Laura paused in her narrative, unsure how to proceed. She deliberately didn't voice the last of what she'd seen in her extremity; Bill's retreating figure, walking away from their cabin, into the woods, abandoning her. After all she had suffered, watching him walk away was what had finally broken her.

"That's when I gave in." She sagged back into the couch, tucked her legs beneath her, and pulled the blanket over her lower body. Sighing, she took off her glasses, let them dangle between her fingers as she massaged the bridge of her nose. Her left arm had once again found its way to her midriff. It was pressing on the bruises there, but the position was really the most comfortable to her still healing shoulder. The pill she'd taken earlier had helped but in the retelling of her ordeal, each individual pain had flared up again and she was aching quite badly. And still the mistress of the understatement, Laura love. Her mother's voice, strong and clear and so very dear to her.

"Laura," Bill's voice provided a counterpoint, brought her back to him, "Laura, I've seen grown men twice your size crumble under the weight of what they put you through. Don't do this to yourself."

He'd already forgiven her, as he always did, even when she didn't ask for it, and she hadn't asked for it, not yet, not when he still didn't know the full extent of what he was forgiving her for.

"I let them down," she said, needing him to understand. "They were all looking to me to guide them, lead them, Tyrol, Sam, even Saul, and I let them down." For a moment the world swam away from her as tears threatened, but she shook herself, carefully, mindful of her aching head, and everything came back into focus.

"Don't judge yourself so harshly." His eyes were midnight blue, fraught with pain and endless possibilities; his voice matched his stare.

"If I don't, who will? Bill, if I don't question myself, who will?" Her voice sounded harsh, even to her own ears. He didn't have the right to forgive her so easily, when the worst was still to come.

"There's no need." He refused to indulge her. She very nearly cried and rallied her defenses, put her glasses back on so she could glare at him all the better.

"Yes, there is!" Laura curled her right hand into a fist, beat out the rhythm of her words against her heart, where she hurt the most. "They offered me a way out and I considered it, Bill."

And she had, she had considered it, and it was that which she'd tried to hide, not the injuries to her body, the injuries to her spirit. She had pushed her momentary betrayal away, locked and bolted the door to that room in her heart where the Olympic Carrier resided. The room that contained Billy and Elosha, her love for them as well as her guilt over their deaths, the place where her cancer lived next to her cure; the room that held all those things that were too painful to ever contemplate, all those things that would weaken her. She'd locked her time in detention away in there as well, and had returned to the business of organizing the insurgency with a vehemence that had startled even Cottle and Tory.

They had been the only people on the planet who at least had a small inkling where she was coming from, and she'd hidden even from them. Alone; by choice as much as necessity she'd borne her burdens alone, and now, in the safety of Bill's quarters, finally able to share the full extent of her anguish, she found she couldn't.

His strong hand covered hers where it beat a tattoo against her chest, stilled it. "Laura."

His voice was so warm, sweet like Ambrosia. Laura wanted to crawl into his arms and cry until there were no more tears to shed. She wanted to take comfort from him, let him love her - let herself love him - luxuriate in his embrace and let him chase the nightmares away, let him take over.

She couldn't.

She was strong in her own right, independent and self-sufficient. It had taken her a long time to grow into her own, and if she gave it up, gave in to him, she knew she would never be able to go back to that like she needed to; knew she would never be able to take back the Presidency and be an effective leader to their people. The position required a certain ruthlessness, here at the end of the world, where every decision was a matter of life and death, where one wrong move could spell out the end of the human race, as their sojourn on New Caprica had so eloquently illustrated. She couldn't afford to let herself be distracted by love, softened by it. And if Leoben's words were to come true, Gods' forbid, and she'd have to take on the mantel of the dying leader again, there would certainly be no place for weakness.

But she did need to talk about what had happened, this she allowed herself, in this twilight time before the demands of their respective jobs consumed them again. She needed to take the sting of New Caprica out, before anger and hatred destroyed her just as surely as love would.

So she forged on. "I considered their offer, weighed the pros and cons in my mind. It started to make sense even. Supplant Baltar, maybe I would be able to do some good then, stop all the bloodshed, work out a way to co-exist peacefully."

Laura hung her head in shame, the hurt of it still too fresh. She knew - had known - that after all the Cylons had put the colonists through, there would be no chance of co-existence of any kind on that frakking planet. But for one brief moment, she had selfishly entertained the notion, had been ready to betray for no other reason than that they would stop hurting her. Ever since, she'd hated herself for showing such weakness, even if, rationally, she knew she shouldn't blame herself. She'd been under extreme duress, had been tortured, concussed, in severe pain.

"Don't do this to yourself."

Bill hooked a finger under her chin, forced her to face him. The fingers of his other hand were still wrapped around her own, their joined hands pressed over her heart. Tears were brimming in his eyes but he held them in check for her with a visible effort. It had always surprised her, the emotional nature of this man who at first glance seemed hewn from granite, unmovable, untouchable.

She took strength from his gaze. "I told myself it would be for the good of the people, but really, all I wanted was for the pain to stop."

"Oh, Laura." His thumb traced the thin scar on her cheek, leaving a cold, wet trail along the curve of her cheekbone and she was surprised to find there were tears in her eyes as well, threatening to fall. She forced them back.

"Bill. I gave up, I gave in. I lost my faith. They beat me, defeated me, and it was Gaius Baltar, of all people, who saved me from myself." There, the second worst thing was out and it felt like a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

"Baltar was there?" His frown was more eloquent than any string of curses.

"No, yes." Laura untangled their hands, got up to pace the room, needing to move. "Boomer, the Sharon model came into the room, told them Baltar was outside, demanding to see me. Apparently, keeping up appearances was important to them for some reason. I was this close to collaborating with them; this close," she held up her hand, her thumb and forefinger millimeters apart, "when they dialed down their frakking machine. They cleaned me up, gave me fresh clothes to wear, shot me up with I don't know what, some sort of morpha; it took the pain away, but kept me lucid; pretty strong stuff.

"Baltar walked in, handed me my glasses back as though they were a gift and I should be grateful, gave me a chair to sit on, creature comforts.

"He was underhanded and insufferable, as usual, but underneath he seemed so scared. He told me there had been suicide bombings and how the both of us should condemn them and he looked to be genuinely horrified and all I could think was if he even knew what kind of deal the Cylons had offered, that they were prepared to supplant him, that he had saved himself by coming here. I wondered if he knew, but figured he was just there by accident, saving his hide through sheer luck, as ever. It made – it makes - my heart hurt to think that that's always how it is with him.

"Anyway, I told him no and for some unknown reason he still let me go."

She paused, sat back down beside Bill, her elbows on her knees, fingers clasped in a death grip between them. Baltar had had the gall to deny that people were being tortured under his regime and she had very nearly shown him the evidence of the abuse she'd endured but had thrown Tigh's name in his face instead, wary of revealing too much of herself to the little prick. It still stung, somehow worse than anything else, that blatant denial of her sufferings.

Quietly, she finished. "So yeah, it was frakking Baltar who saved me, again. If he hadn't come in when he did, I would have caved in to them."

"You don't know that."

"I do," she said. "I did. I gave up." Defeated, she looked down at her hands; they were grimy, her nails chipped and torn, dirt wedged beneath them. She needed a shower.

"We wouldn't be here having this conversation if you had." He gave her a gentle nudge but she kept her eyes riveted on her clasped hands, refusing to look up at him, too ashamed still.

After a beat he forged on, undaunted. "Laura, if there's one thing you should always trust about yourself, it's that you never give in, you never back down, and you never give up."

"In my head I did, strapped to that machine." She pried her fingers loose, hugged herself, as though the air in his quarters had suddenly become too cold.

"That doesn't count, now does it?" he said, "If we were to be held accountable for everything that goes on in our heads, we'd all be in the brig."

The unexpected bit of humor brought her head up, brought her out of herself.

"Perhaps," she breathed. After a long moment, she nodded, once, still not entirely convinced but starting to entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, there was something to what he was saying. "Perhaps you're right."

"You know I am," he said with a small smile that she found herself returning. "I'm the Admiral, remember?" Then his expression became serious again, probing. "But that's not all, isn't it?"

"No." Damn him, bless him, for being so perceptive, for knowing her so well.

"What is it, then?"

"What's worse is that I lost my faith," she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. "I lost my faith. It helped me through so much, but in the end I lost it."

He moved to face her more fully. Muted light from the lamp on the end table threw his face into shadow, she couldn't read his eyes but his gentle voice spoke volumes. "Laura, with what those frakkers did to you, it's no wonder. I'm sure the Gods will forgive you."

"It's not their forgiveness I need," she said, looking down at the floor, at the buttons on his jacket, his polished boots next to her bare feet, the sharp crease in his trousers, anywhere but at him..

He cupped her face in his hands, tilted her head up. "What are you saying?"

Laura closed her eyes, took a deep breath, ignoring the burn, and faced him head-on. "I lost my faith in you, Bill. It's you I cursed, for abandoning me - for abandoning us, but mostly just me - it's you I railed against. It's you I lost faith in."

There, she'd said it. The worst of it was now out in the open, stark truth, couched in no uncertain terms. It was this betrayal that she'd carried with her, that had made her conceal her pain from everyone around her, made her push herself beyond the limits of human endurance. It was this betrayal she'd tried to atone for ever since. The hurt of it went so deep that even now, all she wanted to do was hide, from him, from herself, but she rejected the impulse, refused herself. Instead, Laura squared her shoulders, kept her eyes firmly on his, and awaited his judgment. In his eyes she saw a myriad of emotions, anger, grief, loss, as anticipated, and somewhere in the mix, something wholly unexpected, a hint of what she could swear was amusement.

"I am so sorry," he said. "So sorry you had to carry that burden with you. I think I've come to know you pretty well, even if I don't understand you half the time, and I can see how much that would bother you, how you've probably tortured yourself over it… losing faith like that, but let me tell you something, for a while there, I did too."

The unexpected confession shocked her out of her misery. "You did?"

"Yeah, I did." His thumbs caressed the corners of her mouth and Laura felt her lips turning upwards a bit. "Don't look so surprised," he continued, "You haven't cornered the market on self doubt, you know."

Tears threatened again, tears of relief this time, but she forced them back too. This was too important. "What changed?

His hands fell from her face and her skin instantly missed the contact. "Someone told me that the fleet would not be able to survive unless the man at the top could find a way to forgive himself."

"Wise words. I'm glad you had someone to set you straight."

"Sharon actually."

"Sharon?" Laura couldn't hide her surprise at that revelation, her hands fluttered upwards and she forced them back down, clasping her fingers in her lap.

"I think what she told me goes for the woman at the top as well. You have to forgive yourself Laura, there's no other way forward."

She recognized the wisdom in the words, even if she still didn't wholly trust the source, so she nodded her assent. "I'll try."

"That's all I ask." He smiled and then looked down at the floor, obviously at a loss as to what should come next. As she studied him, she felt a surge of relief at the realization that some of the weight she'd been laboring under seemed to have vanished. With that relief, a tight knot loosened in her chest and she could feel her eyes starting to burn. She'd been beating herself up over this for so long, had held herself so tightly, that now that she'd shared her sorrow, it was all she could do not to bawl here eyes out right here and now.

She swallowed, once, twice, determined to hold herself together, and then surprised herself, suddenly having to suppress a yawn.

Bill chuckled at the sight. "You should get some sleep," he said.

She prevaricated, afraid of what her dreams might bring, now that all of her demons were out in the open. "Hmm. I'd like to shower first, wash away the dirt?"

"You're welcome to use the head."

He jumped to his feet as she started to rise, ready to help her, but she waved him off, needing to do this herself, and managed to stand on her own. Gods, she ached. He stood beside her, almost at attention, not helping but ready to step in should she need him to. Grateful for his deference, Laura started to make her way to across his cabin. She felt his eyes followed her slow progress and when halfway to the head a thought struck her and she suddenly stood stock still, he was beside her in a few long strides.

"Laura?"

"I just realized I don't have anything clean to wear."

He smiled, obviously amused at her embarrassment and walked to his closet, rummaged around in the back, then came up with an old dress shirt and some sweats. They would be way too big for her, but they would have to do until she could contact Tory and have her scrounge up some clothes.

"Thank you."

Laura stepped into the head, out from under his searching gaze and slowly undressed. It was painful going; every muscle in her body seemed to have stiffened up on her. Her many cuts and bruises sang a chorus of woe and as she gazed at herself in the mirror for the first time since she'd allowed Jack to patch her up, she winced involuntarily. No wonder she felt as bad as she did, no wonder Bill had looked so distraught. But then again, she knew it would all fade with time, she would heal, move on.

Resolutely, she turned away from the image in the mirror and turned on the shower, letting the water heat up. It wasn't until she finally stepped under the torrent, that she allowed the tears she'd been holding in their escape. A huge sob tore through her and she sagged against the wall, slid down it to crouch on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. As water pounded down on her back and steam rose to envelop her, Laura at long last let go of all her pain and anguish. She cried for the many men and women dead on New Caprica, cried for innocence lost and faith shattered, cried for the end of a dream; cried, too, for the reemergence of hope, the solace found in the soft eyes of the man in the other room; her champion.

After a while, the force of her grief spent, Laura rose to her feet, thankful that the warm water had soothed her cramped muscles much as her crying jag had unclenched some of her sorrow. Still weeping, but quietly now, Laura soaped herself up, carefully washing her battered body, sluicing off the dirt and misery of New Caprica. Then she lifted her face into the spray, let her tears mix with the water cascading down on her, let them run their course and disappear down the drain.

If she would but close her eyes, she could pretend they were never there, but she was done pretending, so she didn't.