walked, he fished around in his pocket, checking for loose change. He wasn’t sure if her number at the cottage would be listed, but he could try Billy and go from there.
“Newspaper, Mr Adama?”
He turned at the sound of a young boy’s voice. Boxey Troy balanced a pile of newspapers on the plastic cart he dragged around the park each day.
He didn’t want to be distracted from his mission now, so he started to shake his head, but then paused. Richard Adar’s thin face was contorted into a frowning glare in the centre of the Times’s front page.
“Yeah...” He passed the kid a cubit and took a couple of steps away, instantly engrossed in his purchase.
Several other photos were forming a pattern around the president. Each montage was as shocking as the next: police on horses swinging batons at people lying on the ground with their hands reaching out desperately, attempting to ward off injury; women and men scratching at their own faces amid a stinging smog created by tear gas; a row of police, wearing bulletproof vests and masks, linked arm in arm, ready to wade through another crowd of screaming people waving placards.
One photograph stood out; highlighted because it was the only one printed in colour. Four bodies lying on the ground were suffused with patches of dark crimson, their lifeless faces a stark white, their numb lips tinged with blue.
The headlines screamed out an explanation for their deaths as well as Laura’s sudden disappearance: “School’s Out Forever”
*
Laura placed her boarding pass between the pages of Blood Runs at Midnight and clutched the book to her chest as she made her way from the check-in counter. According to the screen she’d just passed she had another twenty minutes before her flight took off.
She would try to call Bill again before then. She'd obtained his number from information and called him immediately after she’d hung up from Tory, and then again before she'd left in a cab for the Thermis transfer station. Both times she must have missed him. Surely, however, he had stopped waiting for her and would have now returned home from the village green. Surely this time he’d answer and she’d be able to escape the reality of this morning for a few minutes by listening to his deep voice.
She stood in front of a bank of payphones and swayed a little, reaction perhaps finally setting in. She hadn’t had time to think since her vacation had come to an abrupt halt.
“Madam Secretary, did I wake you?”
She’d blinked over at the clock beside her bed. It had been just 7 am.
“Ms Foster?” she’d croaked out, immediately frowning at the way the young woman had used her title. Every time Tory Foster had contacted her since temporarily taking over the Education portfolio Laura had cynically noted she'd carefully addressed her as ‘Miss Roslin’. Hearing Tory using the title had been as amusing as it had been surprising. She'd previously guessed Tory had decided to claim ownership of the title on a more permanent basis.
“I suppose you’ve seen the news.”
Laura had sobered instantly at Tory's sombre tone. The cottage came without a television or radio. A situation she hadn’t bothered to rectify.
“No...”
Her replacement had been silent for such a long time that Laura had thought for a moment they’d been disconnected.
“I think you should return to Caprica City, Madam Secretary,” Tory Foster had finally said, breaking the silence but not Laura's sense of dread.
“What--”
“The Teachers’ Union organised a demonstration for late yesterday. President Adar decided the best course of action was to send the strikers a clear message.”
Laura’s stomach had rolled with tension at what the outcome must have been for Tory to be requesting her return to the Colonial capital.
“And...” she’d eventually quietly prompted.
“Four people are dead, ma’am. All teachers. Three male and one female.”
Laura closed her eyes again now, desperate to turn back time and recapture that carefree feeling she'd been indulging in the night before.
“Madam Secretary."
Laura turned, expecting to see someone wearing the uniform of Libran Airlines. Instead she was being addressed by a slender blonde woman dressed in a tight short skirt and a blouse so sheer it displayed the dark purple bra the woman wore beneath it.
"Playa Palacios for This Moment," the woman admitted as she held a microphone close to Laura's face. "Would you like to make any comment about yesterday’s occurrences outside the Caprican City Colonial Offices?”
She blinked. This Moment definitely had a reputation, one as trashy as this woman's wardrobe. How had a member of the gutter press known she'd be at Thermis?
"I'm afraid I can't make any type of statement until I have the full details of the incident," she replied with a vague wave of her hand.
"But you will be calling a press conference to respond to President Adar's accusations, won't you?"
Laura squinted at the way the reporter was enunciating 'accusations'. What sort of accusations could Richard be making? She had been on vacation... What could she...
Her train of thought was interrupted when someone grasped her elbow firmly.
"Ms Roslin will make an official statement once she has returned to Caprica City and spoken to the families of the victims--"
"So you agree the dead were victims? You aren't going to back President Adar's suggestion that they were part of a terrorist cell--"
Her body was propelled away from the telephones and towards the Colonial Fleet departure lounge.
"No comment," the voice of her usher growled as she allowed herself to be swept along and bundled through the glass doors of the lounge. The female reporter stumbled behind them, but with just the slightest gesture from her new companion Fleet security denied her entrance into the lounge. As Laura collapsed into a seat, she could hear one of the guards suggesting Miss Palacios might like to leave the transfer station altogether.
Laura looked up at her saviour. "Bill?" she stammered faintly. "How did you--"
"Read the headlines," he muttered, "thought you might need a helping hand."
She noted the duffle bag draped across his shoulders. A boarding pass was clutched in his left hand. She peered closer at it, trying to read the flight number printed on the top of the ticket.
"Bill?"
He shrugged.
She frowned at his nonchalance. "How did you get here so fast?"
"I have a car," he said, as if that explained everything.
"I'm not sure..." She tried to read his expression but he only stared down at his boots. "I don't need a bodyguard."
"I've commanded two Battlestars," he intimidated that was all the experience he'd need for any situation. She thought of the rows and rows of crew members she'd seen depicted in model form at the museum and wondered if perhaps he was correct.
"We hardly know each other," she felt she should remind him.
"That isn't true," he said softly, his eyes finally rising to meet hers. She held his gaze; a million memories she'd made with him crashing through into her consciousness. None of them could truly exist, and yet all of them were real. In this sterile sober atmosphere of the transfer station, she could no longer dismiss these sensations as ones which were aroused from intoxication as she may have supposed last night.
She looked away first to read the screen above the bar which announced Thermis's departures and arrivals. "My flight's boarding."
He grasped her elbow again and led her through the transfer station, lined up with her at her gate, stowed her carry-on bag in the heavy carrier's overhead compartment, and settled her into her assigned seat, which just happened to be beside one he lowered himself into.
As the spacecraft began its take-off procedures, she sat and unashamedly stared at the man who had calmly disrupted his entire life to apparently accompany her to Caprica. She had had a series of aides and assistants work for her throughout her political career, as well as the occasional lobbyist and publicist, but she'd never had anyone she could discuss decisions with in depth as an equal other than Richard.
Then, he had become her lover...
She sensed Bill Adama could capably fill both these roles in her life. And that sense scared her more than what she would face back on Caprica.
A fun vacation fling was one thing, but this level of commitment was quite another.
And yet, she hadn’t told him to turn around and go home; to save his money and stay in Libran; to leave her alone...
She leaned back and closed her eyes, feigning a tiredness that was probably more real than she would admit even to herself.
Once she was in Caprica, she would have to make some tough decisions; including how to handle Bill Adama’s sudden immersion in her life.
I was going to die.
I couldn't imagine any other way this would play out. I just needed one thing: her to live.
My only plan was shielding her body, taking the bullets for her, and hoping the cavalry arrived in the shape of those emergency vehicles getting closer and closer. Mazur was a coward, so I could only hope his men were as well. She might have a chance of getting away if they were preoccupied by escaping the authorities after my assassination.
I wasn't ready for a car pulling up beside us as we exited the ready-to-collapse building, the high pitched squeal of its tyres adding to the chaos of the post-bomb sounds. I wasn't ready for a couple of hefty men unceremoniously shoving us into the back seat of the vehicle and driving away at such a speed that my head knocked against the centre console, splitting my lip.
"Frak me!" the driver yelled as I was flung around in the seat when the car swerved to avoid something. Next, a volley of what I guessed must be gunfire hit against the back of the car. The driver surged on to our unknown destination though.
In the midst of all this mayhem, her shaking hand found mine. I held it tight.
Bill closed the book when the transfer station security guard signalled he would be the next to be processed.
He answered the guard’s questions with the practised ease of a weary much-travelled passenger. After his luggage was scanned, as well as his person, he strode through the glass doors into the crush of people departing and arriving at the Twelve Colonies’ capital’s transfer station.
After the quiet pace of Libran, and the solitude of space, the hustle and bustle of Capica was always a culture shock every time he returned. It surprised him that, without too much effort, he soon spotted Laura among the throng. He had thought she might have used the cover of the crowd to disappear from his life again. He sensed she might have been making a habit of running away from things in her life for a long time.
He expelled a long breath of relief at being proved incorrect this time.
Her suitcase sat neatly by her feet, so different from the chaotic jumble of luggage she’d had when she’d left Caprica City, and she’d donned thick dark glasses and wrapped a scarf around her red hair. He glanced around the transfer station wondering, given her appearance, whether or not she’d already encountered more reporters. However, he never saw anyone looking out of the ordinary, or anyone looking in her direction with more interest than appropriate.
She looked up suddenly and gave him a small wave. He wasn’t surprised when his heart jumped at the simple movement.
“Evening edition,” she said softly, passing him the newspaper from her lap when he lowered himself into the chair beside her.
He let out a shuddering sigh when he saw the front page.
"This has been some sort of set up," he grunted and she hummed quietly, in agreement he presumed. He tried to remember when the demonstration had taken place. He’d have to make that one of the first things on his to-do list: find out the exact times.
"Someone was taking these pictures maybe ten minutes or so after four innocent people were being murdered?" she mused, proving they were having similar notions.
The front page showed a photograph of Laura. It had been taken just as she’d tumbled barefoot from the 'grape cage'. Her hand was reaching out for a glass of wine one of the attendants was offering her.
Quietly, he read the blurb out aloud: "Secretary of Education, Laura Roslin, lives in up at Libran Tasting while those she works for are gunned down on her orders.”