Title: Fixing the match

Summary : A slightly different take on the repercussions of Bill's vote to acquit Baltar and Laura's moving into Bill's quarters at the start of Season 4. Keep in mind that this a post Crossroads, but pre Faith and pre The Hub Laura.

Rating: T

Fixing the Match

Her jaw clenched seeing him enter Cottle's office, but she didn't otherwise acknowledge him.

Cottle glanced back and forth between them a moment waiting to see if she was going to object to his presence.

She just stared across the desk at a spot somewhere past Cottle.

Cottle continued. "As I was just saying, you're tolerating the doloxan quite well."

Bill was relieved that Laura hadn't objected to his presence. He had come because he knew that if he wasn't here to hear the things said he wouldn't be able to rely on either of the other two people in the room to fill him in later.

"I'd like to up the treatments from once a week to twice every ten days."

Her breath came out from between her clenched teeth in something akin to a hiss, but she didn't speak.

From what abstract information Cottle had been willing to share with him about what could be expected from doloxan treatments, Bill knew that the side effects of the treatments would likely mean the loss of a day, if not two, as far as getting anything productive done.

Cottle paused a moment before going on. Bill could see that he was taking things slow. Offering the hits one blow at a time instead of all at once. Somehow Bill got the idea that Cottle wasn't upping the frequency because of how well she was tolerating the treatment, but rather that it had been Cottle's plan for a schedule all along. He had just been trying to ease her into it.

Bill could tell the other man was surprised by how easily Laura had capitulated to everything given how adamantly she had been against taking doloxan in her first bout against cancer.

"It would be best for you to stay onboard Galactica for the duration of your treatments. You've been through a few treatments now and they may not have seemed so bad, but it builds in your system. I'm sure you remember how things went with your mother. As the cancer and the treatment eat away at your reserves, you're not going to want to be wasting your energy shuttling back and forth."

"We can have Colonial One dock onboard Galactica." Bill offered.

Laura dismissed the idea without bothering to look in his direction. "This isn't going to be just a day or two. You need the space for combat landings."

Bill made another suggestion. "You can stay in my quarters. I'll bunk with Saul."

"I can move into your quarters with the President." Bill had no idea when Tory had arrived.

"I don't want you there." It was the first bit of real resistance that Laura offered.

Bill watched Tory flush. Laura just watched her spot on the wall.

Perhaps realizing what she had just said, Laura tried to temper the sting of her response. "I'll need you on Colonial One to hold down the fort."

Tory gave a slight nod - not that Laura could see it.

Cottle was the one to say it. "Madam President, you know you can't stay alone."

Still eyeing the spot past Cottle, flatly Laura responded. "No, but Saul can."

* * *

Coming out of the head, she hung her suit in the closet before starting to turn the blankets down on the bed.

"You're taking the rack?" he asked surprised.

"Was I supposed to take the couch?" She gave him an odd look before reentering the head to fill a glass with water.

"No, of course not. I wanted you to have the rack I just expected for you to offer some resistance – for there to be some arguing over it before you agreed to take it."

Returning with the glass, she set it down and began to shake out pills from the veritable pharmacy's worth of bottles she had brought with her when moving in earlier in the day. "I'm running a bit short on time these days, Bill, so you'll have to pardon me if I don't bother to go through all the motions on some things."

He tried not to recoil at the bitterness in her tone.

It was still fairly early in the evening. Watching her take off her glasses and place them on the bedside table, he asked. "Heading to bed already?"

He had hoped that they might have a little time to sit and talk – preferably about something other than the fleet or Kara. They hadn't done that since he had told her about his vote in favor of aquitting Baltar.

"I have a treatment scheduled after tomorrow morning's Quorum meeting."

Bill nodded. "Laura, I don't expect things to be easy –"

Turning her back on him, she snorted derisively. "Clearly you've never lived with a person going through doloxan treatments."

As he stepped closer, he extended his hand toward her. "No, I haven't. I just –"

As he made contact with her shoulder, she bristled.

Wanting her to see the emotion in his eyes as he spoke, he turned her to be facing him. "I'm just – I'm glad that you're doing this. That you're here."

He cupped her face in his hands.

Her eyes still held such anger and disgust as they finally met his. "What is it about me being dying that is always such a turn on for you? I have to tell you, Bill it's more than a little disturbing."

"Don't talk like that." He rubbed a thumb over her cheek.

"I don't think so, Bill." He knew she was referring to their on again off again flirtation. It had been going on between them since New Caprica, but it never managed to actually get anywhere. "Bill, I would have thought it obvious, but just to be perfectly clear – that offer is off the table."

She turned her back on him again. "If our staying in your quarters together is going to be a problem for you, tell me. I can have Tory stay here and you can bunk with Saul."

* * *

It was still his shift in the CIC but Bill wanted to check on Laura. He had thought about calling, but he didn't want to disturb her if she was sleeping.

Her guards were outside, but the room was empty. He listened at the door of the head for the telltale sound of one of the doloxan's side effects.

He heard nothing.

"Laura?"

Not getting a response, he knocked on the door. Still not getting a response, he tried the knob. It wouldn't turn.

"Laura!" His knocking would now better be described as pounding. "Laura!"

"I'll be out in a minute." Her voice didn't sound right.

"Open the door."

She took too long to answer. "I said I'd be out in a minute."

"Unlock the damned door." He demanded.

He waited only a moment before calling out to her again. "Laura –"

"- I can't."

"Can't or won't?" he asked.

There was another too long pause before she spoke again. "I came in to splash some water on my face. I got a little dizzy so I sat down. I'm waiting for it to pass."

"How long have you been waiting?"

"I'm fine, Bill. I just need a few minutes."

Her ignoring of the question was answer enough for him. "I'll break it down."

"Good luck with that. Can I be the first to sign your cast when you break your shoulder trying?"

He conceded to the folly of the idea. "I'll get one of the guards standing outside to do it."

"It's not exactly a large bathroom. They're almost guaranteed to hit me with it."

Through the door, she tried to assure him. "Really, Bill, I'm fine."

Frowning, he considered the situation. "I'll get someone in here to take the door off the hinges."

"Don't you dare!" Despite her vehemence, her voice still sounded shaky as she continued talking. "Bill, it doesn't matter who you bring in to do it, if someone comes in here to get the door off it will be on the wireless within the hour. Given the choice of continuing to lie on the floor for the afternoon or spending the whole afternoon in a press conference trying to assure the vultures that I'm not dying this week, I'll take the floor."

When he didn't acquiesce quickly enough for her liking, she changed tact. "Bill please."

Hearing the exhaustion in her voice and knowing that she would force herself to summon the strength to drag herself before a press conference for the afternoon if word got out, he relented.

In a gesture of solidarity, he sat on the floor. Splitting his stare between the clock and the door of the head, every so often he made her talk to assure him she was still conscious.

Her few minutes had turned into an hour.

"Laura, I'm calling maintenance."

Managing to rise on creaky knees from his own position on the floor, he headed to the phone on the wall. He had it in his hand when he heard the click of the lock.

"Go slow. I'm -"

Her words came too late.

"Frak!" He cursed them both for their idiocy as he opened the door into her.

"- right up against the door." She finished.

Trying again, he worked the door open more slowly, pushing her with the door as gently as he could as he did. Finally getting it open enough to slip inside he saw the blood.

"You're bleeding! You told me you were fine!"

"The bleeding stopped a while ago."

"You told me you were fine!" he repeated livid.

"I didn't so much sit down when I got dizzy as I fell." She admitted. "I hit my head on the sink on the way down. I didn't tell you because I knew if I did you would never have waited for me to get the door open on my own."

It was obvious that she was in no position to move on her own. Ignoring the screaming in his back as he did it, he lifted her from the cold floor and carried her to the rack.

She didn't seem to appreciate the effort. "You know that I hate you for this."

"I know." He acknowledged before returning to the head to get a cloth.

Having wiped the blood from her face, he found it to be a fairly minor cut. Head wounds just tended to bleed so much. Still, it could have been much worse. He would need to adjust his shifts to better match up with the times of her treatments.

"Don't ever lock that door again." It came out as more of a plead than a command.

Having overexerted herself with the earlier treatment and her adventures on the floor, her exhaustion was overtaking her fast. "Do you know why I moved in here with you, Bill?"

He knew, but he let her tell him anyway.

"I want you to have to see, Bill. I want you to have to watch as I suffer. I want you to have to suffer with me because this is your fault. It's your fault that I have to go through this. That I don't get to just slip away quietly and painlessly like the last time.

"I want you to be the one to have to pick me up off the floor. The one to have to clean up my vomit. I want you to be there for every grueling treatment, for every humiliating and degrading moment. When the time comes, I want you to be the one to have to change my diaper."

Wondering how much longer it would be there, he let his fingers linger on a strand of her hair as he brushed it out of her face. "Don't keep the door locked. If you really want me to suffer, you have to let me in."

Closing her eyes she offered a sound that might have been a laugh or a cry.

Continuing to stroke her hair, he spoke. He knew that she was already asleep, but maybe some part of her would still hear him.

"No, you don't get to just slip away without a fight this time. There's no giving in. Whatever the cost, this time you've got to fight. You've got to fight the cancer with everything you've got because …"

He had known he would vote to acquit before Lee's passionate speech full of pretty words that hadn't changed the truth of what else Gaius Baltar had done. If nothing more – and Bill was sure that there was more – Gaius Baltar with his mysteriously disappearing nuclear warhead – the warhead that Bill had made the mistake of entrusting him with – was guilty of the deaths of every person aboard Cloud 9 and the other ships destroyed with the warhead's detonation.

He had known how he would vote the moment it became clear where Lee was going in his cross examining of Laura. The moment that Lee had asked if she was taking Chamalla again. He had known how he would vote in the very instant sitting high above her in the jury box that he had made the connection that her cancer had returned.

He had voted to acquit because he needed to make something clear to her in no uncertain terms.

" … I am not to be trusted alone with the fate of humanity. I am just as incapable of making the hard calls as ever. If you want this fleet to get to Earth, you are going to have to stick around to make it happen because without you, with just me in charge, this fleet will go nowhere."

Finis

A/N I know Bill finding out about the return of Laura's cancer while Laura was on the stand goes against the interpretation that most fans hold to - and I myself vacillate - but I think what was actually depicted on screen could go either way. For the purposes of this fic Bill wasn't trying to shut down Lee's questioning to spare Laura the exposure, but rather to spare himself from again learning about her having cancer in such an impersonal way.