Bill and Laura belong to Ron Moore; title belongs to Depeche Mode.
Like Violence Break The Silence
Today is one of the bad days.
Laura can tell, even before she gets out of bed, even before she opens her eyes. The pain that she has been praying to the gods to hold at bay has arrived, now, gathered in her chest, spreading icy fingers through her lungs.
She wonders if tomorrow will be better, or if she will look back on yesterday as the last good day, before the pain got bad, before it settled in, took up permanent residence in her body.
She tries to breathe, calmly, evenly, but the movement sends spasms shooting through her ribs, and she is afraid.
I can't I can't I can't.
It's a ridiculous thought. Childish. Of course she can. Of course she will. What choice does she have?
"Laura? You awake?"
Bill always wakes up before she does. He claims it is the consequence of decades of military life, and Laura does not doubt the truth in that.
But on more than one occasion she has fluttered to consciousness to find him holding her hand, gently pressing two fingers to the inside of her wrist.
"I'm here," she answers.
He stands in front of their bed—to Laura, it will always be their bed, not a rack—dressed already, his uniform yet to be buttoned. Gods, but she loves this man. She loves the gray in his hair and the wrinkles on his face and the way his hand curls around his cup of coffee. She loves waking up with him and she loves falling asleep with him and she loves him for sneaking out of their bed in the morning so that she can snatch a few extra minutes of rest.
She is always so tired, these days.
She reaches out with her fingertips to brush his hand. The tiny hint of motion sends a thousand knives shooting into her spine, and she can't suppress her gasp of pain.
Bill is by her side in an instant, the worry on his face clear even in the dim light. "Laura? Talk to me."
She taught him this, she thinks. She taught him to stay calm, to give her time, to curb his impulse to call for Cottle at her first sign of distress.
She knows that soon, he will have to learn a different lesson.
She wishes she could spare them both what's coming.
"It's not…so good, today," she admits.
She watches his face as he takes this in, and she knows that he is afraid, too.
When he speaks, his voice is steady. "What can I do?"
What can he do? What can either of them do, except wait, and endure, and know that the worst is still ahead of them? That's what she remembers most vividly about dying, the first time: the cold terror of what lay ahead, of knowing that she had nothing to look forward to except pain, and fear, and the slow ebbing away of her life.
Bill is rubbing slow circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. "Laura?"
"I'm all right," she manages.
She isn't, and they both know it.
He nods, as though he believes her.
"Maybe…you should take it easy today," he says, his voice light, careful, as though it's a simple suggestion, nothing more, as though it doesn't matter to him, one way or the other.
As though Bill who wants her to stay in bed is not also the Admiral who knows the President is needed.
Nothing about this, about them, has ever been simple.
She shakes her head, just barely. "I have work to do," she says. "I have to get to Colonial One."
She does. The funerals for the murdered Quorum delegates are today. She cannot possibly not attend. She has to decide which pictures to put up on the memorial wall. She has to be able to stand through the service, be there to watch each one of them float out the airlock. And then she has to figure out what the hell to do next.
Bill pauses. "Let me go with you."
"Don't be ridiculous," she says, the gentle touch of her hand on his arm meant to take the sting out of her words. "You have work to do, too."
"Take Lee with you, then."
It's not an order—he knows better than that—but it's not quite a request, either. Bill's fingers reach out, trace her bare scalp, to ease the pain of his words, now. "It's time to let someone else do the heavy lifting."
There is truly no one who loves her more than this man does. Not by process of elimination, not because so many others—her parents, her sisters, Billy, Elosha, Maya…even Tory, in her own way—are gone. There is simply no one who has ever loved her more honestly, more deeply, than this man, looking at her, now, with so much compassion in his eyes.
That is why she shuts her eyes tight against the tears that that one sentence induces.
She knows that he would never want to hurt her.
She doesn't want him to see that he has.
She knows that he does, anyway.
He smiles at her, and she can tell it is an effort. "You can't wear yourself out," he says. "I have plans for you later, too, you know."
She smiles back, even though it's an effort, too. "Okay," she says. "I'll take Lee."
As though it's nothing more than that.
He lifts her hand, presses his lips to her knuckles. "I love you."
He says it so rarely, even now. Laura has never felt the absence of the words, never once imagined that their infrequency speaks to some capriciousness of affection on his part. This man has sat by her bedside for countless hours, has read her innumerable pages, has made a home for her here, in a thousand tiny ways.
One day, not too long from now, he will sit by her side, holding her hand, as she slips from this life to whatever awaits her in the next.
You're so afraid to live alone.
And you're afraid to die that way.
She knows that at least one of them will have their fear brought to life.
Selfishly, she can't help but hope that it won't be her.
She knows that it's already too late for him to be spared.
Bill's hand tightens on hers, pulling her back: to this room, to this moment, to him.
She breathes in and out, slowly, letting the panic dissipate, focusing on the feel of his fingers gripping hers.
She is going to die.
She is going to leave him.
But today, now, she is still here.
She grasps the front of his uniform, fingers fisting in the thick fabric, and pulls his face down to hers.
This time, she is the one who says it without words.
Today is one of the good days, too.