Eye of the beholder
For ar_drabbles prompt 67, picture perfect. We now return you to your scheduled finals, already in progress.
Set during Eye of Jupiter
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He'd have followed her anywhere. He followed her through the corridors of his own ship, talked of temples and eyes as though Laura's gods were real.
She'd become his partner, a fixture in his home, in his heart. She was the cold voice of reason that dampened his first passionate impulses. She had taken over for the part of himself he lost when Boomer's bullets pierced his chest.
And now Boomer had shot him again, ripping all his scars away.
Laura sat at his desk, reading her damn Scriptures. Madam Prophet, Madam President, Madam Pretense. How could she be so calm, knowing the grief she'd caused? He couldn't even pretend to believe she didn't know what she'd done; before they first met, when she'd been poised to take away everything he lived for, he'd read her history. She knew. She was just too ruthless to let that make any difference.
"…devoted to the one whose…"
He leaned heavily on the desk, fighting the impulse to rub at his chest, to clear his desk with an angry sweep, to hit her. To try to see if Laura Roslin were even capable of showing honest emotion.
Her glasses, her mask, came off, and Bill thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. "The child is alive."
The child has a name. Hera. Bill remembered Carolanne's tearing grief, her hoarse sobs of Zak's name.
The president's glasses went on and her polished voice flowed with dates and facts, each word a precise punch. He felt his body sway back and forth from invisible blows.
"The thing you might want to know is--"
He wanted to know nothing she could so smoothly say. He'd have followed her anywhere, but there were places she should never have asked him to go.
Set during Eye of Jupiter
------------------------------------------
He'd have followed her anywhere. He followed her through the corridors of his own ship, talked of temples and eyes as though Laura's gods were real.
She'd become his partner, a fixture in his home, in his heart. She was the cold voice of reason that dampened his first passionate impulses. She had taken over for the part of himself he lost when Boomer's bullets pierced his chest.
And now Boomer had shot him again, ripping all his scars away.
Laura sat at his desk, reading her damn Scriptures. Madam Prophet, Madam President, Madam Pretense. How could she be so calm, knowing the grief she'd caused? He couldn't even pretend to believe she didn't know what she'd done; before they first met, when she'd been poised to take away everything he lived for, he'd read her history. She knew. She was just too ruthless to let that make any difference.
"…devoted to the one whose…"
He leaned heavily on the desk, fighting the impulse to rub at his chest, to clear his desk with an angry sweep, to hit her. To try to see if Laura Roslin were even capable of showing honest emotion.
Her glasses, her mask, came off, and Bill thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. "The child is alive."
The child has a name. Hera. Bill remembered Carolanne's tearing grief, her hoarse sobs of Zak's name.
The president's glasses went on and her polished voice flowed with dates and facts, each word a precise punch. He felt his body sway back and forth from invisible blows.
"The thing you might want to know is--"
He wanted to know nothing she could so smoothly say. He'd have followed her anywhere, but there were places she should never have asked him to go.