Reunion | PG | Battlestar Galactica
Title: Reunion
Prompt: She cannot stand the separation.
Challenge: A to Z Drabble Meme; R is for Reunion
Fandom: Laura/Bill, Battlestar Galactica
Requested by: ladyblackwell
Rating: PG
Word Count: 489
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were. Please don't sue.
Author's Note: This is my first time writing for this pairing and I’m a little anxious about it (which is why, I think, I deferred to writing something a little angsty…) Let me know what you think!
-
It’s only been six hours since Laura’s seen Bill-six whole hours since he left her in their bed to begin his shift in the CIC. There’s a heavy ache in her chest in his absence and so she curls onto her side, careful not to disrupt the tube pumping poison into her bloodstream, and hugs her knees to her chest. She shivers anyway, finding no comfort.
Years ago, she’d never been co-dependent, never clinging to companionship like a lifeline. Even in this nomadic, post-apocalyptic life, she had gone days, weeks, and even agonizing months without seeing him. She had survived. She knew he’d find his way back to her in his own time.
Now, when time is precious and slipping through her fingers, she cannot be content with the knowledge that she will see him in only a few hours. She cannot stand the separation. She will die soon and in these brief episodes of morbid despair, she wonders if she’ll end up dying alone. Bill would never forgive himself if he wasn’t there -if he missed her final moments of life looking at an empty DRADIS screen instead.
But what if her death is nothing more than one ordinary moment bleeding into the next, marked only by the cessation of her existence? What if she has to go alone? What if, despite all they’ve been through together, she never gets to say goodbye?
A chill shivers down her spine and she uses her foot to catch the blanket at the bottom of her bed, dragging it up to cover her sallow flesh and frigid, weary bones. She closes her eyes to it all, envisioning his face, his graying hair, his broad chest and strong arms. She recalls the scent of him, standard issue soap and sweat and something uniquely him. If she focuses hard enough, she can almost smell him now.
Tears sting behind closed eyelids. Every moment that passes without him is a wasted moment. Dying has made her needy and dependent and somewhat pathetic, but she is too tired to feel ashamed. Love never mattered this much to her-not until it was given an expiration date.
“How’s my girl?” comes a familiar, rough voice nearby.
Laura’s heart races and she wonders if she’s hearing him in her mind. She tentatively opens her eyes and is flooded with warmth and relief to see him standing before her, book in hand. “You’re supposed to be working,” she chastises lightly, the smile on her face betraying the disapproval in her tone.
He pulls up a chair--his chair--and sits down, his large, warm hand covering her smaller, colder one. He squeezes. “It occurred to me that I was needed elsewhere.”
She laughs breathlessly as a solitary tear tracks down her sunken cheek. In that moment she knows, the way she knew about the map to Earth, that he will be there when she needs him most.
---
Prompt: She cannot stand the separation.
Challenge: A to Z Drabble Meme; R is for Reunion
Fandom: Laura/Bill, Battlestar Galactica
Requested by: ladyblackwell
Rating: PG
Word Count: 489
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were. Please don't sue.
Author's Note: This is my first time writing for this pairing and I’m a little anxious about it (which is why, I think, I deferred to writing something a little angsty…) Let me know what you think!
-
It’s only been six hours since Laura’s seen Bill-six whole hours since he left her in their bed to begin his shift in the CIC. There’s a heavy ache in her chest in his absence and so she curls onto her side, careful not to disrupt the tube pumping poison into her bloodstream, and hugs her knees to her chest. She shivers anyway, finding no comfort.
Years ago, she’d never been co-dependent, never clinging to companionship like a lifeline. Even in this nomadic, post-apocalyptic life, she had gone days, weeks, and even agonizing months without seeing him. She had survived. She knew he’d find his way back to her in his own time.
Now, when time is precious and slipping through her fingers, she cannot be content with the knowledge that she will see him in only a few hours. She cannot stand the separation. She will die soon and in these brief episodes of morbid despair, she wonders if she’ll end up dying alone. Bill would never forgive himself if he wasn’t there -if he missed her final moments of life looking at an empty DRADIS screen instead.
But what if her death is nothing more than one ordinary moment bleeding into the next, marked only by the cessation of her existence? What if she has to go alone? What if, despite all they’ve been through together, she never gets to say goodbye?
A chill shivers down her spine and she uses her foot to catch the blanket at the bottom of her bed, dragging it up to cover her sallow flesh and frigid, weary bones. She closes her eyes to it all, envisioning his face, his graying hair, his broad chest and strong arms. She recalls the scent of him, standard issue soap and sweat and something uniquely him. If she focuses hard enough, she can almost smell him now.
Tears sting behind closed eyelids. Every moment that passes without him is a wasted moment. Dying has made her needy and dependent and somewhat pathetic, but she is too tired to feel ashamed. Love never mattered this much to her-not until it was given an expiration date.
“How’s my girl?” comes a familiar, rough voice nearby.
Laura’s heart races and she wonders if she’s hearing him in her mind. She tentatively opens her eyes and is flooded with warmth and relief to see him standing before her, book in hand. “You’re supposed to be working,” she chastises lightly, the smile on her face betraying the disapproval in her tone.
He pulls up a chair--his chair--and sits down, his large, warm hand covering her smaller, colder one. He squeezes. “It occurred to me that I was needed elsewhere.”
She laughs breathlessly as a solitary tear tracks down her sunken cheek. In that moment she knows, the way she knew about the map to Earth, that he will be there when she needs him most.
---