This is a series of unrelated Bill/Laura ficlets that I'm posting together as they aren't really long enough to qualify as stand-alone stories. There may or may not be more. I hope you enjoy :)

Blankets twist uncomfortably around her legs as she thrashes from one end of her cot to the other, trying and failing to avoid the sun glaring in on her from the cracks around the flap of her tent. The light hurts her head, but that's only the beginning of why sleep eludes her despite her fatigue and lingering hangover. Her mind whirrs like the generators operating this sad excuse for a settlement, whirrs and stutters and fails to illuminate much of anything.

Giving up on sleep for the time being, Laura struggles from her bed, rubbing grit from her eyes and wrapping her thin blanket about her shoulders. She finds a carafe of water on the rickety hand-hewn table that doubles as her desk and pours a generous amount into a coffee mug, drinking it back in several gulps.

The water is warm and slightly gritty, like everything else on this godsforsaken planet, but it helps clear away some of the unpleasant morning-after taste from her palate. If anything, she feels worse now than the first time she woke that morning. At least then she had a set of strong arms wrapped around her and soft lips brushing against her shoulder. His presence had shielded her, both from the weak early morning light, and from the doubts that had begun to seep in moments after they rose.

Missteps are so easily made when one allows oneself to overindulge in the pleasures of drink and smoke and companionship. She'll recover from most of her excesses given time and sleep. She doesn't know if she'll ever recover from Bill. But then, she knew that already, long before today.

Setting down her mug, she picks up her journal and pen and returns to her cot. Leaving the book unopened in her lap, she rolls the pen against her lips as she remembers.

She was still slightly inebriated when they awoke after a scant hour or two of sleep, crammed into her tiny cot like sardines. What could have been uncomfortably close quarters for two people who had flirted with, but had not yet crossed that final line, somehow were not and she sighed as his hands skimmed lightly across areas already touched but not yet seen

Now, goosebumps rise on her bare arms as she remembers laughing softly until he opened an eye to observe her mirth.

"Something funny, Laura?" he rumbled in her ear.

Nothing was remotely humorous about the kiss she gave him in response, all breathless inhalations, racing hearts and seeking hands under the covers.

Opening the book in her lap, she writes. Everything is different now.

Deliberately, she draws a line under her words and closes the book again. Prosperity doesn't need the details. Setting it aside, she lays back down, straightening her blanket to cover her.

"I have to go," he said afterwards. "I'm sorry; I wish I didn't."

She should have kissed him goodbye then and there, let him leave with the romance still hovering over them like smoke. She could have gone back to sleep still feeling him all around her, inside her, safe from bitter reality for a few more hours.

Instead she saw him out, watched him slowly reabsorbed back into his world, a world that is no longer hers, if it ever truly was.

There was no kiss goodbye.

She closes her eyes again and rolls away from the light, one arm against her forehead shielding her eyes, the other across her stomach. If she only she could find sleep. Her fingers flex beneath the blanket, wandering up from her belly to graze her breast.

If she could sleep, she could dream.

Sometime later, she wakes to a warm, heavy hand on hers.

"Laura."

Her eyes drift open to find him kneeling beside her. The sun has moved to the other side of her tent and his face is in shadow, but she knows he's smiling.

"You came back," she sighs, turning her hand over in his and lacing their fingers together.

"I'll always come back."