Fic: Maybe - A mini gift fic for rirenec
Title: Maybe
Rating: T
Pairing: Laura/Lee
Summary: A mini gift fic for rirenec from thelaura_lee_bsg wishlist day - If anyone else has ever wondered why Laura isn't present during the cylon interrogation in the ep. A Measure of Salvation this is my answer for that.
Word Count: 3,112
Maybe
“No, absolutely not. I won’t allow it!” Lee said as he slammed his hand on the President’s desk. She slowly raised arched an eyebrow and asked deceptively softly, “You won’t allow it?”
Lee stood up fully and crossed his arms, unconsciously mirroring her position to fortify his ground before speaking, “It’s too dangerous! There’s absolutely no point in putting you near sick and erratically behaving cylons when there will be plenty of other people there to report what happens.”
“Oh I see,” Laura said as she stepped closer to her desk and glared at him, “It’s perfectly alright for you, Helo, and the other men to be present, but it would be too dangerous for me as a delicate woman?” Lee opened his mouth to contradict her, but she waved a hand at him and angrily cut him off before her could say anything, “and don’t give me any of that ‘you’re too valuable an asset to the fleet’ crap either. If that was the issue then your father also shouldn’t be there, but you don’t seem to have any problem with his presence.”
Lee shifted uncomfortably on his feet as he realized that she really did have a point. He wasn’t entirely sure why he felt it was important that just the President be absent from the meeting with the infected cylon, all he knew was that it seemed like an important idea, so he’d barged his way onto Colonial One to demand that she stay behind for the next meeting.
He reached for something, anything, that would help justify what he was feeling, “New Caprica” he threw out suddenly as he once again leaned over the desk, moving closer into her personal space. She looked momentarily startled by the unanticipated turn their argument had taken, but she quickly recovered and said very slowly, “Excuse me?”
“You were on New Caprica,” Lee began feeling like a prize idiot as she glared at him - of course she didn’t need to be reminded that she’d been there - “You were on New Caprica, and from what I understand you were crucial to the resistance and making the exodus possible.”
Laura continued to glare at him. She had no idea where he was going with this, but if Lee seriously thought he could throw a couple of compliments about how ‘crucial’ she’d been to the survival of the people on New Caprica in order to get her cooperation, then he had seriously misjudged the situation.
Lee had spent enough time with Laura in those early days of the exodus from the Twelve Colonies to judge her facial expression and know this conversation was rapidly moving in a dangerous direction. Wanting to avoid bloodshed, likely his, he quickly continued, “You were an important figure in the resistance. A resistance movement that killed Gods know how many cylons - possibly even some of those in Galactica’s brig right now. We have no way of knowing if any of those cylons have a personal grudge against you and might be waiting for any opportunity to carry out a private vendetta.”
“Really Lee?” Laura asked with an almost pitying disbelief as she walked around her desk to stand beside him. She was somewhat touched that he seemed genuinely concerned about her, rather than her position as President or the fact that she was a woman, but if that was the basis for his argument then he needed to wake up.
Smiling at him with a shake of her head Laura said, “I’m the President in charge of what’s left of the human race Lee, do you honestly think that I haven’t made a hundred tough decisions - good and bad - that give the cylons reason to hate me?”
Lee paced towards the windows and then whipped back to face her, refusing to back down, “Yes, but you can’t possibly tell me that there weren’t incidents on New Caprica that went beyond the actions of a leader and left cylons with personal anger towards you. I don’t know what happened on New Caprica, but I know enough about you from my time as your military advisor to know that must be the case.”
“Your damn right you don’t know what happened on New Caprica,” Laura yelled angrily as she started towards him. She stopped herself halfway between her desk and the windows and took a deep breath to get her anger under control and focus back on the conversation at hand, “And regardless, Saul Tigh was a crucial leader of the resistance who made plenty of personal enemies on New Caprica, and I don’t see you lobbying him to stay behind for his own safety.”
“He has military training.” Lee mumbled knowing it was a pretty flimsy excuse for his double standard, “He’d be able to defend himself if the cylon were to attempt anything.”
“And you don’t think I learned a thing or two about defending myself on New Caprica?” Laura asked and then waved off Lee’s surprised and apologetic expression before he could try and delve further into what did or didn’t happen on the planet. Laura sighed and brought a hand to her temple as she leaned against the back of one of the chairs in front of her desk, “What’s this really about Lee?”
He paced in front of the windows, trying to figure out how to convey what he was feeling when he wasn’t even particularly sure about it himself, “It’s just…” He stopped pacing and brought a hand through his hair as he looked over at Laura.
“It’s just that we spent so long looking out for each other and then Admiral Cain came and everything happened so fast, and suddenly before I really knew what was happening Baltar was President and you were living on New Caprica. But that was okay - that was okay because you were safe and when I saw you down there you seemed happy. And then you weren’t safe again, no one was, and we had to jump away and leave all of you behind and I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t keep you safe from anything that the cylons did on New Caprica.”
Lee felt precariously close to tears by the end of his speech and he jumped slightly when he felt Laura’s hand on his arm - when had she moved closer to him? Laura looked at him with a sympathetic gaze, but when she spoke her tone was clear and deliberate. “It’s not your responsibility to save me, Lee. I don’t always need your protection. I can take care of myself - I think surviving the occupation on that planet proved it, if my time as President of a barely surviving race wasn’t enough.”
Lee had the decency to look a bit sheepish at her last remark, and Laura gave his arm a little squeeze to temper the impact of what she’d said, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re saying Lee, it’s just that I don’t want you to treat me as weaker than the other leaders in this fleet simply because you’re worried about me.”
“I don’t think you’re weak.” Lee said with an exasperated tone as he pulled his arm out of her grasp and turned away from her - why couldn’t she understand what he meant? “I don’t think you’re weak at all - I’ve spent far too much time with you since the attacks on the Colonies to think something foolish like that - but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to worry about you.”
Facing Laura once again, Lee could see that she was getting ready to refute what he was saying and he angrily charged ahead, “No! No, you don’t get to cut me off, not this time.” He reached a hand out to grab her shoulder as she started to turn and walk back to her desk, “Just because you’re the President doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you.”
She glared at him and he shook his head, “And I’m not talking about worrying about you in a ‘this civilization can’t survive without you’ kind of a way - although I suppose that’s true enough - but I mean worrying about you as a person.” He used his free hand to grab her elbow and turn her so she was fully facing him, waiting until she looked him in the eyes to continue, “Me worrying about you doesn’t mean that I think your weak, or that I’m patronizing you because you’re a woman - and frankly I think you know that…”
She glared briefly at him before tipping her head in acknowledgement. However much she might be aggravated with him for this idiotic argument about her being barred from the meeting with the cylon, Laura knew that in his idealistic and often sentimental mind he truly believed his concern was helping her.
Grateful that she could at least understand he wasn’t trying to be condescending, Lee continued, “It just means that I want you to be safe - and if I can contribute to that safety in any way then I’m going to - and that’s simply a fact. Knowing that it’s not technically my place doesn’t mean that I can help wanting to keep you safe, wanting to make sure we don’t lose you again, wanting….” He paused in frustration as he tried to figure out how to explain himself, “Wanting…Damn it Laura!”
And with that Lee pulled her forward and kissed her. Words didn’t seem to be working to convey what he was trying to express, so actions seemed like the next logical option. The kiss was hard and demanding, and as Lee ran his tongue over her bottom lip, he felt Laura respond. She brought her hands around to grasp at the back of his neck and moaned as his arm moved around her waist to pull her forward. He took the opportunity to invade her mouth, bringing his hand up to tangle in her hair and lock them together in an embrace.
They kissed frantically and clawed at each other, desperate to feel the shape of the other’s body beneath their layers of clothes. Lee rapidly guided them to the couch with staggering steps where he fell back to sit and pulled Laura down on top of him.
Lee’s hands made their way under her jacket and skimmed the silk of her blouse around her waist and up her sides as Laura’s hands mapped his biceps through the coarse wool of his uniform. His thumbs traced slow patterns against the side of her breasts through her blouse and their kisses became more and more languid, until Lee finally dared pull away from Laura with one last slow nip to her bottom lip.
He looked at her, waiting for a reaction, and neither of them moved, both frozen by the impact of what had just transpired. Finally Laura drew in a shaky breath and dropped her head to his neck. “Oh Lee,” she said with a soft laugh as she shifted to sit beside him with her legs still draped across his lap, “Why the frak couldn’t you have figured that out two years ago? When you weren’t married, and when things weren’t so terribly complicated.”
Smiling sadly at her, he replied, “I seem to recall things being pretty complicated back then as well, and,” he slowly ran a hand up and down her calf, “I guess I’ve just always been a little slow when it comes to women.”
She said nothing, but her raised eyebrow spoke volumes and he ultimately gave in to laughter, “Okay, okay. So I’ve never had much of a problem getting into women’s pants,” he blushed a little as he realized exactly whom he’d just said that to and she laughed at him before he went on, “but it’s the figuring out what the ones I care about actually want that I’ve never been particularly good at.”
She smiled at him tenderly and reached out to grab the hand that was caressing her leg, “Sometimes it’s not a matter of want,” she said as she ran her thumb across the back of his hand, “sometimes it’s just a matter of factoring in the needs of everyone around you and seeing where that leaves you.”
He could tell this was her way of trying to gently put a stop to this - to remind him of the needs of the people in the fleet and how they would always outweigh her personal concerns - but he was having none of it. Instead, he reached down to her feet in his lap and pulled off her heels.
“What if,” he said as he started knead the ball of her foot with his thumbs, and she let her eyes drift shut with a contented hum that made him smile, “What if one of the needs of those around you was for you to stay safely on your ship and skip the meeting with the cylon?”
She cracked an eye to glare at him and he switched to her other foot, “What if that person needed that, not for you, but for them? What if they didn’t just want to keep you safe, but needed that to ensure their own peace of mind?” Laura opened both eyes and her lips quirked into a half-smile, acknowledging how nicely he’d trapped her with her own words - there might yet be a future for Apollo in politics someday.
Remembering one of the first lessons of politics - choose your battles wisely - Laura kept him waiting just a bit longer, watching him switch from foot to foot and wondering when in his flight academy training they’d had time to add a course on massage technique.
Finally, she removed her feet from his lap and bent to retrieve her heels, “Well I am the President of the Twelve Colonies,” she smirked at him as she glanced up fro where she was adjusting her shoes, “so there’s probably another meeting, or six, that I have scheduled for that same time anyway.”
Lee smiled and exhaled a relieved breath, reaching forward to cup Laura’s cheek and lean her back against the arm of the couch so he could tenderly kiss her. Laura savored the gentle rhythm of the kiss for a few moments before pushing Lee back, sitting up straight, and adjusting her blouse.
She observed the contented smile on his face and tempered her voice to a more serious tone, “I’ll miss the meeting, Lee - it’s nothing that I can’t get someone to fill me in on later - but only if you come back here and make time for a conversation within the next couple of days.”
She stood and waited for him to join her before turning to face him directly, “I have no intention of making a habit out of missing things because you’re uncomfortable about my safety. So you need to take some time and wrap your head around that.”
He nodded. She was right. Now that he could admit that it was his concern and care making him anxious about her safety he needed to deal with it - it never did a viper pilot any good to have their wingman second guess their choices, and he was guessing the same could be said of Presidents. “Alright. I think I can do that before I come back to meet with you.”
“Alright.” She repeated and smiled softly at him before moving back to her desk. She was surprised, though by then she knew she shouldn’t have been, when she felt his hand gently wrap around her wrist and pull her back towards him. He pulled her to him to softly kiss her once again and she mumbled against his lips, “We really need to talk about this too.”
“Mmhmm,” he agreed absentmindedly as he wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss. She let herself be absorbed in the feeling of his lips on hers for a while longer, and then slowly pulled away from him, running a hand over his cheek. “You’re married.” She said quietly, “Yes.” “And there’s the fleet to think about” “That’s true” he responded as he brought a hand up to capture the one of hers that, despite her previous statements, had never stopped caressing his face.
He kissed his way down her palm and murmured against the inside of her wrist, “But have you ever thought that maybe this could be worth its consequences?” He kissed the soft skin of her wrist making her bite her lip to contain a moan, “That maybe this is something that we need and not just something we want?”
Shaking her head, Laura drew her hand back down to her side - it was too hard to think clearly when he was touching her - “I…” Laura began breathily, not entirely sure herself where she was going with this conversation, but was interrupted before she could continue by Tory’s voice making its way towards her office curtain, followed shortly by the woman herself entering unannounced.
“Madame President, the Quorum meeting starts in fifteen minutes and the delegate from Tauron just sent over these documents with the morning shuttle traffic. I think he was hoping they’d get lost in the day’s mail and you wouldn’t have time to review them before the meeting, so I’m guessing you’ll want to briefly glance over them so he doesn’t blindside you with whatever the issue is during the meeting.”
“Thank you Tory.” Laura said tightly, showing as much sincerity as she could muster, before grabbing the papers and heading to her desk. As she sat in her chair and put on her glasses, Laura glanced back at Lee and, trying to appear nonchalant for the sake of her aide standing three feet away, said shortly, “It looks like we’re going to have to finish this discussion during our next meeting Major.”
“Of course Madame President.” Lee nodded curtly before turning to the entrance of her office. As he stepped through the curtain he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips - she hadn’t given him a flat out no - that gave him something to hope for.
And what’s more he’d actually left the room with her having granted his desired outcome - he wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d won the argument, no, he certain that any conceits he’d gained were because she’d let him - but he was still pretty sure that constituted a first in their relationship. And if they could find a new way to compromise in their argument, then maybe, just maybe, they could find a new way to approach a compromise in their relationship, and right now that maybe was good enough for him.
Rating: T
Pairing: Laura/Lee
Summary: A mini gift fic for rirenec from thelaura_lee_bsg wishlist day - If anyone else has ever wondered why Laura isn't present during the cylon interrogation in the ep. A Measure of Salvation this is my answer for that.
Word Count: 3,112
Maybe
“No, absolutely not. I won’t allow it!” Lee said as he slammed his hand on the President’s desk. She slowly raised arched an eyebrow and asked deceptively softly, “You won’t allow it?”
Lee stood up fully and crossed his arms, unconsciously mirroring her position to fortify his ground before speaking, “It’s too dangerous! There’s absolutely no point in putting you near sick and erratically behaving cylons when there will be plenty of other people there to report what happens.”
“Oh I see,” Laura said as she stepped closer to her desk and glared at him, “It’s perfectly alright for you, Helo, and the other men to be present, but it would be too dangerous for me as a delicate woman?” Lee opened his mouth to contradict her, but she waved a hand at him and angrily cut him off before her could say anything, “and don’t give me any of that ‘you’re too valuable an asset to the fleet’ crap either. If that was the issue then your father also shouldn’t be there, but you don’t seem to have any problem with his presence.”
Lee shifted uncomfortably on his feet as he realized that she really did have a point. He wasn’t entirely sure why he felt it was important that just the President be absent from the meeting with the infected cylon, all he knew was that it seemed like an important idea, so he’d barged his way onto Colonial One to demand that she stay behind for the next meeting.
He reached for something, anything, that would help justify what he was feeling, “New Caprica” he threw out suddenly as he once again leaned over the desk, moving closer into her personal space. She looked momentarily startled by the unanticipated turn their argument had taken, but she quickly recovered and said very slowly, “Excuse me?”
“You were on New Caprica,” Lee began feeling like a prize idiot as she glared at him - of course she didn’t need to be reminded that she’d been there - “You were on New Caprica, and from what I understand you were crucial to the resistance and making the exodus possible.”
Laura continued to glare at him. She had no idea where he was going with this, but if Lee seriously thought he could throw a couple of compliments about how ‘crucial’ she’d been to the survival of the people on New Caprica in order to get her cooperation, then he had seriously misjudged the situation.
Lee had spent enough time with Laura in those early days of the exodus from the Twelve Colonies to judge her facial expression and know this conversation was rapidly moving in a dangerous direction. Wanting to avoid bloodshed, likely his, he quickly continued, “You were an important figure in the resistance. A resistance movement that killed Gods know how many cylons - possibly even some of those in Galactica’s brig right now. We have no way of knowing if any of those cylons have a personal grudge against you and might be waiting for any opportunity to carry out a private vendetta.”
“Really Lee?” Laura asked with an almost pitying disbelief as she walked around her desk to stand beside him. She was somewhat touched that he seemed genuinely concerned about her, rather than her position as President or the fact that she was a woman, but if that was the basis for his argument then he needed to wake up.
Smiling at him with a shake of her head Laura said, “I’m the President in charge of what’s left of the human race Lee, do you honestly think that I haven’t made a hundred tough decisions - good and bad - that give the cylons reason to hate me?”
Lee paced towards the windows and then whipped back to face her, refusing to back down, “Yes, but you can’t possibly tell me that there weren’t incidents on New Caprica that went beyond the actions of a leader and left cylons with personal anger towards you. I don’t know what happened on New Caprica, but I know enough about you from my time as your military advisor to know that must be the case.”
“Your damn right you don’t know what happened on New Caprica,” Laura yelled angrily as she started towards him. She stopped herself halfway between her desk and the windows and took a deep breath to get her anger under control and focus back on the conversation at hand, “And regardless, Saul Tigh was a crucial leader of the resistance who made plenty of personal enemies on New Caprica, and I don’t see you lobbying him to stay behind for his own safety.”
“He has military training.” Lee mumbled knowing it was a pretty flimsy excuse for his double standard, “He’d be able to defend himself if the cylon were to attempt anything.”
“And you don’t think I learned a thing or two about defending myself on New Caprica?” Laura asked and then waved off Lee’s surprised and apologetic expression before he could try and delve further into what did or didn’t happen on the planet. Laura sighed and brought a hand to her temple as she leaned against the back of one of the chairs in front of her desk, “What’s this really about Lee?”
He paced in front of the windows, trying to figure out how to convey what he was feeling when he wasn’t even particularly sure about it himself, “It’s just…” He stopped pacing and brought a hand through his hair as he looked over at Laura.
“It’s just that we spent so long looking out for each other and then Admiral Cain came and everything happened so fast, and suddenly before I really knew what was happening Baltar was President and you were living on New Caprica. But that was okay - that was okay because you were safe and when I saw you down there you seemed happy. And then you weren’t safe again, no one was, and we had to jump away and leave all of you behind and I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t keep you safe from anything that the cylons did on New Caprica.”
Lee felt precariously close to tears by the end of his speech and he jumped slightly when he felt Laura’s hand on his arm - when had she moved closer to him? Laura looked at him with a sympathetic gaze, but when she spoke her tone was clear and deliberate. “It’s not your responsibility to save me, Lee. I don’t always need your protection. I can take care of myself - I think surviving the occupation on that planet proved it, if my time as President of a barely surviving race wasn’t enough.”
Lee had the decency to look a bit sheepish at her last remark, and Laura gave his arm a little squeeze to temper the impact of what she’d said, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re saying Lee, it’s just that I don’t want you to treat me as weaker than the other leaders in this fleet simply because you’re worried about me.”
“I don’t think you’re weak.” Lee said with an exasperated tone as he pulled his arm out of her grasp and turned away from her - why couldn’t she understand what he meant? “I don’t think you’re weak at all - I’ve spent far too much time with you since the attacks on the Colonies to think something foolish like that - but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to worry about you.”
Facing Laura once again, Lee could see that she was getting ready to refute what he was saying and he angrily charged ahead, “No! No, you don’t get to cut me off, not this time.” He reached a hand out to grab her shoulder as she started to turn and walk back to her desk, “Just because you’re the President doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you.”
She glared at him and he shook his head, “And I’m not talking about worrying about you in a ‘this civilization can’t survive without you’ kind of a way - although I suppose that’s true enough - but I mean worrying about you as a person.” He used his free hand to grab her elbow and turn her so she was fully facing him, waiting until she looked him in the eyes to continue, “Me worrying about you doesn’t mean that I think your weak, or that I’m patronizing you because you’re a woman - and frankly I think you know that…”
She glared briefly at him before tipping her head in acknowledgement. However much she might be aggravated with him for this idiotic argument about her being barred from the meeting with the cylon, Laura knew that in his idealistic and often sentimental mind he truly believed his concern was helping her.
Grateful that she could at least understand he wasn’t trying to be condescending, Lee continued, “It just means that I want you to be safe - and if I can contribute to that safety in any way then I’m going to - and that’s simply a fact. Knowing that it’s not technically my place doesn’t mean that I can help wanting to keep you safe, wanting to make sure we don’t lose you again, wanting….” He paused in frustration as he tried to figure out how to explain himself, “Wanting…Damn it Laura!”
And with that Lee pulled her forward and kissed her. Words didn’t seem to be working to convey what he was trying to express, so actions seemed like the next logical option. The kiss was hard and demanding, and as Lee ran his tongue over her bottom lip, he felt Laura respond. She brought her hands around to grasp at the back of his neck and moaned as his arm moved around her waist to pull her forward. He took the opportunity to invade her mouth, bringing his hand up to tangle in her hair and lock them together in an embrace.
They kissed frantically and clawed at each other, desperate to feel the shape of the other’s body beneath their layers of clothes. Lee rapidly guided them to the couch with staggering steps where he fell back to sit and pulled Laura down on top of him.
Lee’s hands made their way under her jacket and skimmed the silk of her blouse around her waist and up her sides as Laura’s hands mapped his biceps through the coarse wool of his uniform. His thumbs traced slow patterns against the side of her breasts through her blouse and their kisses became more and more languid, until Lee finally dared pull away from Laura with one last slow nip to her bottom lip.
He looked at her, waiting for a reaction, and neither of them moved, both frozen by the impact of what had just transpired. Finally Laura drew in a shaky breath and dropped her head to his neck. “Oh Lee,” she said with a soft laugh as she shifted to sit beside him with her legs still draped across his lap, “Why the frak couldn’t you have figured that out two years ago? When you weren’t married, and when things weren’t so terribly complicated.”
Smiling sadly at her, he replied, “I seem to recall things being pretty complicated back then as well, and,” he slowly ran a hand up and down her calf, “I guess I’ve just always been a little slow when it comes to women.”
She said nothing, but her raised eyebrow spoke volumes and he ultimately gave in to laughter, “Okay, okay. So I’ve never had much of a problem getting into women’s pants,” he blushed a little as he realized exactly whom he’d just said that to and she laughed at him before he went on, “but it’s the figuring out what the ones I care about actually want that I’ve never been particularly good at.”
She smiled at him tenderly and reached out to grab the hand that was caressing her leg, “Sometimes it’s not a matter of want,” she said as she ran her thumb across the back of his hand, “sometimes it’s just a matter of factoring in the needs of everyone around you and seeing where that leaves you.”
He could tell this was her way of trying to gently put a stop to this - to remind him of the needs of the people in the fleet and how they would always outweigh her personal concerns - but he was having none of it. Instead, he reached down to her feet in his lap and pulled off her heels.
“What if,” he said as he started knead the ball of her foot with his thumbs, and she let her eyes drift shut with a contented hum that made him smile, “What if one of the needs of those around you was for you to stay safely on your ship and skip the meeting with the cylon?”
She cracked an eye to glare at him and he switched to her other foot, “What if that person needed that, not for you, but for them? What if they didn’t just want to keep you safe, but needed that to ensure their own peace of mind?” Laura opened both eyes and her lips quirked into a half-smile, acknowledging how nicely he’d trapped her with her own words - there might yet be a future for Apollo in politics someday.
Remembering one of the first lessons of politics - choose your battles wisely - Laura kept him waiting just a bit longer, watching him switch from foot to foot and wondering when in his flight academy training they’d had time to add a course on massage technique.
Finally, she removed her feet from his lap and bent to retrieve her heels, “Well I am the President of the Twelve Colonies,” she smirked at him as she glanced up fro where she was adjusting her shoes, “so there’s probably another meeting, or six, that I have scheduled for that same time anyway.”
Lee smiled and exhaled a relieved breath, reaching forward to cup Laura’s cheek and lean her back against the arm of the couch so he could tenderly kiss her. Laura savored the gentle rhythm of the kiss for a few moments before pushing Lee back, sitting up straight, and adjusting her blouse.
She observed the contented smile on his face and tempered her voice to a more serious tone, “I’ll miss the meeting, Lee - it’s nothing that I can’t get someone to fill me in on later - but only if you come back here and make time for a conversation within the next couple of days.”
She stood and waited for him to join her before turning to face him directly, “I have no intention of making a habit out of missing things because you’re uncomfortable about my safety. So you need to take some time and wrap your head around that.”
He nodded. She was right. Now that he could admit that it was his concern and care making him anxious about her safety he needed to deal with it - it never did a viper pilot any good to have their wingman second guess their choices, and he was guessing the same could be said of Presidents. “Alright. I think I can do that before I come back to meet with you.”
“Alright.” She repeated and smiled softly at him before moving back to her desk. She was surprised, though by then she knew she shouldn’t have been, when she felt his hand gently wrap around her wrist and pull her back towards him. He pulled her to him to softly kiss her once again and she mumbled against his lips, “We really need to talk about this too.”
“Mmhmm,” he agreed absentmindedly as he wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss. She let herself be absorbed in the feeling of his lips on hers for a while longer, and then slowly pulled away from him, running a hand over his cheek. “You’re married.” She said quietly, “Yes.” “And there’s the fleet to think about” “That’s true” he responded as he brought a hand up to capture the one of hers that, despite her previous statements, had never stopped caressing his face.
He kissed his way down her palm and murmured against the inside of her wrist, “But have you ever thought that maybe this could be worth its consequences?” He kissed the soft skin of her wrist making her bite her lip to contain a moan, “That maybe this is something that we need and not just something we want?”
Shaking her head, Laura drew her hand back down to her side - it was too hard to think clearly when he was touching her - “I…” Laura began breathily, not entirely sure herself where she was going with this conversation, but was interrupted before she could continue by Tory’s voice making its way towards her office curtain, followed shortly by the woman herself entering unannounced.
“Madame President, the Quorum meeting starts in fifteen minutes and the delegate from Tauron just sent over these documents with the morning shuttle traffic. I think he was hoping they’d get lost in the day’s mail and you wouldn’t have time to review them before the meeting, so I’m guessing you’ll want to briefly glance over them so he doesn’t blindside you with whatever the issue is during the meeting.”
“Thank you Tory.” Laura said tightly, showing as much sincerity as she could muster, before grabbing the papers and heading to her desk. As she sat in her chair and put on her glasses, Laura glanced back at Lee and, trying to appear nonchalant for the sake of her aide standing three feet away, said shortly, “It looks like we’re going to have to finish this discussion during our next meeting Major.”
“Of course Madame President.” Lee nodded curtly before turning to the entrance of her office. As he stepped through the curtain he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips - she hadn’t given him a flat out no - that gave him something to hope for.
And what’s more he’d actually left the room with her having granted his desired outcome - he wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d won the argument, no, he certain that any conceits he’d gained were because she’d let him - but he was still pretty sure that constituted a first in their relationship. And if they could find a new way to compromise in their argument, then maybe, just maybe, they could find a new way to approach a compromise in their relationship, and right now that maybe was good enough for him.