Grace Notes
Title: Grace Notes
Author:
alias424
Beta:
gidget_zb
Pairing: A/R
Rating: K +
Warnings: Spoilers through 4x02, "Six of One."
Summary: And it was the moment of truth: the argument could rocket out of control and hang above them forever (they were both more than stubborn enough for that), or they could set down egos and titles for only a second and-
Grace Notes
Her files and folders still littered his desk, too much of an effort to focus on after the tears had begun to wrinkle the paper and mix with the ink. She should’ve still been poring over them, should’ve straightened them, should’ve been making plans to find somewhere else to stay. But all she could do was lay there with a cloth over her eyes, lost somewhere in that hazy void between sleep and waking. Earlier events (and words, the truth, his tone) and the steady throbbing behind her eyes kept her from complete relaxation, stirring restless thoughts and long-ago aches she could never quite bring herself to forget-all boxed up in neat and pretty numbers that didn’t make any of it less painful: 50,298 when the worlds ended, 47,972 with her destruction of the Olympic Carrier, 49,584 when Billy…, 41,435 after New Caprica, soon 39,698, 39,676….
Every day, every breath drawing closer to zero, and there was no time, nothing she could-
The hatch opened softly, barely making a sound. She wouldn’t have heard it at all if every muscle hadn’t been poised for it, waiting, both with hope and something she didn’t quite like to think was dread.
From the slow, deliberate way his footsteps whispered across the room, she knew he was trying to be quiet-though whether out of concern, politeness, or a simple desire not to have to face her was still to be determined. Yet, trying not to make a sound had a way of making muscles clumsier than they otherwise would have been, darkening sight and amplifying sound-a series of muffled thumps and a hissed, “Frak me,” echoed through the otherwise quiet room.
They had both said things they hadn’t meant: out of anger, fear, sadness, a need for the other to recognize the truth. One of them would have to speak, and she had never been one to put off what needed to be done.
“Taking out your anger out on the furniture?” she asked quietly, careful not to let any remnants of frustration or accusation infuse her voice as she lifted the cloth off her eyes, keeping them closed just a moment longer.
Tension coiled in the half-dark silence, and she took a breath, preparing herself for the painful snap as it reached the breaking point. His silhouette stilled, head tilting in her direction, and her eyes had adjusted enough to the dimness to see the guilt streak across his face-the full-grown man suddenly looking very much like a small boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And it was the moment of truth: the argument could rocket out of control and hang above them forever (they were both more than stubborn enough for that), or they could set down egos and titles for only a second and-
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The tension dissipated-something they would acknowledge only through silence and small gestures but would never speak of, like everything else. Breathing came easily now, naturally, the air in the room so much more breathable than it had seemed just moments ago.
“You didn’t.”
Pulling herself up, a motion that really shouldn’t have taken as much effort as it did, she propped herself against the pillows and waited for the room to slowly stop spinning. Something nudged at her arm, grounding her-his fingers wrapping around her bicep. Independence was a reflex, and she shook him off-but in his gentlemanly defiance, he ignored her, helping her to her feet-as much an apology as it was an offer of assistance.
A soft smile, the press of her hand against his, was all it took to tell him that she was all right. He let go, though he seemed to doubt her-his jaw set, teeth clenched as if to bite back the words that were on the tip of her tongue, too. Explanations, excuses-things that would only reopen wounds that were still stinging, hadn’t yet had time to close.
Slowly making her way into the bathroom, she entered and closed the door behind her, braced both hands on the edge of the sink. She turned on the tap and took a breath, then two, gulping at the oxygen and trying not to think. Splashing water over her face, she stared at her own pale reflection in the mirror as the cool droplets dripped from her chin. Hollow cheeks, dark circles under her eyes, her hair….
When she came back into the main room, he had removed his jacket, was about to take off his boots and settle in for the night. He stood without a word, boots still unbuckled, and she didn’t try to stop him this time as he took her arm, mindful of the bandage there, his other palm pressing into the small of her back. Not until she felt the solid strength of his hands, did she realize how badly she was trembling.
“This isn’t exactly one of my best days,” she mumbled, trying to brush it off with a light laugh. “The treatments and….”
“Good days and not-so-good days.”
“Mmm,” she agreed, acknowledging his revision of her much earlier admission-an epic understatement for this day in particular, but she was too tired to think of arguing anymore. There was still so much to be mended between them, words spoken and unspoken, things that they were both too afraid to admit. And she should have been stronger than this, especially now, but-frak it-she succumbed to temptation and leaned fully against him, letting him support her.
The dance across the room followed an awkward, silent rhythm-her unsteadiness, his loose shoes-slow and careful, and he squeezed her lightly with the hand that had snaked its way around to rest on her hip once they reached his rack (her rack? theirs? was it even a distinction that had to be made?). Exhaustion was stealing back over her-and as inviting as the bed looked, she didn’t want to move from his arms. He came up with a solution-helping her onto the bed, but staying close, his hand hot as it slid over her hip, coming to rest on her thigh.
He still seemed distracted, distant, though he couldn’t have been much closer. And it might have been something like taking a match to a pool of tylium, but she couldn’t resist the question, the smoothness of her voice surprising even to her. “Is everything okay?”
With the fleet? With Kara? Lee? With you, us…? So many ways that sentence could be interpreted-all of them hanging in the air: sharp, crystal-clear glass and almost invisible strings just waiting to break and let everything shatter.
But he only chuckled half-heartedly, the sound soothing even in its inherent sadness. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“You already know the answer.”
The hand on her thigh shifted, caressing her gently, thumb sketching soft circles and pathways as carefully thought-out as the directions on his battle maps, the routes of ships at sea. And if anyone had asked, upon her first glimpse of him, if she thought him capable of such soothing tenderness, she would have laughed outright, but this….
“Not to everything.”
She opened her eyes, hadn’t realized she’d closed them, and he was still there, even closer than she’d remembered-bright flecks of light and her own pale reflection flashing in the rippling depths of his eyes. “Who does? Sometimes I think even the gods don’t-”
His palm slid down her leg, silencing her, the pressure increasing as he used one hand to hold himself up, the other to remove his boots. He drummed his fingertips on her knee before stepping away, and she watched him half in a daze as he plodded through his nightly routine: boots by the door, jacket draped over the back of a chair, his papers (and even hers) shuffled into something resembling order-but then he went right instead of left, tipping everything slightly off balance, nearly disappearing for a few moments before heading back towards her with a mug of something steaming.
At once sweet and slightly tangy, it was more nostalgia than an actual scent, and it took a slow, shimmering moment of rediscovery while she waited for the pieces of memory to fall into place: cold nights and winter mornings, slight sniffles, her grandmother’s kitchen and cheerily crackling fires….
Mint and chamomile. The man belonged among the gods.
“Who did you have to kill for this, Admiral?” Her grin spread in spite of everything-slow and lazy and wanting. “Or do I not want to know?”
“No one yet.” And there was that slight upturn to the corner of his mouth, a return to their quietly comfortable teasing. “The threat of the airlock goes a long way.”
She returned his smile over the rim of the mug, sipping the tea cautiously at first, then gratefully-the first thing her stomach hadn’t objected to all day. “Always thought you more of a jail cell man.”
“Sometimes you need to switch tactics.” His voice pressed more meaning into the words than should have existed there, and she clasped the mug tightly in both hands, letting its warmth seep into her fingers. “What can I get you to eat?”
A question not designed to give her a choice as to whether she wanted food or not-simply what form the godsdamned algae should take. It was one she had heard in various forms over the past few days, twisted a little with each repetition, the polite, Is there anything else I can get you, devolving until eventually food would be placed in front of her without a word.
But she hadn’t become a politician for nothing-there was always a way out. “I’m fine.”
“You won’t do anyone any good starving yourself.”
Leveling her gaze to meet his, she spoke slowly and carefully-she needed him to understand, to know that he did. “I’m not going to die from starvation, Bill.”
He blinked, keeping his eyes shut just a second longer than was necessary, and nodded-at her, then the tea-when he met her eyes again, it was without pretense, without any barriers between them. “Drink that.”
Not verbal acknowledgment, but still more than enough, and it was her turn to deflect this time, before raw emotion had a chance to force the tears from her eyes. She managed to get the words out without any of them cracking, voice lower than normal perhaps, but the tone was light enough. “Or you’ll send me out the airlock?”
“When I want to throw you out an airlock, Madam President, I’ll say so.” He allowed a small grin before falling into mock seriousness, knew the game of public appearances as well as she did even if he didn’t always choose to play it. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he chose this moment to step away.
“I don’t doubt it.” And she didn’t, either, except….
He seemed to sense her pause, even through the silence, a connection that was almost unsettling as he turned to face her expectantly. She rested the cup on her knee, a hand automatically reaching up to run through her hair but she stopped the motion just in time, clenching her fingers and dropping her fist to the bed.
“Thank you.”
“Drink,” he repeated, the word itself not what mattered, the stern command softened by the worry crinkling the corners of his eyes. Don’t let ‘em see you sweat, Laura.
And she obeyed-without question for once-or tried, swallowing as much as could make its way past the lump that inexplicably formed in her throat. Love or sadness, sorrow or simply nausea-at moments like this, when everything seemed to knot together, the ends frayed, it was impossible to tell.
Time passed, or must have, because suddenly he was beside her again, smelling of soap and toothpaste, though she couldn’t remember him having left her sight. He took her half-full cup, sighing at what she hadn’t been able to finish, and she lay back and eased towards the wall. It had taken him only the first five minutes of that first night to give up on the pretense that he had returned to his quarters to retrieve something and would set up camp for the night elsewhere-and soon the charade of the couch had been foregone entirely. He settled in beside her-a tight fit, but they made it work, the too-closeness comforting, made them each seem less alone.
Her head dropped onto his shoulder as if caught in its gravitational pull, and she couldn’t resist breathing him in any more than she could the artificial atmosphere of Galactica, the particles and molecules so carefully measured and pressurized.
Eventually, slowly-after he must have thought she had drifted off to sleep-she felt his head turn, his lips press against the top of her head.
The sigh of satisfaction-a near-endless string of m’s-that escaped her might have sounded like a moan, but it couldn’t have been helped. She tilted her head, meant to try to get a glimpse of his face but somehow only managed to nuzzle closer. “You can do better than that.”
“You need your rest.”
The breath that rumbled though his chest, stopped short of a chuckle, hollow and half-broken. Her hand splayed across his torso, fingers tracing the soft cotton of his undershirt as the humming silence of space and the battlestar spiraled around them. She took a breath, tried to let teasing and soft laughter spin a web around her insecurities, shielding them even from his view. “Do I really look as weak as that?”
“Just tired,” he mumbled in that low voice that betrayed more emotion than it masked. And there was his hand, warm and heavy on hers, stilling it, the gentle motion of his thumb spelling out all the little things he could never seem to put to words: fear and beauty and, gods, this was lo…. “You could never look weak, Laura.”
She listened to him breathe, followed his hand and gravity as he shifted his weight onto his elbow and slid her back onto the bed, leaning down to kiss her softly, sweetly-such strange sentiments from a man who so easily ordered life and death.
“Bill….” The whisper caught against his lips-it was just as well: thanks or apology or whatever she had meant it to be, it couldn’t have been conveyed with words alone.
He pressed his mouth to hers once more, lay back down beside her, and it was as if nothing had ever happened between them-nothing ever could. “That’s not my best shot either. Just for the record.
Author:
alias424
Beta:
gidget_zb
Pairing: A/R
Rating: K +
Warnings: Spoilers through 4x02, "Six of One."
Summary: And it was the moment of truth: the argument could rocket out of control and hang above them forever (they were both more than stubborn enough for that), or they could set down egos and titles for only a second and-
Grace Notes
Her files and folders still littered his desk, too much of an effort to focus on after the tears had begun to wrinkle the paper and mix with the ink. She should’ve still been poring over them, should’ve straightened them, should’ve been making plans to find somewhere else to stay. But all she could do was lay there with a cloth over her eyes, lost somewhere in that hazy void between sleep and waking. Earlier events (and words, the truth, his tone) and the steady throbbing behind her eyes kept her from complete relaxation, stirring restless thoughts and long-ago aches she could never quite bring herself to forget-all boxed up in neat and pretty numbers that didn’t make any of it less painful: 50,298 when the worlds ended, 47,972 with her destruction of the Olympic Carrier, 49,584 when Billy…, 41,435 after New Caprica, soon 39,698, 39,676….
Every day, every breath drawing closer to zero, and there was no time, nothing she could-
The hatch opened softly, barely making a sound. She wouldn’t have heard it at all if every muscle hadn’t been poised for it, waiting, both with hope and something she didn’t quite like to think was dread.
From the slow, deliberate way his footsteps whispered across the room, she knew he was trying to be quiet-though whether out of concern, politeness, or a simple desire not to have to face her was still to be determined. Yet, trying not to make a sound had a way of making muscles clumsier than they otherwise would have been, darkening sight and amplifying sound-a series of muffled thumps and a hissed, “Frak me,” echoed through the otherwise quiet room.
They had both said things they hadn’t meant: out of anger, fear, sadness, a need for the other to recognize the truth. One of them would have to speak, and she had never been one to put off what needed to be done.
“Taking out your anger out on the furniture?” she asked quietly, careful not to let any remnants of frustration or accusation infuse her voice as she lifted the cloth off her eyes, keeping them closed just a moment longer.
Tension coiled in the half-dark silence, and she took a breath, preparing herself for the painful snap as it reached the breaking point. His silhouette stilled, head tilting in her direction, and her eyes had adjusted enough to the dimness to see the guilt streak across his face-the full-grown man suddenly looking very much like a small boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And it was the moment of truth: the argument could rocket out of control and hang above them forever (they were both more than stubborn enough for that), or they could set down egos and titles for only a second and-
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The tension dissipated-something they would acknowledge only through silence and small gestures but would never speak of, like everything else. Breathing came easily now, naturally, the air in the room so much more breathable than it had seemed just moments ago.
“You didn’t.”
Pulling herself up, a motion that really shouldn’t have taken as much effort as it did, she propped herself against the pillows and waited for the room to slowly stop spinning. Something nudged at her arm, grounding her-his fingers wrapping around her bicep. Independence was a reflex, and she shook him off-but in his gentlemanly defiance, he ignored her, helping her to her feet-as much an apology as it was an offer of assistance.
A soft smile, the press of her hand against his, was all it took to tell him that she was all right. He let go, though he seemed to doubt her-his jaw set, teeth clenched as if to bite back the words that were on the tip of her tongue, too. Explanations, excuses-things that would only reopen wounds that were still stinging, hadn’t yet had time to close.
Slowly making her way into the bathroom, she entered and closed the door behind her, braced both hands on the edge of the sink. She turned on the tap and took a breath, then two, gulping at the oxygen and trying not to think. Splashing water over her face, she stared at her own pale reflection in the mirror as the cool droplets dripped from her chin. Hollow cheeks, dark circles under her eyes, her hair….
When she came back into the main room, he had removed his jacket, was about to take off his boots and settle in for the night. He stood without a word, boots still unbuckled, and she didn’t try to stop him this time as he took her arm, mindful of the bandage there, his other palm pressing into the small of her back. Not until she felt the solid strength of his hands, did she realize how badly she was trembling.
“This isn’t exactly one of my best days,” she mumbled, trying to brush it off with a light laugh. “The treatments and….”
“Good days and not-so-good days.”
“Mmm,” she agreed, acknowledging his revision of her much earlier admission-an epic understatement for this day in particular, but she was too tired to think of arguing anymore. There was still so much to be mended between them, words spoken and unspoken, things that they were both too afraid to admit. And she should have been stronger than this, especially now, but-frak it-she succumbed to temptation and leaned fully against him, letting him support her.
The dance across the room followed an awkward, silent rhythm-her unsteadiness, his loose shoes-slow and careful, and he squeezed her lightly with the hand that had snaked its way around to rest on her hip once they reached his rack (her rack? theirs? was it even a distinction that had to be made?). Exhaustion was stealing back over her-and as inviting as the bed looked, she didn’t want to move from his arms. He came up with a solution-helping her onto the bed, but staying close, his hand hot as it slid over her hip, coming to rest on her thigh.
He still seemed distracted, distant, though he couldn’t have been much closer. And it might have been something like taking a match to a pool of tylium, but she couldn’t resist the question, the smoothness of her voice surprising even to her. “Is everything okay?”
With the fleet? With Kara? Lee? With you, us…? So many ways that sentence could be interpreted-all of them hanging in the air: sharp, crystal-clear glass and almost invisible strings just waiting to break and let everything shatter.
But he only chuckled half-heartedly, the sound soothing even in its inherent sadness. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“You already know the answer.”
The hand on her thigh shifted, caressing her gently, thumb sketching soft circles and pathways as carefully thought-out as the directions on his battle maps, the routes of ships at sea. And if anyone had asked, upon her first glimpse of him, if she thought him capable of such soothing tenderness, she would have laughed outright, but this….
“Not to everything.”
She opened her eyes, hadn’t realized she’d closed them, and he was still there, even closer than she’d remembered-bright flecks of light and her own pale reflection flashing in the rippling depths of his eyes. “Who does? Sometimes I think even the gods don’t-”
His palm slid down her leg, silencing her, the pressure increasing as he used one hand to hold himself up, the other to remove his boots. He drummed his fingertips on her knee before stepping away, and she watched him half in a daze as he plodded through his nightly routine: boots by the door, jacket draped over the back of a chair, his papers (and even hers) shuffled into something resembling order-but then he went right instead of left, tipping everything slightly off balance, nearly disappearing for a few moments before heading back towards her with a mug of something steaming.
At once sweet and slightly tangy, it was more nostalgia than an actual scent, and it took a slow, shimmering moment of rediscovery while she waited for the pieces of memory to fall into place: cold nights and winter mornings, slight sniffles, her grandmother’s kitchen and cheerily crackling fires….
Mint and chamomile. The man belonged among the gods.
“Who did you have to kill for this, Admiral?” Her grin spread in spite of everything-slow and lazy and wanting. “Or do I not want to know?”
“No one yet.” And there was that slight upturn to the corner of his mouth, a return to their quietly comfortable teasing. “The threat of the airlock goes a long way.”
She returned his smile over the rim of the mug, sipping the tea cautiously at first, then gratefully-the first thing her stomach hadn’t objected to all day. “Always thought you more of a jail cell man.”
“Sometimes you need to switch tactics.” His voice pressed more meaning into the words than should have existed there, and she clasped the mug tightly in both hands, letting its warmth seep into her fingers. “What can I get you to eat?”
A question not designed to give her a choice as to whether she wanted food or not-simply what form the godsdamned algae should take. It was one she had heard in various forms over the past few days, twisted a little with each repetition, the polite, Is there anything else I can get you, devolving until eventually food would be placed in front of her without a word.
But she hadn’t become a politician for nothing-there was always a way out. “I’m fine.”
“You won’t do anyone any good starving yourself.”
Leveling her gaze to meet his, she spoke slowly and carefully-she needed him to understand, to know that he did. “I’m not going to die from starvation, Bill.”
He blinked, keeping his eyes shut just a second longer than was necessary, and nodded-at her, then the tea-when he met her eyes again, it was without pretense, without any barriers between them. “Drink that.”
Not verbal acknowledgment, but still more than enough, and it was her turn to deflect this time, before raw emotion had a chance to force the tears from her eyes. She managed to get the words out without any of them cracking, voice lower than normal perhaps, but the tone was light enough. “Or you’ll send me out the airlock?”
“When I want to throw you out an airlock, Madam President, I’ll say so.” He allowed a small grin before falling into mock seriousness, knew the game of public appearances as well as she did even if he didn’t always choose to play it. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he chose this moment to step away.
“I don’t doubt it.” And she didn’t, either, except….
He seemed to sense her pause, even through the silence, a connection that was almost unsettling as he turned to face her expectantly. She rested the cup on her knee, a hand automatically reaching up to run through her hair but she stopped the motion just in time, clenching her fingers and dropping her fist to the bed.
“Thank you.”
“Drink,” he repeated, the word itself not what mattered, the stern command softened by the worry crinkling the corners of his eyes. Don’t let ‘em see you sweat, Laura.
And she obeyed-without question for once-or tried, swallowing as much as could make its way past the lump that inexplicably formed in her throat. Love or sadness, sorrow or simply nausea-at moments like this, when everything seemed to knot together, the ends frayed, it was impossible to tell.
Time passed, or must have, because suddenly he was beside her again, smelling of soap and toothpaste, though she couldn’t remember him having left her sight. He took her half-full cup, sighing at what she hadn’t been able to finish, and she lay back and eased towards the wall. It had taken him only the first five minutes of that first night to give up on the pretense that he had returned to his quarters to retrieve something and would set up camp for the night elsewhere-and soon the charade of the couch had been foregone entirely. He settled in beside her-a tight fit, but they made it work, the too-closeness comforting, made them each seem less alone.
Her head dropped onto his shoulder as if caught in its gravitational pull, and she couldn’t resist breathing him in any more than she could the artificial atmosphere of Galactica, the particles and molecules so carefully measured and pressurized.
Eventually, slowly-after he must have thought she had drifted off to sleep-she felt his head turn, his lips press against the top of her head.
The sigh of satisfaction-a near-endless string of m’s-that escaped her might have sounded like a moan, but it couldn’t have been helped. She tilted her head, meant to try to get a glimpse of his face but somehow only managed to nuzzle closer. “You can do better than that.”
“You need your rest.”
The breath that rumbled though his chest, stopped short of a chuckle, hollow and half-broken. Her hand splayed across his torso, fingers tracing the soft cotton of his undershirt as the humming silence of space and the battlestar spiraled around them. She took a breath, tried to let teasing and soft laughter spin a web around her insecurities, shielding them even from his view. “Do I really look as weak as that?”
“Just tired,” he mumbled in that low voice that betrayed more emotion than it masked. And there was his hand, warm and heavy on hers, stilling it, the gentle motion of his thumb spelling out all the little things he could never seem to put to words: fear and beauty and, gods, this was lo…. “You could never look weak, Laura.”
She listened to him breathe, followed his hand and gravity as he shifted his weight onto his elbow and slid her back onto the bed, leaning down to kiss her softly, sweetly-such strange sentiments from a man who so easily ordered life and death.
“Bill….” The whisper caught against his lips-it was just as well: thanks or apology or whatever she had meant it to be, it couldn’t have been conveyed with words alone.
He pressed his mouth to hers once more, lay back down beside her, and it was as if nothing had ever happened between them-nothing ever could. “That’s not my best shot either. Just for the record.