Sympathy for the Devil, by frakcancer
Title: Sympathy for the Devil (The Four Little Words remix)
remix author: frakcancer
Summary: All the empty words in the world can't cure the illness eating her alive.
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama, Sherman Cottle, Billy Keikaya
Pairings: A/R
Rating: T
Warnings: None.
beta-reader: lacklusterfic
Title, Author and URL of original story: Four Little Words by pythiaprophet
One word: Laura.
Two words: Oh, gods.
Three words: Talk to me.
Four words: My cancer has returned.
Five words: I’m sorry to hear that.
In the hospital, she had seen their stares, heard their whispers. She's barely twenty. Where's her father? The same people who tut-tutted around Mom's bed didn't offer to help with the bills so Dad could take a sabbatical, didn't offer to watch her barely teenaged sisters. Dad maintained their home and she did the caretaking because college could wait and Mom couldn't. She learned to avoid the salaried sympathy of the social workers, the desperate sympathy of the young husbands whose wives were withering away, who looked to her to provide them with a comfort the shell in the bed no longer could.
After Mom died, when the first haze of grief lifted, Dad remembered that she was there, offered her a shoulder to cry on, sympathy. She stood up straighter, squared her shoulders, said she was doing fine. She bit back the sharp What would you know? You weren't there that tried to force itself past her lips, instead offering him a sympathy as empty as that which he offered her.
Ten years later it was two uniforms who came to her door with sympathy. "We're sorry for your loss" -- only they weren't. It was just another assignment to fit in between handing out parking tickets and stopping for doughnuts. She hadn't looked at them, had barely spoken to them, but the police officer insisted on yet more platitudes. As she packed up the debris of the party, of her sisters' hopes, it seemed that even the walls of her apartment were offering the empty words she was sure to hear for weeks after.
Another decade later and it was a very pale doctor in a very large office offering very false sympathy as a side-dish to his very poison words. "I'm afraid the tests are positive. The mass is malignant. It's advanced well beyond the left breast." He wasn't afraid at all; she was the one who should be afraid. He'd make his fee, treat her with aggressive, expensive drugs, and submit the last of his bills to her lawyer to be paid out of her estate.
She remembers when she fell in love with Billy Keikaya. The Colonies had died, the president and his cabinet had died, Billy's family had died, and she'd told him she had cancer. "I know" was all he said. He offered no words beyond the reassurance that she was human. What he offered wasn't sympathy, it was the kind of love she'd offered her own mother and from that moment he'd become her own, her son.
The first doctor she's ever liked is Cottle. He answers her questions with no lies or evasions and always offers the worst-case scenario without making her beg. He is as pessimistic about the world as she is and as alone.
He doesn't tell her he is sorry, although his persistent scans and tests of her breasts haven't stopped the cancer from recurring, this time in her bones. He doesn't tell her he is afraid, though he might legitimately worry what will happen to the Fleet and to the admiral when she is gone. He doesn’t tell her much of anything at all. Four little words and a proffered file, all the facts and figures neatly laid out. She looks it over with the practiced eye of doctors' offices and cancer wards, reads the suggested treatment and prognosis. The time has once again come for her to start the end of her life.
Sooner or later the press and the Fleet will find out, but that doesn't worry her. She can slip back into the role of the Dying Leader as easily as slipping back into her blazer or heels. The prospect even holds a measure of comfort, a job to do whose end she can see, a goal she can reach and then rest forever.
It will be harder to tell Bill. Honorable, decent, stolid Bill. Heart-on-his-sleeve Bill.
The first time around she never told him of her cancer. When she could no longer hide it she tried to brush it off with a look, a joke, a new job. "Never give up hope," she said, bearing proof in the shape of a jeweler's box. He returned the sentiment with empty words and empty hands. She closed her eyes, knowing how this scene would play out. He wasn't a husband and he was no longer young, but still there would be the almost-chaste kiss laced with hope and despair and his longing for comfort. There would be the little boy grin at the first faint stirrings of a desire that would never be fulfilled. She hurried away before he could add words of desperate sympathy.
So much has changed since then. This time she knows the sympathy he will offer will be sincere, will rise from between the shards of his shattered heart.
He must know something is up. He has set the table with care, candlelight and soft music on the wireless. He even tries to break her silent brooding with lame jokes about Baltar's hair, but she's too wrapped up in her own world to notice.
He takes her hand, forcing her into the moment. "We can both sit here and not talk…or you can tell me what's going on."
She gathers her courage, takes a deep breath, and finally says, "My cancer has returned," before leaning back to wait for a response. Will he weep? Will he howl out his pain? Will he scream out his rage? Will he smash things, railing at the gods in whom he doesn't believe?
"I'm sorry to hear that," he replies before getting up and clearing the dishes.
It's the last response Laura expects from him, and she feels a moment of disorientation, her world turned upside down. If you can't rely on Bill Adama to chew the scenery, what can you rely on? What she can rely on, she realizes, is the sincerity of their relationship in all its complexity.
She'd assumed she'd have to stay strong, refuse treatment once again so she could work until the last moment, sacrifice a week here, a month there for the good of humanity. Now she knows she extends so much further than her own body, that Bill will offer his own strength. She can fight the cancer and he will insist on holding her when the diloxin ravages her body, will offer her a shoulder to cry on when her hair begins to fall out. His large callused hands will hold hers when the shakes set in, and when the fight is over, his blue eyes will be the last thing she ever sees.
For the first time since Cottle's announcement her vision expands past the narrowing world of the ache in her bones and the drip, drip, drip of the diloxin to incorporate everything Bill is and has. She thinks it's selfish to allow him to love and be loved when she knows how their story will end. Billy told her that it's not selfish, it's human. She doesn't fully believe that, at least not for herself, but she wants to trust Billy, and humanity is what she's been fighting for all along.
Bill stands at her side, hands extended, waiting for her plate, for her glass, for her hand, for her heart. It's not enough to just live; she needs something to live for. Let it be Bill.
Five words: Help me to be strong.
Four words: I'm right beside you.
Three words: I love you.
Two words: About time.
One word: Bill.
remix author: frakcancer
Summary: All the empty words in the world can't cure the illness eating her alive.
Characters: Laura Roslin, Bill Adama, Sherman Cottle, Billy Keikaya
Pairings: A/R
Rating: T
Warnings: None.
beta-reader: lacklusterfic
Title, Author and URL of original story: Four Little Words by pythiaprophet
One word: Laura.
Two words: Oh, gods.
Three words: Talk to me.
Four words: My cancer has returned.
Five words: I’m sorry to hear that.
In the hospital, she had seen their stares, heard their whispers. She's barely twenty. Where's her father? The same people who tut-tutted around Mom's bed didn't offer to help with the bills so Dad could take a sabbatical, didn't offer to watch her barely teenaged sisters. Dad maintained their home and she did the caretaking because college could wait and Mom couldn't. She learned to avoid the salaried sympathy of the social workers, the desperate sympathy of the young husbands whose wives were withering away, who looked to her to provide them with a comfort the shell in the bed no longer could.
After Mom died, when the first haze of grief lifted, Dad remembered that she was there, offered her a shoulder to cry on, sympathy. She stood up straighter, squared her shoulders, said she was doing fine. She bit back the sharp What would you know? You weren't there that tried to force itself past her lips, instead offering him a sympathy as empty as that which he offered her.
Ten years later it was two uniforms who came to her door with sympathy. "We're sorry for your loss" -- only they weren't. It was just another assignment to fit in between handing out parking tickets and stopping for doughnuts. She hadn't looked at them, had barely spoken to them, but the police officer insisted on yet more platitudes. As she packed up the debris of the party, of her sisters' hopes, it seemed that even the walls of her apartment were offering the empty words she was sure to hear for weeks after.
Another decade later and it was a very pale doctor in a very large office offering very false sympathy as a side-dish to his very poison words. "I'm afraid the tests are positive. The mass is malignant. It's advanced well beyond the left breast." He wasn't afraid at all; she was the one who should be afraid. He'd make his fee, treat her with aggressive, expensive drugs, and submit the last of his bills to her lawyer to be paid out of her estate.
She remembers when she fell in love with Billy Keikaya. The Colonies had died, the president and his cabinet had died, Billy's family had died, and she'd told him she had cancer. "I know" was all he said. He offered no words beyond the reassurance that she was human. What he offered wasn't sympathy, it was the kind of love she'd offered her own mother and from that moment he'd become her own, her son.
The first doctor she's ever liked is Cottle. He answers her questions with no lies or evasions and always offers the worst-case scenario without making her beg. He is as pessimistic about the world as she is and as alone.
He doesn't tell her he is sorry, although his persistent scans and tests of her breasts haven't stopped the cancer from recurring, this time in her bones. He doesn't tell her he is afraid, though he might legitimately worry what will happen to the Fleet and to the admiral when she is gone. He doesn’t tell her much of anything at all. Four little words and a proffered file, all the facts and figures neatly laid out. She looks it over with the practiced eye of doctors' offices and cancer wards, reads the suggested treatment and prognosis. The time has once again come for her to start the end of her life.
Sooner or later the press and the Fleet will find out, but that doesn't worry her. She can slip back into the role of the Dying Leader as easily as slipping back into her blazer or heels. The prospect even holds a measure of comfort, a job to do whose end she can see, a goal she can reach and then rest forever.
It will be harder to tell Bill. Honorable, decent, stolid Bill. Heart-on-his-sleeve Bill.
The first time around she never told him of her cancer. When she could no longer hide it she tried to brush it off with a look, a joke, a new job. "Never give up hope," she said, bearing proof in the shape of a jeweler's box. He returned the sentiment with empty words and empty hands. She closed her eyes, knowing how this scene would play out. He wasn't a husband and he was no longer young, but still there would be the almost-chaste kiss laced with hope and despair and his longing for comfort. There would be the little boy grin at the first faint stirrings of a desire that would never be fulfilled. She hurried away before he could add words of desperate sympathy.
So much has changed since then. This time she knows the sympathy he will offer will be sincere, will rise from between the shards of his shattered heart.
He must know something is up. He has set the table with care, candlelight and soft music on the wireless. He even tries to break her silent brooding with lame jokes about Baltar's hair, but she's too wrapped up in her own world to notice.
He takes her hand, forcing her into the moment. "We can both sit here and not talk…or you can tell me what's going on."
She gathers her courage, takes a deep breath, and finally says, "My cancer has returned," before leaning back to wait for a response. Will he weep? Will he howl out his pain? Will he scream out his rage? Will he smash things, railing at the gods in whom he doesn't believe?
"I'm sorry to hear that," he replies before getting up and clearing the dishes.
It's the last response Laura expects from him, and she feels a moment of disorientation, her world turned upside down. If you can't rely on Bill Adama to chew the scenery, what can you rely on? What she can rely on, she realizes, is the sincerity of their relationship in all its complexity.
She'd assumed she'd have to stay strong, refuse treatment once again so she could work until the last moment, sacrifice a week here, a month there for the good of humanity. Now she knows she extends so much further than her own body, that Bill will offer his own strength. She can fight the cancer and he will insist on holding her when the diloxin ravages her body, will offer her a shoulder to cry on when her hair begins to fall out. His large callused hands will hold hers when the shakes set in, and when the fight is over, his blue eyes will be the last thing she ever sees.
For the first time since Cottle's announcement her vision expands past the narrowing world of the ache in her bones and the drip, drip, drip of the diloxin to incorporate everything Bill is and has. She thinks it's selfish to allow him to love and be loved when she knows how their story will end. Billy told her that it's not selfish, it's human. She doesn't fully believe that, at least not for herself, but she wants to trust Billy, and humanity is what she's been fighting for all along.
Bill stands at her side, hands extended, waiting for her plate, for her glass, for her hand, for her heart. It's not enough to just live; she needs something to live for. Let it be Bill.
Five words: Help me to be strong.
Four words: I'm right beside you.
Three words: I love you.
Two words: About time.
One word: Bill.