"Beneath the Surface" - Adama/Roslin Fic
Title: Beneath the Surface
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: R
Word Count: 1, 017 words
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show.
A/N: Written for the "finish this story" prompt at about_time. Thanks to nixmom for her encouragement and to redrockcan for her beta.
There was only one way out of this mess. I knew what I had to do. I opened the door to her room slowly; I held my gun with determination.
This was the only way, the only way that we could be together again. The sight of her nude body firmed my resolve; her pale skin was luminous against the blood stained sheets. I lay down next to her and traced her abnormally white lips; I’d already begun to forget what they felt like against my own.
The gun was cold in my hot, open mouth; my eyes were level with hers.
My last thoughts are of her. My last sight is of her glazed eyes. My last sensation is of her crimson blood caressing the sheets, of the irrevocable stains on my hands and heart.
Bill lowered the book and peered inquisitively at Laura’s face, gauging her reaction. Her face betrayed nothing.
“It’s, uh, a little more graphic than I remembered,” he said apologetically. “We can stop if it’s too disturbing. There are only a few chapters left once he kills himself, the unsolved mysteries all kind of fall into place at this point.”
“No,” Laura assured him. “I’m enjoying this. I can see now what critics meant when they said that the narrator was disturbingly persuasive. He loved her so much, that’s obvious, yet he kills her anyway because he can’t stop the hallucinations. I almost pity him.”
“He’s a sick bastard,” Bill grunted. “He should have locked himself up like she begged him, that way he could have saved them both.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Laura sighed, then grimaced and clutched her stomach.
“What can I do?” Bill asked alarmed. He carefully placed his larger hand over her middle and rubbed soothing circles over her abdomen.
“Just, keep doing that,” she instructed shyly. She still wasn’t used to the intensity and openness of his affection, nor was she used to how eagerly her body responded to his gestures. It had been so long since New Caprica; so long since those precious few hours when they had shed their responsibilities and just gotten lost in each other.
“Okay,” he said softly. With a furrowed brow, he concentrated all his efforts on his task. Moments passed them in relative silence; the only sound intruding on their small piece of privacy was the insistent dripping of the doloxin on its way into her delicate arm.
“I’ve missed this,” she said after a while. The nausea had subsided enough for her to talk.
“Me too,” Bill answered. She could feel his longing in his tone, and in the way that his beautiful blue eyes held her gaze.
“Do you think about it often?” she asked softly. “Sometimes it’s all I can think about, sometimes I replay everything in my mind. Sometimes it’s all that can get me through the day.”
She stilled his gentle movements to entangle their fingers together. She still hadn’t returned his admission of love. She didn’t think that she ever could; the words were just too flimsy, too hollow for what he made her feel, and that terrified her.
“This is what I’m fighting for.” She still wanted, needed, him to know how important he was to her, even if she couldn’t tell him in the traditional way.
“Earth?”
“Is what President Roslin is fighting for,” she corrected him. “But, I want you to know what Laura is fighting for.” She hoped that he would read between the lines and hear the admission hidden within her words.
“A cabin by a lake,” he said fondly. “With a porch so you can watch the sun rise and set each day and a bookshelf so large you never run out of space.”
“With a bed large enough for two,” she arched her brow saucily at him, “and luxurious enough to tempt us to lounge all day.”
“Just lounge?” he asked, full of humor and warmth.
“Well,” she drawled, “I am sure that we can think of a few other activities.”
His boyish grin was so earnestly sincere it prompted a muted giggle from her. She playfully nudged him.
“You’re slacking Admiral Adama,” she nodded to the book resting on the gurney, “I won’t have a lazy narrator in my Fleet.”
“No, of course not Madam President,” he said in mock seriousness, “that would be completely unacceptable.”
He returned to the novel, yet refused to separate their linked hands. Laura hummed her approval as his thumb lovingly caressed the back of her hand.
At first all I saw was blackness, blackness everywhere. I was consumed by this terrible emptiness. Then I heard it - her voice.
‘All this has happened before, all of this shall happen again.’ The words caressed my ear; she was answering my prayers with her prophecy.
I felt her hands wrap around my neck, and I called out her name. She responded by tightening her hold around me. My neck snapped but I would not die; I was already dead. I felt her teeth sink into the flesh of my chest. She gnawed away until flesh and bone were gone, exposing my heart to her hungry ghost.
With her bare hands, she ripped it from my chest. Still, I would not die.
The pain was nothing compared to the longing that plagued me. I wanted to hold her again, to kiss her, to make love to her. Yet she denied me her body and her heart. The walls that she had built around her were far more painful than any marring of my flesh or physical violation she could inflict upon me.
I cried and begged, I pleaded, I confessed my love for her over and over but my ramblings fell on deaf ears. This was not my wife; this was a statue of the woman I had so deeply loved, this was a hallow, pitiful, shell of the complex and perfectly imperfect woman I had surrendered my love and life for.
‘All this has happened before, all of this shall happen again.’
Her words echoed through my mind for all of eternity.
Pairing: Adama/Roslin
Rating: R
Word Count: 1, 017 words
Disclaimer: Not my characters or television show.
A/N: Written for the "finish this story" prompt at about_time. Thanks to nixmom for her encouragement and to redrockcan for her beta.
There was only one way out of this mess. I knew what I had to do. I opened the door to her room slowly; I held my gun with determination.
This was the only way, the only way that we could be together again. The sight of her nude body firmed my resolve; her pale skin was luminous against the blood stained sheets. I lay down next to her and traced her abnormally white lips; I’d already begun to forget what they felt like against my own.
The gun was cold in my hot, open mouth; my eyes were level with hers.
My last thoughts are of her. My last sight is of her glazed eyes. My last sensation is of her crimson blood caressing the sheets, of the irrevocable stains on my hands and heart.
Bill lowered the book and peered inquisitively at Laura’s face, gauging her reaction. Her face betrayed nothing.
“It’s, uh, a little more graphic than I remembered,” he said apologetically. “We can stop if it’s too disturbing. There are only a few chapters left once he kills himself, the unsolved mysteries all kind of fall into place at this point.”
“No,” Laura assured him. “I’m enjoying this. I can see now what critics meant when they said that the narrator was disturbingly persuasive. He loved her so much, that’s obvious, yet he kills her anyway because he can’t stop the hallucinations. I almost pity him.”
“He’s a sick bastard,” Bill grunted. “He should have locked himself up like she begged him, that way he could have saved them both.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Laura sighed, then grimaced and clutched her stomach.
“What can I do?” Bill asked alarmed. He carefully placed his larger hand over her middle and rubbed soothing circles over her abdomen.
“Just, keep doing that,” she instructed shyly. She still wasn’t used to the intensity and openness of his affection, nor was she used to how eagerly her body responded to his gestures. It had been so long since New Caprica; so long since those precious few hours when they had shed their responsibilities and just gotten lost in each other.
“Okay,” he said softly. With a furrowed brow, he concentrated all his efforts on his task. Moments passed them in relative silence; the only sound intruding on their small piece of privacy was the insistent dripping of the doloxin on its way into her delicate arm.
“I’ve missed this,” she said after a while. The nausea had subsided enough for her to talk.
“Me too,” Bill answered. She could feel his longing in his tone, and in the way that his beautiful blue eyes held her gaze.
“Do you think about it often?” she asked softly. “Sometimes it’s all I can think about, sometimes I replay everything in my mind. Sometimes it’s all that can get me through the day.”
She stilled his gentle movements to entangle their fingers together. She still hadn’t returned his admission of love. She didn’t think that she ever could; the words were just too flimsy, too hollow for what he made her feel, and that terrified her.
“This is what I’m fighting for.” She still wanted, needed, him to know how important he was to her, even if she couldn’t tell him in the traditional way.
“Earth?”
“Is what President Roslin is fighting for,” she corrected him. “But, I want you to know what Laura is fighting for.” She hoped that he would read between the lines and hear the admission hidden within her words.
“A cabin by a lake,” he said fondly. “With a porch so you can watch the sun rise and set each day and a bookshelf so large you never run out of space.”
“With a bed large enough for two,” she arched her brow saucily at him, “and luxurious enough to tempt us to lounge all day.”
“Just lounge?” he asked, full of humor and warmth.
“Well,” she drawled, “I am sure that we can think of a few other activities.”
His boyish grin was so earnestly sincere it prompted a muted giggle from her. She playfully nudged him.
“You’re slacking Admiral Adama,” she nodded to the book resting on the gurney, “I won’t have a lazy narrator in my Fleet.”
“No, of course not Madam President,” he said in mock seriousness, “that would be completely unacceptable.”
He returned to the novel, yet refused to separate their linked hands. Laura hummed her approval as his thumb lovingly caressed the back of her hand.
At first all I saw was blackness, blackness everywhere. I was consumed by this terrible emptiness. Then I heard it - her voice.
‘All this has happened before, all of this shall happen again.’ The words caressed my ear; she was answering my prayers with her prophecy.
I felt her hands wrap around my neck, and I called out her name. She responded by tightening her hold around me. My neck snapped but I would not die; I was already dead. I felt her teeth sink into the flesh of my chest. She gnawed away until flesh and bone were gone, exposing my heart to her hungry ghost.
With her bare hands, she ripped it from my chest. Still, I would not die.
The pain was nothing compared to the longing that plagued me. I wanted to hold her again, to kiss her, to make love to her. Yet she denied me her body and her heart. The walls that she had built around her were far more painful than any marring of my flesh or physical violation she could inflict upon me.
I cried and begged, I pleaded, I confessed my love for her over and over but my ramblings fell on deaf ears. This was not my wife; this was a statue of the woman I had so deeply loved, this was a hallow, pitiful, shell of the complex and perfectly imperfect woman I had surrendered my love and life for.
‘All this has happened before, all of this shall happen again.’
Her words echoed through my mind for all of eternity.