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Laura is hunched in the co-pilot's chair, her chin resting on her palm, her elbow propped on her knee. She gave Lee a conspiratorial smile when she slipped off her shoes; he kept his mouth flat, so now she is watching Colonial One grow ever larger in the canopy. Lee should be watching that as well, but when he was her military advisor, he made the trip to and from Galactica so many times that now he can allow himself a few seconds to study her profile.
White flares in the corner of his eye and when Lee looks back Colonial One isn't there anymore. No, it is there, but only the humped bow remains. "Apollo to Galactica," he shouts. He didn't bring an ECO; he isn't even wearing a flight suit.
"Apollo, return to Galactica immediately." It is his wife's voice.
Familiar silver crescents are racing toward where Colonial One used to be when Lee flips the Raptor over. He can hear a radiological alarm going off in the cabin and then Galactica's port flight pod explodes. He yanks the stick toward his stomach and clears the shards of metal, but the Raptor doesn't handle like a Viper and the Raiders are still closing on them. "Laura," he calls, "I need you to launch some decoys."
"How?"
"The ECO station. Decoys are under—" The ship shudders and the display informs him that he just lost the hardpoint on the starboard wingtip. He would care more if the Raptor were armed. "Under countermeasures. You'll see it," he promises.
Two civilian ships blink away. The Raptor has an FTL drive, but he doesn't have the emergency jump coordinates. He knows his father won't release them when the Cylons could intercept the transmission; he knows he has to try. "Galactica, this is Apollo. Request coordinates for emergency jump."
The display updates the Raptor's drone count and the whine of the missile-lock warning pauses for a moment. "Good, launch another," he says as it resumes. The radio is spewing static in his ear.
"Request denied," Dee answers at last.
Three more civilian ships disappear as the Raptor corkscrews past them. When all of them are gone, Galactica will follow. They are going to leave him, leave Laura.
"Load the last jump coordinates," he tells her, trying to remember this Raptor's most recent scouting assignment. He takes another hit and loses one of the thrusters.
"Galactica—" He can't transmit his coordinates any more than they can. "Goodbye." For the first time since this started, he looks at Laura.
"Jump."
*
They emerge into blackness. Jumping to coordinates that haven't been corrected for stellar drift is almost as dangerous as jumping blind and for a moment all Lee feels is relief that they didn't appear in an asteroid field or fuse with a planet.
Laura yields the ECO station and Lee scans their surroundings. No enemy contacts and only distant stars. "Can we catch up to them?" she asks.
The Raptor's FTL drive has a smaller range than Galactica's, so perhaps she is hoping that another jump will return them to safety. Lee doesn't hear any hope in her voice, though, only pragmatism. "No," he says softly, then clears his throat. There is the possibility that someone will realize what he's done. Kara might, assuming she wasn't in a launch tube when the flight pod was hit. The Raptor's last destination should be on record, and if Galactica jumps back to the site of the battle, then they can retrace Lee's steps. "But they might catch up to us," he says in a stronger voice.
Laura nods and sits in one of the cabin chairs. Her shoes are still in the cockpit. "How long should we wait?" When he blinks at that, she adds, "I don't plan to die in this Raptor and there doesn't seem to be anything here for us if Galactica fails to appear."
"Right," Lee says, feeling as though he is struggling through molasses. "A day," he decides.
"I don't suppose you brought a book?" Laura asks, and there's that old twinkle in her eye. Lee remembers being on the run with her, hiding in crawlspaces while marines tore ships apart searching for them. If Galactica does not come, it will be the two of them against the universe again.
"The attack," she says abruptly. "They knew where we were."
"Yes," he agrees, the smile sliding from his face. Already she burns to return to her responsibilities, and of course he doesn't plan to die in this Raptor either, but would a day of rest, a day with him, be so awful?
Lee turns to the ECO station and adjusts the life support, sacrificing warmth for fuel. Laura will be cold in her skirt, but he will maintain a careful meter between them. He knows that once Galactica rescues them, this lost time in a Raptor will be one more anecdote and they will return to their separate lives.
*
Galactica doesn't come for them.
Lee waits twenty-three hours before poring over the readings and coordinates retained by the ECO station. There are two survival packs in the Raptor, each with enough food to last a week. Longer, if they are careful, but after that they will need a safe harbor.
Laura is watching him from across the cabin, too far away, Lee hopes, to read the dismal results on screen. "We could go back," she suggests.
He frowns; hasn't he explained this already? "Madam President—"
"Laura," she corrects.
"Madam President—" But by then she has commandeered the station's controls and brought up the coordinates for New Caprica. "Oh," he says.
"We could go back," she repeats. "We know there's shelter there, and hopefully food."
"And hopefully no Cylons," Lee says, but he already knows that it is the only place they can go.
*
They spend two hours scrutinizing the haze on the DRADIS before Lee is willing to approach the planet, and even then he lands at the east end of the settlement, the farthest point from the Cylon stronghold. He asks Laura to stay in the Raptor while he scouts, but she is obstinate in her refusal, so in uniform boots and sensible heels, they make their way into the city. First they encounter half-melted twists of metal, remnants of Vipers and Raiders that fell from the sky. Then there are bodies: human skeletons picked clean and Cylon models with a few chunks missing, as if whatever began to scavenge them belatedly realized they weren't quite flesh.
A soldier's practicality directs Lee to a pistol near one of the bodies, but months of rain have rusted it beyond use. There's a stuttering gasp behind him and he turns to find Laura's face distorted with horror. Abruptly he understands the extent of the sacrilege they have committed by disturbing this mausoleum.
He reaches out to her, the instinct to comfort firing down his arm without the intermediary of thought, but she darts away just as he touches her wrist. When he catches up to her, she has turned over a badly decomposed corpse, rotted bits of muscle and skin and clothes still clinging in places, and is holding a locket attached to the bones by a silver chain. Then both of her hands are splayed on the mud beside the body as she retches on all fours.
His knees squish against the mud as he wraps an arm around her heaving shoulders. There's nothing to wipe her mouth with except his hand, and then that against his uniform. There is a sterility to space combat, machines shredding apart in showers of light, made more sterile still on a whiteboard. There is no sterility in this boneyard, the wet ground soaking through Lee's pants, the sour smell of Laura's mouth, both of them kneeling beside something that used to be human.
"Maya," she manages at last and he understands that this something used to be the woman she taught alongside. "Isis." And then Laura pushes against his shoulders, lurching to her feet. They search for the toddler, but not even small cracked bones remain.
Their search takes them to the Cylons' concrete fortress; Lee is loath to take Laura inside, but even more loath to wade back through the carrion, so he interlaces their fingers and lets the pressure of his palm guide her. At the slightest noise, he pushes her against the wall, but the Raptor's sensors did not lie: the Cylons fled their mistake as readily as the Colonials did.
A flight of stairs deposits them in an incongruity: an apartment like the one Lee had in Caprica City. The bedroom is where he expects it to be and they fall onto the stale but clean sheets. Then the only people on New Caprica sleep like the dead.
*
Lee wakes up in a fog that doesn't dissipate even after he's showered. He inventories the apartment and finds men's clothes, neatly pressed pants and loudly colored shirts. When he steps into the living room, Laura startles so badly he wonders which Cylon the outfit belonged to.
"Good morning." He tries to smile but doesn't manage to show any teeth.
"Good morning," she echoes and takes a sip of water. Lee looks from the glass to the cabinets to the sink, and realizes that—
"This could actually work." Laura raises an eyebrow at the outburst and Lee reddens, continuing, "We still need to find food and, um, clothes for you, but there's water and electricity and—" And hopefully another apartment, because if he's going to be her only companion, then she's going to want a place where he's not.
"Why don't you bring the Raptor closer and get the survival packs?" Laura suggests when he doesn't finish his sentence. She inclines her head toward the bathroom. "I'll freshen up."
Lee nods and departs, half-running through the charnel streets to the cool metal vault of the Raptor. They lost over a thousand civilians during the Second Exodus, and that's a lot of graves to dig. He will, though. He'll dig them all.
*
Lee takes the Raptor over the fields the settlers sowed and sees stalks bent with the weight of grain. The vegetable patches are overgrown with weeds, but perhaps something has survived underground. He and Laura breakfast on powdered eggs and divide up the stronghold for searching. In a supply closet, Lee finds a box of cans that must have been brought from the Colonies. After eating out of survival packs, the whimsically shaped pasta in thin red sauce will be haute cuisine.
They return to the apartment in borrowed clothes heavy with dust. Lee heats the contents of a can and serves it on china. He realizes that, unless the Cylons have their own ceramics industry, the plates have also been taken from the Colonies. He's glad to steal them back.
Without taking a bite, Laura begins doctoring her plate with the spices she found.
"You don't like my cooking?" Lee asks.
She laughs, clear and bell-like. "Consider this a collaborative effort."
"Just like old times."
Green eyes narrow, but then she smiles and says, "Yes, like old times." And then it is, only better because no one is looking to them or looking for them. She teaches him a proper appreciation for spices and they make plans to harvest what they can before everything rots on the vine. Lee does not know if she has reconciled herself to their stranding or if she is simply committed to what she considers a vacation, but halfway through the meal he finds himself discussing the possibility of winemaking.
*
In the stronghold, they find: a walk-in freezer full of the cow-like creature indigenous to the planet, carefully butchered and wrapped in foil; a copy of the Sacred Scrolls, heavily annotated and hidden behind a bookshelf; a miserable row of cells that sends Laura to her rooms, on a different floor and the other side of the building from Lee's; and in every imperious smile, a reminder of why their rebellion became more about a charismatic leader than his father's tyranny.
Once Laura is satisfied that they have gathered all that the stronghold has to offer, they begin on the tents. Slowly, Lee converts rows of tents into rows of graves, each carefully marked with stones, one even with a name. He pulls the Cylon bodies into a pile and douses them with Raptor fuel. He expects them to smell like plastic when they burn, but the scent is closer to barbecue.
In one of the tents, Lee finds a cache of temple wine. Laura cackles delightedly and brings hand-cut crystal goblets to dinner that night; Lee shakes his head and wonders what other treasures she's squirreled away. She pours herself a glass and begins to cook, singing an old Caprican song while her bare feet sweep across the tile. Lee sets the table and stands with his hands in his pockets, near enough for her to tut at his recalcitrance and pull him into the dance.
Lee's never been a good dancer, always too busy counting beats to actually move. Laura presses her hands against his shoulders, forcing him to relax them, and tips up his chin whenever he tries to look at their feet. They did this once before, on the way to Kobol, both of them half-delirious with cold and hunger. Now they are warm and soon to be fed, so he has to ask:
"What are we doing?"
He expects her to be flippant, to say, Dancing, but instead she says, "Deciding how we're going to spend our time together."
Lee makes a small choked noise, because she could have easily said spend our lives together.
Laura steps out of his arms to scrutinize the pot on the stove. "You have to control time," she explains as she stirs, "or before you know it, two years will have gone by with hardly a word spoken between you and..." She takes a sip of wine; he watches the muscles of her throat, the flash of her tongue. "What do you think?" she asks, blowing on the spoon before holding it out to him.
And Lee is suddenly, incandescently angry. He snatches the spoon from her and thrusts it back in the pot. "Was that supposed to be an apology?"
Laura turns the stove off. "An apology for what?"
Now the anger is tinged with embarrassment because he wants to shout, Leaving me! but knows that Laura will only look down her rounded nose and call him self-centered. "Did you 'lose track of time' after Kobol," he asks instead, "or did you know that I would never condone"—he remembers firing into the man who was so certain of Lee's limits—"murder or"—and then, abandoned again, asking Dee to marry him—"fraud?"
Her lips flatten; her nostrils flare. "You don't get to lecture me," she spits, then fishes something out of her pocket, crushes it in her hand, and throws it at his face.
Lee startles backward and Laura barrels past him, slamming the door behind her. He crouches to retrieve the projectile: a ball of paper. Smoothing it against the counter, Lee realizes that it was folded and unfolded so many times that it tore in half along the well-worn crease. On either side of the divide is Laura's careful script: Olympic Carrier.
*
Lee doesn't see her for a week after that. Instead, he continues to collapse tents and dig graves. It's what his father would call honest work, or at least the most honest available outside of a Viper. It leaves Lee more sore and exhausted than flight school ever did.
He's almost decided to seek Laura out when she appears between gravestones. "You acknowledge," she says, "that the safety of the civilian fleet could not be guaranteed under Cain's command." At Lee's slight nod, she continues, "You acknowledge that Baltar's presidency was an unmitigated disaster, resulting in the greatest loss of life since the First Exodus."
His second nod is even smaller, but an exhalation suspiciously like a chuckle escapes her. "Gods, how I cursed you," she says, "and Zarek, and that damn promise you made." She looks at him earnestly. "I believe in the people's right to make their own mistakes, but not when there's fewer than fifty-thousand of them left."
And he doesn't—can't—agree with that. It must show on his face, because she says, "I know. And that's why you couldn't be there anymore." She smiles wistfully and even that feels like flying through the corona of a sun.
"I—" Once she said she could count on him, simply because he was Captain Apollo. It was that faith in his judgment that drove her away, only for them to independently make the worst choices they were capable of. "I'm not that"—young, that pure, that man—"anymore—"
He's looked away from her, so Laura tips up his chin. "Then we'll figure things out together."
*
She wants to use the berries for wine.
Lee looks up from the pot of boiling water. Currently, they are figuring out canning. The principle is simple enough: heat the jars to a sufficiently high temperature and kill any food-spoiling bacteria within. As the jars cool, they seal, saving the vegetables for the months ahead.
"...then we'll have to strain it somehow." Laura pauses her explanation to peer around the apartment for inspiration. "I still have the hose I was wearing when we got here."
Lee bites his lip to keep from laughing. "I don't know how you ended up a teacher, when clearly you were born to be a vintner."
"Don't think I didn't consider it," she says, bumping her shoulder against Lee's as she leans forward to check the jars' progress. "I was ready to quit teaching, actually, when I met Adar."
Carefully, Lee turns his head. "Oh?"
"I wanted to effect change on a larger scale and thought politics was the way." She snorts self-depreciatingly. "I was insufferably young then."
He tries to imagine it; fails. "Leading humanity doesn't count as effecting large-scale change?"
She regards the bandages on her fingers, souvenirs of the morning's peeling. "I think leading humanity only effected large-scale change in me." Clapping her hands, she turns to the piles of vegetables waiting to be canned. "Turnips next?"
Lee allows her to abandon the conversation, but before he picks up the paring knife, he touches the back of her hand and then, committing himself fully, squeezes it in benediction.
*
New Caprica's feeble autumn fails completely and the ground gets harder and harder until Laura convinces him to bury the remaining bodies in a mass grave. Lee collapses on his way back to the stronghold and it's two weeks before he breathes more than he coughs. His damn promises, he thinks.
A week after his chest finally stops rattling, Lee tacks blankets over all the windows and is still cold. When he complains, Laura laughs and reminds him that he never had to spend the winter in a tent. Rather than setting the dining room table, they take their meals on his couch, sitting under one blanket.
This is what he has figured out: Laura is neither as bad nor as good as he has thought, but neither is he; in one capacity or another, they were always going to spend their lives together; sometime soon, he is going to kiss her; she is going to kiss him back.
Laura groans and sets her plate aside. "My compliments to the chef," she says cheekily.
Lee manages fifteen seconds of disapproval before snickering. Laura takes both plates to the sink while he is overcome with guffaws. Regaining control, he follows, standing behind her to study the gray strands glinting in her auburn hair like aluminum in copper: a bronze head.
"I leave these dishes in your capable—" Her turn takes her onto his feet, tripping her; he grabs her hips, steadying her; she kisses him and he is the one kissing back. He's never been so glad to not have Laura Roslin completely figured out.
Lee opens his eyes as Laura pulls away. "Uh—"
"Good night, Captain Apollo." She kisses him again, more chastely, before slipping free.
"Good night," he manages, "Madam President."
That stops her more quickly than any protest could. She steps back toward the kitchen, grabs a handful of his shirt, and pulls him across the counter that juts from the wall. The edge digs into his hips but Lee continues the kiss until Laura releases him to circle the barrier. She tastes sharp, like her attempts at winemaking, and her long hair brushes against Lee's hands where they press clumsily on the center of her back. He pulls his head back to speak, but Laura uses the break to lick just below his ear. When he hisses, she makes a satisfied hum, as if she's just confirmed a long-held hypothesis. Lee realizes that she's thought about this, thought about him like this, and although she's barely touched him, he's half-hard.
He backs her toward the bedroom door, bumping feet and noses along the way. She spins him through the open jamb and follows him onto the bed. He lifts his chin to kiss her neck, following one muscle to her collar bone. She strains forward and he leaves the ridge of her clavicle for the slope of her breast. They reach for the buttons of her shirt at the same instant, Laura balancing precariously on one hand. She tosses the blouse aside and sits back to unhook her bra, grinning as she presses against his erection.
She pulls the straps down and off her arms and throws her shoulders back as if daring him to find fault with her aged skin. Apart from her nipples, her breasts are as bleached of color as the pages of a holy book. Lee touches them reverently, remembering when the gods had a plan for Laura Roslin. He likes his plan better.
*
"Good morning."
Lee looks down at the head resting on his chest, the lines of hair and curves of cheek, nose, and mouth. "Yes," he agrees.
Laura laughs delightedly and twists to meet his gaze. "Your lungs sound clear."
That is how he feels, like a piece of glass. He's seen her eyes milky and face creased from sleep before, but today his sheets are coiled around her waist and she's stranger to him than a Cylon.
"You could make a girl self-conscious, looking at her like that."
Lee blushes but doesn't reduce the intensity of his examination. She is at once familiar and alien, a facsimile with some innate difference. Of course, everyone is the continuity of many copies, dead cells sloughed off as new ones emerge, the body building the self a bridge to the future that crumbles under its feet.
Laura kisses him then, playful and savage, and Lee forgets about philosophy.
*
"When do we leave?"
Lee has just had a very good breakfast, pancakes that Laura must have saved from her survival pack and a fried hash of meat and potatoes. It congeals in his stomach. "What?"
"We can't stay here."
"We can't," he repeats dumbly. "Why not? Food, shelter, no Cylons—you chose it as the best place to wait out the end of the world."
Laura crosses her arms. She's wearing his uniform tunic, the front flap mostly unbuttoned, and the distraction is making her even harder to follow. "The end of the world isn't something you 'wait out,'" she explains. "You build a new world."
"I know." Lee ducks his head guiltily. "I know, but I felt like I—like we—built something here."
"We have." Laura's hand is warm and urgent on his shoulder. "But we've only been here two months and already you've suffered an illness so severe you could have—"
Lee remembers waking up gasping, and then Laura's hands under his arms, pulling him up until he could breathe. He remembers his own fear when each time he glimpsed Laura, she was paler beneath her makeup.
Her lips pull into something between a grimace and a smile. "We've made this planet a haven. I won't let it become a trap."
I'm here, he wants to say. I'm fine. But she will remind him that there's always a next time and she will be right. He straightens the wings pinned to her chest. "You want to find the fleet."
He feels her relax even through the metal. "If you were a venerable Battlestar leading seventy civilian ships to the Promised Land, where would you be?"
Lee pretends to ponder the question, biting his lip until she laughs and smacks his arm. "I'm not sure where I'd be," he answers, "but I know where I'd be headed."
"The stars we saw on Kobol," she says quickly, as if she's thought about the problem and is relieved he's reached the same solution.
"The Lagoon Nebula," he confirms.
"Can the Raptor reach that far?"
"I don't know." He falters, remembering his stupid, petty disposal of the Cylon corpses.
Laura smiles kindly. "Then find out."
*
There is fuel, just: they will get there, but if Galactica does not, they will not get anywhere else. Laura lays in supplies, preserving meat in addition to their vegetables. She smuggles aboard a plastic bucket that Lee is certain contains five gallons of fermenting berry juice. Lee repairs the damaged thruster and refines the water reclamation unit he's jury-rigged onto the Raptor. While he tinkers, Laura lies on the cabin floor, paging through the Sacred Scrolls.
"You haven't told me," Lee says casually, "what you plan to do once we catch up to the fleet." Catching up to the fleet is a plan in itself, but one that her impervious optimism has convinced him will work.
"Mr. Zarek was kind enough to cede the presidency to me once. I can only hope that he will be in as good a humor to see me again."
"And then?" Lee asks, voicing the old fear that he will be abandoned because he is inconvenient. Then he takes a breath, holds it, and exhales, determinedly letting the fear go.
"And then," Laura says, "I suppose that depends on you." She sets the book aside and catches his eye. "Have you given any thought to what you plan to do once we catch up to the fleet?"
"Some," he says, as if his failed marriage and dead-end duty haven't been constant preoccupations of late. He lays down his tools and faces her squarely. "If Galactica has gotten by without me, then she can get by without me."
Laura grins crookedly. "I was hoping you'd say that." She tugs the hem of his pants and he lies down beside her. Their elbows and ankles knock together, tapping out a skittish code. "I once said there was something presidential about you," she reminisces to the ceiling. "It wasn't idle talk. You'll have to spend your time in the trenches, of course—rise to Secretary of Education at least—"
He steals the tease from her mouth and eventually asks, "You really think I could be president?"
"Don't I make it look easy?" He rolls his eyes and she continues, "I'm not blind to the obstacles, but in two years, I could be running on a Roslin-Adama ticket."
"And not with my father."
"And most definitely not with your father."
He studies their interlocked fingers, and then rolls to his feet to reclaim his tools. "We make a good team," he offers over his shoulder.
"Good and getting better." She snakes out a hand to retrieve the Sacred Scrolls. "Believe that."
*
The blankets have been taken down from the windows; the cupboards and larder are bare. Lee gives the apartment one last appraisal, slowly shifting its mental categorization from home to the harbor it was meant to be. His world ended more than once after the end of the world. Laura's right: it's time to build a new one.
She's fairly bouncing in the ECO's chair when he enters the Raptor. He straightens his tunic (fully buttoned) and slips into the pilot's seat. The ship hums pleasantly to life, cycling smoothly through the pre-flight check. A slight tremor and they are away, tearing a path through the clouds. The atmosphere thins, fades, and then there is only black.
"The first jump coordinates are loaded," Laura reports.
"Come here," he says, waving her into the cockpit. He guides her hand to the controls. "You know what to do."
They jump.