This makes no pretence to be anything other than Laura and her boys fluff, circa S1. Read and enjoy, and you might want to clean your teeth afterwards...

I do love Laura - Billy fluff!

Material Comforts, Immaterial Consolations

Colonial One

'Madam President!'

Laura Roslin paused halfway to her sanctuary behind the curtains and gave a silent groan. She pasted a smile onto her face and turned to look at her military advisor, alarmed by the frantic tone in his voice. 'What is it, Captain Apollo?'

The young man tugged his ear, shuffled his feet, and frowned, for all the worlds as if he was a student being taken to task. Just as she was about to remind him that he'd called her and not the other way round, his expression cleared and he crossed the room to her.

'Yes! Ah, uh, see, um. Promotions!'

Laura eyed him askance. 'Captain Apollo, if you want a pay rise I'm not the person to ask.'

Lee looked rather abashed, but he cheered up at once. 'Actually, Ma'am, you really are. Colonial Day's coming up and it's traditional to award promotions then. Now, the protocol for doing this-'

He droned on happily for a few minutes and Laura tried to listen, she really did, but her head was pounding and her knees were starting to turn shaky. It had been a long day. She'd been detained by the commander for some unconscionable reason known only to him, and then there'd been a mysterious problem with her raptor that had led to further delay. All of which meant that if she didn't lie down – or at least sit down – soon, she would fall over. She removed her glasses, rubbed the dent on the bridge of her nose, and tried to choke Lee off.

'Captain Apollo –'

'… usually it'd be an admiral but we haven't got one, so…'

'Captain Apollo!'

'…put the pins on..'

Laura was about to muster her waning energy for an outright yell when Billy exploded from the private area behind the curtains, his curls rumpled, a streak of dust across one cheek, and his usually impeccably knotted tie half-off.

Lee stopped talking at once, and looked relieved. Laura's eyes narrowed as she looked from one young man to the other; she'd been a teacher for too long to miss the signs of complicity.

She looked Billy up and down. 'I've heard of quick-change artists, but that is truly impressive. How did you manage to go from pristine to grubby so quickly?'

As she had expected, Billy turned scarlet, while Lee hid a very schoolboyish snicker behind his hand.

Laura folded her arms and gave them the fiercest glare she could manage. 'All right, boys, what have you been up to? Whatever it is, can we just get on with it, before I collapse.'

Billy, his complexion returned to its normal hue, crossed to offer his arm, and she accepted it gladly, with an abbreviated wave of dismissal for Lee. Black dots were starting to dance across her vision, and she leaned on him heavily as he escorted her through the curtains. She was so focused on remaining conscious that it wasn't until she was comfortably settled on her cot-bed with a glass of water and starting to feel a little more like herself that she realised that Billy hadn't answered her question.

She opened her eyes and turned to lean on her elbow and look up at her aide, who was still hovering. 'OK, Billy. Spill. What have you done?'

Billy gave her his trademark shy smile. 'I hope you don't mind, but we managed to find you some furniture. I know you haven't got much to put in them, but when you said that it's hard to be presidential in wrinkled clothes, I … well, I thought you deserved better, ma'am, given everything. So uh, Lee – Captain Adama – and I did some asking and we managed to um, get you these?' He nodded over against the walls, behind the cot, and Laura – curiosity trumping weakness – staggered to her feet to take a look.

Overcome, she put one hand to her mouth and the other on Billy's arm. It wasn't much – one small vanity unit with a mirror and a matching chest of drawers that she suspected had been intended for a child's room, but just then they were the most beautiful pieces of furniture she'd ever seen. 'Oh, Billy. Thank you. You didn't have to, but – but how -?'

The young man looked sheepish. 'I uh, asked Captain Adama for help, and we checked with the civilian ships. Some were used for cargo transport, and we managed to find those.' He frankly pointed at the items, and Laura could see the child he'd been, not so very long ago. 'Then we told Commander Adama what we were doing –'

'You – what?' Laura gasped. 'You told Commander Adama –' Her voice trailed off in disbelief and she shook her head, sending Billy a shrewd glance. 'Be honest. Did you get the Commander to keep our meeting going so that you could organise this?'

He grinned. 'Yes, Madam President. The only problem was making sure it was all set up before you got here –'

'So that's why you took off like a scalded cat once we docked.'

Billy nodded. 'Yep. And it's why Captain Apollo was lecturing you about promotion ceremonies.'

'Mmm.'

'Madam President?'

She tore her eyes away from the vanity, from imagining the peace that the simple ritual of brushing her hair in front of a mirror would bring, and glanced up at Billy. He looked nervous.

'Is it – is it all right? Did we do the right thing?'

She squeezed the arm she still held. 'How can you even ask? This is one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me.' Putting her other hand on his arm for balance, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

Billy blushed deeply, but his smile went ear to ear. 'You deserve it, ma'am.'

She returned his smile, but had to close her eyes against another wave of dizziness and nausea, her hands tightening their grip on his arm and causing him to look down in alarm.

'I think I'd like to lie down now,' she told him shakily, and allowed him to help her back to her bed, where she drifted off to sleep with a smile for the first time in far too long.

-Fin.

Okay, folks, be honest. Did it tickle your fluffy bone or have you reaching for the sick bag? I'm not happy with the ending; it stops too abruptly, I think.