Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Caprica City was always up before the sun. By the time a faint wash of light started brushing the skyline, downtown had already slipped into motion. Steam rose from coffee carts, the shuffle of polished shoes echoed off cold pavement, and professionals moved briskly with briefcases in hand. Car horns called out across intersections, half impatient, half habitual. The city never slowed down, not even for mornings.

Twenty floors above it all, in a building lined with glass and gleaming marble, Laura Roslin stood in front of her mirror. She ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it the way someone does when they've already done it twice. Red waves framed her face, not a single strand out of place.

Her reflection met her gaze with focus. She wore a crisp white blouse tucked neatly into a high-waisted black skirt. One thing about Laura Roslin was that she never dressed to draw attention, yet somehow she was never overlooked. A tailored jacket rested on her shoulders, seeming as though it had been made just for her. It fit so precisely it belonged there without question. Her lipstick, a muted berry, was the final touch. She slid on a silver cuff bracelet, minimal and open-ended with two small spheres at the tips. It had once been her mother’s. Laura wore it everywhere, in courtrooms, at interviews, during public panels. A kind of talisman. She adjusted the cuff of her blouse and snapped her leather portfolio shut with a practiced flick.

The office behind her stayed still. A jade plant stood near the window, too healthy-looking to be neglected. A law journal sat closed beside a coffee cup she’d poured but hadn’t touched. It had probably gone cold. Outside, beyond the glass, the city was already stretching into its stride.

Roslin & Associates bore her fingerprints in every corner. Clean architecture, intentional layout. Wide spaces, soft lights. The design reflected a modern vision of the law itself, structured, transparent, forward-looking. Glass walls replaced traditional dividers, creating openness without losing focus. Modern art broke the monotony, adding color and contrast to the weight of legal work. It looked efficient, yes, but it also felt lived in. Order didn’t have to mean austerity. She had built a space where clarity could coexist with warmth, and where precision left room for empathy.

Laura never raised her voice in court. She didn’t have to. Her arguments were sharp enough to cut clean without force. And when she went quiet, people listened. “Authority,” she had once told an intern at the firm, “doesn’t require volume.” It wasn’t a lesson. It was a truth.

A knock at the door broke the silence. “Morning,” Lee Adama said, stepping into the doorway with a folder in hand. His charcoal suit was impeccable, the cut precise, the tie centered with almost irritating perfection. The way he dressed said everything about the professional Lee was. He never forgot a detail, never missed a deadline, never misplaced a document. And he definitely never showed up rattled. Never.

Laura turned slightly, catching his reflection in the mirror before facing him fully. “Everything ready?”

“All under control,” he replied. “They bumped the panel up by fifteen.”

She sighed, not exactly annoyed, more out of habit than anything else, and reached for her briefcase. “Of course they did.”

They moved through the hallway in quiet sync. Her heels clicked steadily against the marble floor, Lee’s steps falling into rhythm beside her. Behind glass walls, paralegals were already at their desks, hunched over screens, lit by the early glow of task lamps. Somewhere down the hall, the scent of espresso drifted faintly from the kitchen.

“I heard your father’s going to be the final speaker,” Laura said, adjusting the strap of her bag as they neared the elevator.

Lee pressed the call button, his jaw tightening just slightly. “So did I,” he answered.

She glanced sideways. “That going to be a problem?” she asked. Laura wasn’t being rude, she was simply expressing a hint of curiosity. Or perhaps, just beneath the surface, concern. He didn’t answer right away.

“For him, maybe,” he said at last, eyes fixed forward. “I’ve already made my choice.”

He didn’t explain and didn’t have to. The whole legal community knew what had gone down. Lee Adama had turned down a partnership at his father’s firm, a legacy built over decades, a fast-track seat practically carved out for him, and instead had chosen Roslin. It hadn’t been reckless. It had been intentional. Years of tension, mismatched values, courtroom disagreements that ended in cold silences. Bill Adama saw litigation as war. Lee preferred precision, conciliation, strategy. They were too alike in drive, too different in execution.

Some chalked it up to rebellion. Others saw it as survival. The truth was that Lee and Bill weren’t estranged. They still spoke, occasionally even agreed, but theirs had always been a difficult relationship, full of unspoken friction. If they had tried to work together, it would have ended badly. This way, there was still space for some version of a father and son.

Laura had never asked for loyalty. But he gave it anyway.

When other firms backed away from the Adama name, not because they doubted Lee but because no one wanted to risk provoking Bill, Laura had noticed. She had heard the whispers, how Lee, as sharp and polished as he was, couldn’t find a door open wide enough. So she reached out. Not out of generosity. Not at first. She had done it to make a point. The point was simple and tacitly cutting. Your son chose me . She wanted Bill to see it, to sit in a courtroom and realize that the person walking in beside her was the one person he thought he had already claimed. It was a move, part of a longer game of provocation that Laura rarely admitted she was playing.

And then Lee surprised her. He was focused. Unshakable. Smarter than most and less interested in proving it. Within weeks, he’d become more than just another associate. He was the one she trusted when the stakes were highest. Her second set of eyes. The one voice in the room that never needed raising.

She looked at him for a moment longer than usual, searching for something unspoken. Then she allowed herself the faintest smile, just at the corner of her mouth. It was a restrained smile, to be sure, but there was an unmistakable trace of pride in it.

The elevator chimed softly. They stepped inside, side by side, as the doors closed behind them. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was lived-in, shaped by shared routines and mutual understanding. It was a silence built between two people who knew exactly when to speak and when to stay silent, complicit in its own way.

On the other side of the city, the morning started with less ceremony.

Bill Adama wasn’t one for rituals, not like Roslin. No curated stillness. No polished marble or sweeping windows to usher in the day. His corner office, perched on the thirty-fourth floor of one of Caprica City’s oldest legal buildings, carried a different kind of presence. It wasn’t modern, but it wasn’t outdated either. The space was confident. Unapologetic. Solid.

Adama & Associates had been founded by his father, Joseph Adama. Over the decades, the firm had become a cornerstone of traditional law practice in Caprica. It didn’t market itself as progressive or gentle. It was known for being relentless, methodical, and built for litigation. Compromise wasn’t the first move. Winning was.

Dark wood filled the room, its surfaces gleaming under years of careful upkeep. Shelves of leather-bound volumes lined the walls, alongside framed verdicts from cases that still got cited in legal journals. A tall window let in a muted wash of morning light through half-drawn blinds, softening the space without making it feel any less weighted.

The air smelled of strong coffee and dry paper, quiet but saturated with history. It was not a stiff environment, only one that refused to bend.

“Morning, boss,” Kara Thrace said, walking in with a to-go cup in one hand and a tablet in the other. Her suit was dark and sharply cut, sending a clear message that she meant business. Her blouse was neatly tucked, though slightly wrinkled at the elbows. Typical Kara, always convinced she had more important things to do than ironing. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. Practical. No-nonsense. And just by looking at her, Bill knew she’d already caused trouble before most people had finished their first cup of coffee.

“You’re late,” Bill noted, not looking up from the paperwork in front of him.

“I’m early, depending on your time zone,” she shot back, dropping the tablet onto his desk. “Today’s schedule. Roslin opens the day and you’re closing it. So congrats, you’ll get to hear her talk about alternative dispute resolution before taking the mic yourself.”

Bill still didn’t look up. “Lucky me,” he grumbled, setting his pen down with a little more force than necessary. He reached for his mug, the same lukewarm office coffee he’d poured himself at dawn. Maybe it’d buffer him against the inevitable sound of Laura Roslin’s voice filling a conference hall.

Kara’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and a slow grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Lee Roslin already confirmed her side,” she said, sliding the phone back into her pocket. Kara had been nursing a small running joke since Lee started working with Laura, a teasing habit of calling him Lee Roslin. The name seemed to settle on him on its own. There was something almost provocative in her eyes when she looked at Bill.

Bill sighed. “Remind me again why I hired you.” He was already regretting the question the moment it left his mouth.

“Because I’m the only one who doesn’t kiss your ass,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “And because I don’t flinch when you scowl. Which you’re doing right now, by the way.”

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly through his nose. “Of all the family lawyers in Caprica, why does it always have to be Roslin?”

Kara didn’t miss a beat. “Because she’s better than the rest. And because it drives you crazy that she knows it.”

She tossed her empty cup into the bin near the door. Her smirk stayed in place, but her words had teeth. They wouldn’t draw blood, but they’d poke just enough for Bill to feel a slight sting. She crossed her arms loosely, watching him, daring him to deny it. He didn’t. His silence was all the answer she needed.

Bill let out a low grunt and pushed back from his desk. The chair creaked under him as he stood, reaching for his suit jacket and slinging it over one arm. He gave the tablet Kara had dropped a quick glance, then looked at the clock on the wall.

Kara was already halfway to the door, phone in one hand, thumb tapping out a message while the other adjusted the strap of her bag.

“We should leave in five,” she said. “Want me to brief you on the moderator on the way, or are you planning to scowl in silence the whole ride?”

Bill gave a small grunt and reached for his keys. “Let’s just get this over with.”

He had no love for academic panels. To him, they were all performance, opinions tossed into the air by people more interested in showing off than in learning, rarely landing anywhere useful. Still, he knew how the game worked. Visibility mattered. So did presence. And being invited to speak wasn’t just formality, it was recognition. Proof that, for better or worse, his voice still held weight in a room full of lawyers who liked to hear themselves talk.

So he went. Because reputation demanded it. Because sometimes leadership meant showing up for things you’d rather skip. And because the name Adama, even now, still turned heads.

Kara didn’t look up from her phone. “There’s that warm Adama charm.”

They walked out together, their footsteps even and unhurried on the dark hardwood floor. Behind them, the office door clicked shut, leaving the room exactly as they’d left it, still, ordered, waiting.

The drive downtown dragged. Not quite gridlock, but that slow, aggravating crawl Caprica mornings were famous for, with too many cars, not enough space, and just enough hesitation at every intersection to make the minutes feel longer than they were. Bill, usually calm behind the wheel, could feel the time pressing between his shoulders. He hated being late.

It wasn’t that he was dying to hear Laura Roslin lecture on divorce law. But walking in after it had already begun? That rankled. Being late wasn’t just a break in routine, it was a lapse in control. And Bill Adama didn’t do lapses.

By the time they reached the Caprica Legal Forum and made it through the crowd in the lobby, the first panel was already underway.

Inside the auditorium, a hush had settled. It was a sign that someone important was already speaking. A banner stretched across the stage backdrop: Caprica Legal Forum: Family Law in Transition. Off to the side, the moderator stood half in shadow, forgotten for the moment, while Laura Roslin took center stage with a wireless mic in hand and the unmistakable calm of someone fully at home in the spotlight.

Kara led them down the right aisle, walking that perfect line, fast enough not to interrupt, slow enough that Bill could keep up without looking like he was chasing her. They slid into two empty seats near the front, not far from where Lee sat a few chairs down beside Laura’s vacant seat. Lee glanced their way, caught Kara’s eye, and gave a small grin, part smirk, part silent commentary. She returned it without missing a beat.

Laura didn’t pause. Her voice carried steadily through the room, paced and intentional. She was midway through a presentation on handling volatile divorces without dragging the mess into a courtroom.

At first, Bill kept his eyes on the program in his lap, scanning the speaker list with measured focus. Anything to avoid looking at her. But his focus started to slip. Her voice had a way of pulling people in, clear, composed, with just enough edge to give even procedural language some weight. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. The room came to her. Without meaning to, he was listening.

She stood behind the podium, poised. One hand gestured lightly, the other holding a slim digital pointer. Her jacket fit clean, seams flat and sleeves ending at the wrist bone. Posture straight. Expression unreadable. She didn’t demand attention, she just held it. Effortlessly.

Of course she was already speaking. Of course she was on time. In control. She always was. Always knew exactly how to shape a room around her. Bill could admit, though only to himself, that she was a damn good speaker. So good that others tried to imitate her without really understanding why they couldn’t. She had something they didn’t. A way of making herself present that few people ever managed. She could run a workshop on courtroom command and half the bar would pay for it. He wouldn’t say that to her face, or to anyone else, for that matter.

His eyes stayed on her longer than they should have. The spotlight caught the red in her hair, softened the angles of her face, made her eyes look deeper, greener. It wasn’t fair, really. That someone could look like that while talking about divorce law. He shifted in his chair, cleared his throat, and tried not to think about how someone could make a talk on divorce mediation feel like a slow seduction. It irritated him. Her poise. The spotlight. The overly soft seat cushion. All of it.

She didn’t glance his way. Not directly. But there was a barely visible shift in the set of her shoulders, a pause that didn’t quite break the flow, just altered it. The rhythm of her delivery shifted by a breath, enough to suggest she’d registered his arrival. If anything, it felt expected.

Of course he’s late, she thought. Especially when it’s my panel. Still, the words kept coming, unbroken.

For all the rivalry they had carefully cultivated over the years, one truth had never changed. Neither of them ever missed a cue. Not in court. Not on stage. Not in war.

"... and in conclusion," Laura said, her voice as composed as ever as she returned the digital pointer to the podium, "resolution without litigation isn’t just possible. It’s preferable. Not always easy. Rarely clean. But often necessary."

A brief silence settled over the room before applause began to spread, hushed at first, then more certain. She nodded once, stepped back from the podium, and let herself exhale. She didn’t seek attention, but she valued the chance to share what she’d learned. Teaching, in its own subtle way, was still a form of advocacy.

“Thank you,” she offered to the audience, her tone even. Then she turned, walked toward the moderator, and offered him the mic. “And thank you,” she added, the words measured, the transition clean.

She had already taken one step toward the stairs when the moderator’s voice cut back in through the sound system, far too bright.

“If I could ask everyone to stay seated just a few more minutes,” he said, brimming with enthusiasm, “we have a rare opportunity today. Two of the most respected voices in family law, right here, together. I think we can all agree it’s worth a few extra minutes.” He turned toward the wings. “Ms. Roslin, if you’d stay onstage. Mr. Adama, would you join her?”

A low hum spread through the crowd. Laura froze. Bill’s jaw tensed. From his seat, he shot Kara a look that said everything. She only shrugged, visibly enjoying herself. Laura caught Lee’s eye. He gave her nothing but a mild brow raise and a small shake of his head. It was clear he was more surprised than she was.

Neither of them moved at first. But leaving now would make better gossip than whatever came next. And neither of them was willing to give the room that satisfaction.

Laura turned back to center stage, posture composed. She wasn’t in a hurry, nor was she unsettled. She was determined not to let her discomfort show, ready to face the mess ahead with as much poise as she could manage. Bill stood, adjusted his jacket, and made his way forward with the calm of a man preparing for a hostile witness.

They met at the center. Laura extended her hand first. The smile on her face was controlled, polished. Bill took her hand without hesitation, his smile just as smooth. As their hands touched, she leaned in a fraction, speaking softly.

“Try not to scowl through the whole thing.” Her tone was almost pleasant, but there was a sharpness behind the words, honed by years of verbal sparring.

It wasn’t just teasing. It was calculated, precise, meant to land right where it would irritate him most. A reminder that she saw him clearly, and knew exactly how to needle him without ever raising her voice or breaking her smile. No one else could hear her. Just him.

“Try not to sound like you’re grading papers,” he murmured back, his voice low, clipped. Their smiles didn’t budge.

Two chairs waited for them at the center of the stage, angled slightly inward, with a third between them for the moderator. As they sat, a technician moved quickly, clipping mics onto their jackets without ceremony. Neither Laura nor Bill reacted beyond a small, automatic nod. Across from them, the moderator shifted in his chair, mic in hand, still grinning.

Laura crossed one leg over the other and rested her hands lightly on her knee. Her fingers laced together, still. Composed. Not passive. Never that. Bill leaned back just enough to appear comfortable, arms resting along the armrests, tension hidden beneath practiced ease.

The moderator beamed, visibly pleased with himself. “All right,” he said, mic raised. “Let’s talk about mediation in divorce. Real cases. Real families. And very real differences in approach.”

Laura’s mouth lifted at one corner. A gesture too small to be called a smile, but it was something.

“Mediation,” she began, “especially in high-conflict divorce cases, isn’t about rushing people to the finish line. It’s about giving them space to be heard. You’re dealing with people whose lives are coming apart. They don’t need pressure. They need clarity. Someone who’s willing to listen, even if it takes hearing the same thing more than once.”

Bill leaned in a little, his body language non-confrontational. It was just a signal that he wasn’t going to let that slide. He spoke evenly, his tone firm. “Listening matters, sure. But clients don’t come to us just to be comforted. They want action. They want results. Mediation works, but not when it turns into an endless loop of emotional processing. At some point, you need strategy. You need to move. Clients deserve someone willing to fight for them.”

Laura didn’t turn to him. Her tone stayed level, cooling by a few degrees. “Of course. Strength. Fighting. Results.” She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them slowly. “Funny how those words show up most when a man’s dragging his ex through every procedural loophole he can find, just to make a point. Strategy starts looking a lot like punishment when the person asking to leave is a woman.”

A subtle wave passed through the room. Quiet murmurs and soft sighs became audible in the stillness. A shift in attention. A tension just beneath the surface.

Kara raised an eyebrow and glanced at Lee. He didn’t move much, but his arms were crossed and his jaw was set. A second later, his phone buzzed. Kara’s lit up almost immediately. She glanced down, smirked, and typed something back. Whatever they were saying stayed silent, but the moment wasn’t invisible. They both felt it. The room had changed.

Bill didn’t blink, he held Laura’s gaze. “This isn’t about gender,” he said. “It’s about leverage. About outcomes. And you know that.”

Laura’s smile appeared, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her fingers tightened briefly around the armrest before she let them go. “Do I?”

Scattered movement in the crowd. Heads turned, glances exchanged. Someone near the back leaned toward her neighbor and whispered. Another began jotting down notes, convinced Laura and Bill had just revealed some major legal loophole rather than simply trading barbs. It was dense with tension. People weren’t just listening anymore. They were choosing sides.

Bill leaned forward again, elbows brushing the sides of the chair. His tone remained steady. However, he wasn’t fooling anyone. There was a roughness in it. “I’ve seen just as many women go after blood as men. Pain isn’t gendered. Hurt doesn’t discriminate. And neither does spite.”

Laura didn’t flinch. Her voice was calm, almost gentle, but the steel was there. “No. But access to power usually does.”

They didn’t look away. Didn’t blink. And in the hush that followed, it was clear the panel wasn’t what held the room. It was them.

They came from different worlds. Laura had grown up in Caprica City, surrounded by glass towers and expectations framed in polished professionalism. She was the daughter of teachers, raised in a home full of books and dinner-table debates. Public school, scholarships, every step up a contest she refused to lose. Nothing was handed to her. Everything was earned. And she had done it all as a woman moving through a world that rarely made room for women like her.

Bill’s beginning was different. Born in Tauron in a two-room flat above a butcher shop, he moved to Caprica at ten and learned early how to read a room, how to speak when it mattered and stay silent when it didn’t. His father built a legacy brick by brick, and when Bill inherited the firm, he inherited that name and its weight too. He’d gone to the best schools, worn crisp uniforms, absorbed expectations that were never explained, just presumed. And unlike Laura, who had to fight her way in, Bill had always been expected to belong. The pressure wasn’t to gain entry. It was to uphold the legacy.

Laura believed in the Lords of Kobol. She lit candles in temples, marked feast days with reverence. Bill, on the other hand, trusted what could be seen, examined, questioned. Faith for her was structure. For him, superstition.

Now, under the stage lights, they sat across from each other, two once-divergent lives meeting in stark contrast. Equal in force, opposite in meaning.

The moderator gave a nervous chuckle and shifted between them, weighing his next move. “Well, I think that’s all the time we have,” he said, voice a little too bright for the tension in the air. The audience exhaled as one, part relief, part disappointment. “Let’s thank our panelists for their… candid perspectives.”

He gestured toward them, carefully masked behind a practiced smile. The applause followed. Polite, uneven, more curious than warm.

Laura blinked and straightened her skirt, rising with the poise of someone who never forgot she was being watched. Bill stood a beat later, his face unreadable. They didn’t meet eyes. They didn’t need to.

Applause faded unevenly, giving way to the shuffling of feet and the low hum of conversation. Some attendees stretched discreetly, others drifted into loose clusters as they made their way toward the lobby for the scheduled break. The atmosphere didn’t buzz with excitement. It crackled with speculation. Heads leaned together, voices dropped to a murmur, eyes flicked toward the stage and back again. The conversation wasn’t about legal insight. It was about what had just unfolded. About the ripple the panel had left behind.

A technician reappeared and unclipped their mics. Laura remained still, chin level, gaze ahead. Bill did the same. Neither spoke. As the technician stepped away, their eyes met, just for a heartbeat. Cool, but with sparks beneath. A challenge, unspoken but understood.

Laura stepped off the stage with purposeful steps, the tap of her heels echoing faintly against the stairwell. She carried the calm of someone who had walked away from far harsher rooms, her composure untouched by scrutiny. Shoulders straight, chin lifted, every detail under control. She didn’t look toward the opposite staircase, but she felt his presence. Bill Adama, descending in tandem. Separate stairs. Shared silence.

The lobby had already come alive. Voices rose over the low clatter of spoons, the hiss of espresso machines working overtime. Laura made her way through the crowd, at ease beneath a hundred brief glances. Her expression was unreadable. Every movement, intentional.

She told herself it wasn’t a misstep. That nothing on that stage had slipped past control. Every word had weight, purpose, principle. But still, her pulse hadn’t fully settled. Beneath the polished exit, something restless lingered. Not because she’d lost her grip. She hadn’t. But because he’d gotten under her skin. Again. And she hated that most of all.

Lee stood near the refreshment table, one foot crossed over the other, holding two paper cups. His stance was casual. But the tension was there. In his shoulders, his jaw, the way his gaze locked on one of the lids. Even his slightly loosened tie gave him away.

She took the coffee he handed her, wrapped both hands around it, breathed in the steam to steady herself.

“So,” she said, the faintest trace of dry humor tucked behind the question, “how bad was it?”

Lee took a beat. “It was... intense.” He let the word settle, exhaling slowly, weighing each word that came next. Then he looked at her. Steady, with a hairline crack in his calm. He took a sip.

Laura tilted her head. One brow arched, subtle. “That bad?”

This time he didn’t pause. “Well, you more or less accused him of turning litigation into a weapon. Specifically against women. It landed.”

She blinked. Once. Then she let out a breath. “Frak.”

She lifted the cup but didn’t drink. Her eyes landed on two junior associates whispering by the espresso cart. Too young to hide their curiosity, and definitely watching her.

“I thought I was being restrained,” she said, not defensive, but with a disbelief she kept small, the one that comes when a moment feels less contained than it should’ve been.

“You were,” Lee said. His eyes didn’t leave the crowd. “That was the restrained version.”

Laura let out a breath, long and quiet. It left a trace of regret on its way out. “How long do you think before someone clips it and sends it to the InterColony Legal Network?”

Lee didn’t answer right away. His gaze shifted to a screen nearby, still frozen on a wide shot of the stage. Laura mid-sentence, Bill leaning forward. It looked less like a legal panel and more like a headline in motion.

“The ILN broadcasts to all Twelve Colonies,” he said. “Someone’s already clipping it.”

Laura didn’t respond. She took a sip, eyes still on the screen, then looked away, letting the coffee calm her.

On the far side of the lobby, Bill Adama stood at the edge of the crowd, posture steady, eyes scanning with practiced detachment. The buzz of conversation and the clink of ceramic cups filled the air, but he didn’t move. He remained still, a fixed point in the current.

Kara waited by a marble column a few steps away, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Tablet tucked under her elbow, arms folded, she wore a smirk that said she’d replayed the scene in her head twice over.

“I hate to say it,” she began as he approached, voice bright with mock sympathy, “but she absolutely wrecked you up there, old man.”

Bill didn’t look at her. His gaze drifted to a vague spot across the room where he could just catch a glimpse of Laura talking with Lee. His jaw shifted, the only sign the words had landed.

“She got her shots in,” he muttered, voice low and even.

Kara raised one brow, mockery shading into admiration. “Shots? That was a frakking full assault.” Her lips curled into a grin she didn’t bother hiding. “She hit you with gender politics before the moderator even caught his breath.”

The corner of Bill’s mouth twitched, ambiguous. The remark had landed, and he kept the admission to himself. “I’d just like to know how, in a panel about mediation, I ended up cast as the vindictive misogynist,” he said. His voice was dry. The smallest creases had formed between his brows, barely visible, but there. A subtle tell.

He wasn’t one. He’d worked with brilliant women, trained associates. Most of them were sharper than the men around them. There were women at his own firm now who, on a good day, could probably outmatch him in court. Yet the accusation stung. Maybe because it came from Laura. Maybe because a part of him resented her believing it.

“I’m not a misogynist. Am I?” he asked, voice still low, but carrying the weight of doubt he rarely admitted.

Kara studied him for a moment, amusement and a flicker of mild exasperation in her eyes. She’d always known Laura could get under his skin, and nobody else ever did. Bill rarely doubted himself. Yet with just a few words, she’d managed to do exactly that. Then Kara gave a softer smile. Not her usual grin, but something more knowing.

“No,” she said finally, her tone measured, almost verdict-like. “You’re just a grumpy old man who likes to argue with one very smart redheaded woman. But misogynist? Nah.” She lifted her coffee for a sip, eyebrow quirked. “Oh, and by the way,” Kara added casually, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “did I forget to mention this panel was streamed live?”

Bill didn’t move at first. Then he let out a sharp exhale, nostrils flaring. “Frak.”

Amid the low hum of overlapping conversations, Laura stood beside Lee. They both carried themselves with a kind of professional ease, polite and composed, though quietly guarded. They were making small talk with two senior attorneys from Picon as the conversation circled around procedural reforms. It was familiar territory. Even so, her focus had started to drift, her smile a little distant and her replies a beat late.

Then, a voice she knew all too well cut clean through the noise. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Billy was approaching, moving with that particular brand of urgency that never looked rushed, only insistent. A tablet in one hand, his leather satchel slung securely over one shoulder, he had the air of someone who’d been holding a piece of news longer than he was comfortable with.

Billy wasn’t a lawyer, nor did he pretend to be. He was Laura’s right hand, her personal assistant, the one who kept her calendar in check and brought order to the daily chaos. He handled calls, sidestepped the press, and reminded her to eat when she forgot. More than anything, his loyalty ran deep. He never had to say it out loud. He was simply there, always. Calm. Constant. Reliable. Protective.

Laura turned to face him, and Lee followed her lead. She offered the attorneys a courteous nod. “Will you excuse us?”

The men smiled and stepped away, already sliding into another conversation nearby. Billy moved in closer.

“So,” he began in a low voice, “an actress from Caprica reached out. Big name. Her publicist made contact after seeing the panel clips. She wants to talk. About a collaborative divorce.”

Laura’s eyes narrowed, not suspicious, but curious. “Who?”

Billy swiped across his tablet and angled it toward her. The headline was already trending across major feeds, sitting just above a polished photo of Caprica Six and a more candid shot of her soon-to-be-ex beside a high-end spacecraft.

Laura’s eyes flicked across the text. “Six and Baltar Announce Amicable Split. Sources Say Top Lawyers Already Involved.”

Lee leaned in slightly to read over her shoulder. His brow furrowed just a bit, but it was enough. The headline had weight. “This is going to blow up,” he muttered.

Laura didn’t smile, but something in her expression changed slightly. There was a flicker of insight, maybe even a hint of satisfaction. She inhaled slowly. “Good,” she said.

She looked back at the tablet. Caprica Six, resplendent in diamonds and flawless makeup, gazed out from beneath the headline. Beside her stood Baltar, full of charm and camera-ready confidence, his arm wrapped around her waist as they posed on the red carpet. Both held the light, diamonds sparking, smiles set, posture immaculate.

Laura scrolled. About halfway down, another photo appeared. It was less glossy and more candid. A grainy paparazzi shot showed the two of them outside a Caprican café, mid-argument. Her hands moved expressively while his mouth was set in a tight line, his gaze turned slightly away. The caption didn’t matter. The tension spoke for itself.

They weren’t just divorcing. They were doing it under a spotlight. And now, they were offering Laura the chance to direct the next scene. Her mind sharpened. Fast connections, calculated conclusions.

“This kind of press is a gift,” she said, her tone gaining purpose. “We take this case, manage it right, and we don’t just show we’re capable. We show control. Civility. Integrity. That’s exactly the image Roslin & Associates needs to project. It’s not just about legal skill. It’s about narrative. And this one? It’s ours to shape.”

She didn’t need to elaborate. Lee understood. In their line of work, reputation wasn’t just a bonus. It was leverage. And this case could buy them months, maybe even years, of it.

Turning fully to Billy, her stance grounded, she gave the only next step that mattered. “Set a meeting with her. Tomorrow morning. I want to hear directly from her.”

Billy nodded, but hesitated. Not quite done. He paused just long enough to make both Laura and Lee glance up again.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, his voice dropping slightly. “Baltar’s already announced his legal team. He made a statement earlier today.”

Laura’s eyes locked on his. “Who?” she asked, each syllable clipped, expectant.

Billy didn’t respond right away. Instead, he gave the slightest tilt of his head and gestured subtly toward the far side of the room. Laura followed his gaze.

On the far side of the lobby, beyond scattered clusters of guests lingering over coffee and pastries, Bill Adama stood with Kara Thrace and Dualla. Kara, as usual, looked unfazed. She had one hand shoved into her pocket while she muttered something under her breath. Dualla, ever composed and razor-focused, held out a phone for Bill to read. She exuded competence, every gesture efficient and precise. If Billy was the empathetic anchor behind Laura, Dualla was the sharp-edged mirror behind Bill. Cool. Tactical. Impeccably professional.

Bill’s face revealed nothing. His features were set in the same firm lines he carried into a courtroom, controlled and unreadable. He held himself motionless. It was plain he already understood the stakes.

Then, without prompt, he looked up. His gaze cut through the crowd and landed on Laura with uncanny precision. In that instant, she realized he already knew. He had figured it out before anything was said. She would be the one representing Six.

The room didn’t fall silent, but it might as well have. The hum of conversation, the soft clink of ceramic and silver, all seemed to recede. Laura didn’t flinch. She didn’t adjust her stance or soften her expression. And neither did he.

They locked eyes, unmoving, for three or four long seconds. Long enough for something unspoken to settle between them. It wasn’t recognition. It wasn’t admiration. It was a boundary being drawn.

Whatever had passed between them on that stage wasn’t over. That had just been the opening statement. And in that quiet exchange, with no words spoken, the message was unmistakable. The fight had just begun.

Chapter Text

Caprica Six didn’t wait in the lobby like most clients.  She wasn’t the type to sit rigidly on the edge of a velvet chair or fidget with her phone to fill the silence. By the time Laura stepped into the private conference room at Roslin & Associates, Six was already there, standing by the window, framed in the soft hush of morning light. Her reflection lingered on the glass, a frame pulled straight from a campaign shoot, perfectly composed and eerily motionless.

Laura shut the door behind her without rush. Her heels echoed once on the marble, then silence. “Ms. Six.”

The woman turned smoothly, all composure and control. Every detail calibrated. Her ivory blouse dipped low but never crass, flattering without seeming to ask for attention. The handbag was exactly where it needed to be, aligned with purpose, and her lipstick, a quiet rose, flattered more than it announced.

She was, in a word, arresting. Even more so than the glossy versions of her that flickered across magazine spreads or the silver screen. Most clients walked in bearing the mess of unraveling lives, visible in tear-swollen eyes and the dazed air of sleepless nights. But not her. There were no signs of collapse, no tremble, no cracks.

Laura thought, briefly, of another woman whose hands had shaken so badly she couldn’t even grip the pen to sign her name. That memory flashed, then disappeared. This wasn’t that.

“I saw your press release,” Laura said, voice even as she crossed the room. “I imagine just about everyone has by now.”

She didn’t need to spell it out. The morning’s joint statement from Six and Baltar had already blitzed through every media channel, from highbrow law briefs to the most speculative gossip sites across the Twelve Colonies. The message was immaculately crafted, a PR move dressed in elegance that described their separation as amicable and placed it neatly in the public eye.

Six didn’t smile, but something shifted in her gaze. On the contrary, her expression showed no weakness and seemed built from nothing but certainty.

Laura gestured toward the opposite chair. “Please.”

They sat together, just the two of them. No assistants hovered nearby, no publicists chimed in with opinions. It was Laura and Six alone. Somehow the room felt both too large for such a sparse meeting and too small to contain the force of the women inside it.

Laura had a rule when it came to first meetings. They were always private. Not because of secrecy, although that certainly helped, but because people needed room to breathe. A space where they didn’t feel the pressure to perform. Especially women. Too many of them arrived already armored, bracing for judgment. They carried burdens handed to them over time, guilt they hadn’t earned, shame shaped by sideways comments and cold expectations. It was remarkable, really, how often the narrative of a failed marriage was placed on their shoulders. Not forgiving enough, not patient enough, not anything enough.

She’d sat across from more clients than she could count who lowered their voices when they spoke of their marriages unraveling, as if pain required permission. That’s why she met them like this. Alone. Always. A signal that this space didn’t ask for apologies.

And now here was Caprica Six. Perfect posture, controlled breath, every edge smoothed. If she was carrying any weight at all, she concealed it with the practiced control of someone used to managing a public image.

“I want to do this quietly,” Six said. Her voice, like the rest of her, was measured. “No court filings. No accusations. No wreckage. We both know how fast that kind of thing spirals. I’m not interested in playing the victim.”

Laura watched her. The modulation of her tone, the choreography of restraint. This wasn’t just media management. It was survival, refined into elegance. She gave a single nod, offering no questions, no interruptions. She knew better than to offer comfort too soon. Some people needed time before they dropped the performance and let the truth breathe.

“He’s agreed to a collaborative divorce,” Six continued. Her eyes stayed locked, steady. “For now. But don’t confuse that with generosity. I know him.” Her jaw flickered slightly, just enough to betray what the rest of her refused to show. “He’ll play nice for the press while planting just enough poison to flip the story. It’s what he does. Acts surprised by the fire while holding the match.”

Laura had met that type. Men who used charm as a means to dominate and believed immunity came with attention. Baltar didn’t strike her as a man driven by values. He struck her as a man driven by headlines, by the sound of his own name echoing in public spaces. Laura didn’t need the details of their private life to believe Six. Some men reveal themselves just fine in plain sight.

Laura’s gaze tightened, focus drawing in. She rested her hands on the table with careful precision. Her voice kept low, the words exact. “We can manage that,” she said. “I’ll make sure it stays contained.”

Six nodded slightly, the edge of amusement in her expression almost imperceptible. “You don’t have to. I’ve already brought in a PR firm. Full crisis package. Media strategy, image control, contingency plans. The whole thing is covered.”

Laura’s expression shifted, just a shade. Curiosity, or something near it. A small tilt of the head, a crease forming between her brows. She hadn’t expected pushback. And definitely not this level of forethought. This wasn’t someone asking for help. It was a controlled reveal. And suddenly, Laura realized she wasn’t yet sure what, exactly, Six was preparing her for.

“That’s not why I’m telling you,” Six continued. Her voice dropped a note, smoothing out into something quieter, less rehearsed. “I want you to understand what you’re stepping into before you say yes.” She paused so the next words could land clean. “He won’t just come after me. He’ll target anyone near me. That includes you.”

Laura didn’t speak right away. Instead, she leaned back a little, lifted her chin, her posture unshaken. Her eyes held steady. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, but there was steel in it. Steel that wouldn’t bend to threats.

“It’s been a long time since I was afraid of any man,” she said. “And it won’t be Gaius Baltar who changes that.”

Something flickered in Six. It wasn’t one of her polished, public smiles. It was smaller, sharper. Honest. A smile that arrived before Laura could register it, curling faintly at one corner of her mouth.

“That’s why I hired you,” Six affirmed.

Laura’s lips pulled into a similar motion. Not quite a smile. More like recognition.

The hush that settled between them wasn’t awkward. It was full. A shared understanding, unspoken and firm. A silence that fixed the order of play. The first move was coming.

Meanwhile, in a different part of the city, in an office carved from darker wood and sharper lines, one with little patience for comfort or charm, another piece of the game was already moving.

The door opened without warning. Gaius Baltar didn’t knock. Of course he didn’t. He walked in with ease born of a lifetime of ignoring boundaries, or pretending they didn’t apply to him. His entrance was smooth, maybe even a little too practiced. Every step, the slight flare of his coat, the lift of his chin, it all felt performed.

The suit he wore looked fresh off a Caprican runway. Midnight navy, sharp in the shoulders, perfectly cut. His tie hung just loose enough to suggest casual elegance, or at least the illusion of it.

Bill Adama stood by the window, half-turned from the room, a legal brief dangling loosely in one hand. He wasn’t reading it anymore, he hadn’t been for a while. This was routine, a bit of mental framing before sitting down with someone who always warranted a second look.

“Mr. Adama,” Baltar said, voice smooth, all theater, pretending this was an old friends reunion, not a negotiation.

There was no reply at first. Nothing but the slow rustle of paper folded and set aside. Bill turned only after his hands were free, his movements minimal, unbothered.

“Baltar.” Flat. Even. Not cold, exactly, but stripped of anything resembling warmth.

Baltar made his way to the chair across from the desk and sat without waiting for permission. One leg crossed over the other, posture loose, confident. His smile hovered just above polite, not quite smug, but certainly headed in that direction.

Bill exhaled. A soft release loosened the tension before it could sink too deep. He rounded the desk and took his seat, each movement grounded, unfazed.

He didn’t like Gaius Baltar. It wasn’t merely the arrogance. That was part of it. The carefully engineered charm, the constant tilt toward performance. But deeper than that, it was the calculation. Everything he did felt constructed, designed to provoke a reaction. Bill had little tolerance for theater, especially when it wore the mask of sincerity.

But clients weren’t his to choose. His father had made that clear a long time ago. They come to you. And when they do, you serve the case. Not the personality.

So he settled in, face unreadable, waiting to see which version of the truth Baltar had brought today. Baltar adjusted his sleeve cuff, a camera-ready reflex doing the work even with no lens in the room. His eyes took a quick scan of the room before landing back on Bill.

“You’ve read the statement, I assume,” he said. “Clean. Civil. Even a touch poetic.” He added it wryly, playing for a laugh. “Could’ve passed for a diplomatic farewell.”

Bill, unamused, didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t move at all, really. His stare held steady, making the silence feel heavier than it had any right to be. A faint tightening along his jaw, restraint pressed under the skin. Stillness that said, I’ve seen your type. And I’m not impressed.

“I meant every word, of course,” Baltar went on, settling further into the chair. “We made it look graceful. Respectful. But people don’t want grace, do they? They want conflict. A little spark under all that polished civility.”

Bill’s cheek twitched, no more than a hint. Already, Baltar was wearing thin. “If you’re here to ask me to fan that flame,” he said, “you’re wasting your time.”

Baltar gave a soft chuckle that tried to pass for charm and ended up nearer to condescension. “Nothing that crude. I’m playing nice. Collaboration and all.”

But Bill saw it. In the flicker of his smile, in the fingers tapping against the chair’s armrest, already composing a rhythm no one else could hear. Baltar hadn’t signed the agreement yet, but he would. And he’d still twist the knife. He didn’t want closure. He wanted attention. Applause. A spectacle. If dragging Six’s name through the media served that, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Bill leaned forward slightly, forearms on the desk, gaze steady. “Let’s get something straight.” His voice was level, unwavering. “I don’t traffic in leaks. I don’t play games in the tabloids. And I don’t tear down women to feed someone’s spotlight addiction.”

Baltar raised an eyebrow, feigning offense. “You think I would?”

“I think you already did,” Bill replied simply.

A pause settled between them. Baltar smiled again, though it barely touched his eyes. He sat up straighter, tugged lightly at his coat, then tilted his head with studied nonchalance. “I’m hiring you for a divorce, Mr. Adama. The publicity is just... collateral.”

Bill didn’t so much as blink. “Let your PR team handle the show. I don’t do circuses. I do strategy. If you’re after something else, I’ll happily refer you to someone who enjoys playing with fire.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty, it felt measured. Baltar held it, testing how far he could push. Then he gave a short breath, light and offhand.

“Strategy it is, then.” Rising smoothly from the chair, he adjusted his cuff with a flick of the wrist and offered a smile that never reached his eyes. “Don’t worry, Mr. Adama. When all this is over, you’ll be thanking me.”

Bill didn’t respond. He just watched as Baltar made his way to the door, his footsteps too casual for someone about to ignite a legal mess. Whatever calm the morning had promised was already unraveling.

Baltar paused at the threshold, one hand resting lightly on the polished handle. He didn’t look back right away, he simply lingered as the moment stretched too long to be casual. It was purposeful. A performance beat waiting to land. He turned halfway, his expression more controlled now, the smirk softened into something closer to stagecraft pretending to be reflection.

“You’ll be meeting her this afternoon, won’t you?” he asked, tone light, but his eyes carried weight. “I’m told our teams have arranged something. Your assistant and hers have been quite the diligent pair.”

Bill didn’t take the bait. He gave a slight tilt of his head, not a nod, more an acknowledgment. Wordless, but clear. He already knew.

Baltar gave a small wave, more to the space than the man still standing in it. “Well then. Until this afternoon, Mr. Adama.” And this time, he left for good.

The rest of the morning unraveled in quiet, layered preparation. On one side of the city, Laura worked alongside Lee, eyes scanning documents while her thoughts moved ahead, already mapping the emotional terrain they were about to step into. On the other side, Bill conferred with Kara in low tones, sifting through procedural templates and revisiting past cases that had started polite and ended nowhere near it.

By early afternoon, everything was set. The meeting would take place at a neutral location, intentionally inoffensive. It wasn’t a courtroom, but it didn’t feel casual either. Glass walls framed the room, softened with frosted accents. A long table ran down the center beneath a skylight, the lighting crisp but not harsh. The space was designed to impress without warmth, professional without invitation.

The temperature leaned cold. Standard for corporate spaces, enough to pull goosebumps if you sat still long enough. The air held that faint, sterile scent. Clean. Impersonal. Forgettable on purpose.

Laura arrived with Lee and Six, her steps firm, her face unreadable. Bill followed on the far side, with Baltar and Kara close behind. He stayed a pace back, making no move to appear in charge. They dispensed with greetings and pleasantries, acknowledging that the scene was set and that each had a part to play.

Water pitchers had been placed at either end of the table. Branded notepads sat untouched, perfectly aligned. The chairs were too comfortable to be accidental. Overhead, the soft lighting ironed the shadows flat, courtesy of an overpaid architect.

A brief exchange of nods passed between them, cool and perfunctory, and the room stayed quiet.

Then Baltar leaned into the silence, sliding into his seat with practiced ease. He looked from Laura to Bill, smile already forming.

“I see you two have worked together before,” he said lightly, the curl at his lips more smug than curious. “Always fascinating to watch titans circle each other.”

Six didn’t glance at him, but her posture sharpened. The space around her chilled just a bit. Lee shifted his weight slightly, fingers drumming once against the folder in his hands. Kara crossed her arms, one brow lifted in restrained disbelief.

Laura didn’t respond. Instead, she exchanged a look with Bill, a brief and neutral glance, a flicker of mutual understanding. They arrived at the same calculus, recognizing the opening phase had begun, pieces sliding into position while full-blown conflict waited offstage.

At the center of the table, Laura slid forward a set of identical packets prepared for each party. The pages were aligned perfectly. Paperclipped. Tabbed. Each was titled Mutual Confidentiality Agreement in clean, minimalist font.

“This is standard,” she said, voice even. The words were addressed to Six and Baltar, not Bill. “It protects both of you. No public statements, no media leaks, no third-party disclosures. What happens here, stays here.”

Bill added simply, “If you break it, the process ends. And you expose yourself to liability.”

The agreement had been reviewed by Laura, Lee, Bill and Kara. Each brought a different approach, but together they made it airtight. The language left no room to wriggle, and the fine print held no tricks.

“You can sign with confidence,” Laura said. “Every line has been reviewed. Thoroughly.”

Baltar let out a soft sound, something between a scoff and a chuckle, but reached for a pen. Six didn’t pause. She flipped to the final page, scanned it quickly, and signed with a smooth, practiced motion. It wasn’t showy, it was efficient. Laura passed her the next page to initial. Baltar followed, his signature wide and bold, claiming more space than it needed to.

Once the agreements were signed, Lee gathered them and placed the stack neatly to one side. His movements were precise, almost too careful. Kara twirled her pen once between her fingers, then let it rest against her leg as she leaned back again, impatience simmering just beneath the surface.

Laura returned to the folder. This time, she drew out a single sheet, the Participation Agreement.

“This is what sets the terms,” she stated, placing it in front of Six. “It’s a commitment to collaboration. No threats of litigation. No adversarial strategies. Full disclosure of finances and relevant facts. If it falls apart, we step out. The legal teams withdraw. No one here represents their client in court afterward.”

Bill slid a second copy toward Baltar. “This is how we keep one foot out of the courtroom. Signing it means you’re in. Completely.”

Baltar hesitated for a single breath. His fingers tapped the edge of the page, once, twice. Then he looked at Six. There was something in his eyes, maybe curiosity, maybe the usual need to unearth weakness. She gave him nothing. Only stillness, cool and composed.

He spun the pen between his fingers, the tip grazing the paper. Then, with controlled calm, he set the pen down, leaving the page unsigned. A beat passed. He leaned back, folding his arms in a gesture that aimed for nonchalance but landed closer to theater, his eyes fixed on Six.

“You know,” he began, voice light with a sour undertone, “I should’ve known the marriage was doomed the moment I said ‘I do’ to a woman named Caprica Six.”

Six didn’t move. Not at first. Her posture held, perfect and unmoved, but something changed in her expression. A slight narrowing of the eyes, almost imperceptible. Laura caught it instantly. That subtle shift women make when they’ve been baited before and are deciding, very carefully, whether to answer.

Laura didn’t speak, but her spine straightened. A small, instinctive gesture. It wasn’t just Baltar being difficult, it was dangerous. And far too early for dangerous.

Across the table, Bill let out a faint breath through his nose, a breath that stopped short of a sigh, telling the room he saw where this was headed. He didn’t look at Baltar. His eyes stayed on the unsigned sheet and the growing certainty behind it: So this is how we’re starting. Gods help us all.

Behind Baltar’s shoulder, Kara blinked. “Here we go,” she muttered, low enough for Lee to hear. Her legs crossed at the ankle, outwardly relaxed, but her grip on the pen in her lap had tightened.

Lee remained composed, but his pen had stopped. His fingers hovered, then settled. He glanced at Laura, then at Six, gauging the moment. He’d seen custody battles that started gentler than this.

And Baltar, undeterred, leaned in. “I mean, Caprica?” His tone brightened, false amusement coating the words. “Your parents named you after the planet? The central planet in the system? That’s not confidence, that’s theatrics. That’s performance as personality.” His grin twisted. “And Six? A number? That’s not mystique. That’s branding. A gimmick with delusions of meaning.”

The mood shifted again. Subtly, but enough. Six turned her head in one clean, practiced move. Laura didn’t interrupt. But she was listening now, with sharp attention. The attention she saved for moments on the verge of tipping.

Six’s jaw flexed. “Don’t act like you weren’t part of it. You embraced the branding. You fed it. You helped build it.”

Baltar exhaled with mock gravity. “True. Guilty. But at least I never mistook it for something deeper.”

Six didn’t flinch, but her voice came back colder. “That’s exactly your trick. You sell image. Wrap it in just enough sincerity to pass. And people buy it because they want to believe it’s real.”

Bill’s pen stopped. He looked up at Baltar, calm but alert, then cast a brief glance toward Laura. She was fully tuned in to the unraveling conversation, and he noticed.

“I see,” Baltar said, still lounging. “So this is the part where I’m the villain, and you’re the misunderstood icon. The flawless goddess with a polished PR team and a legal entourage dressed up as a fan club.” He flicked a hand toward Laura, casual to the point of insult. “And Laura,” he added, letting the name hang long enough to make it land. “Queen of damage control.”

It didn’t go unnoticed. He hadn’t called her Roslin. He’d chosen Laura on purpose, not out of familiarity, but as an intentional breach of formality. A calculated swipe disguised as charm. To the room, it might have sounded casual. But Laura recognized it for what it was, an erasure of title and authority. A reminder that he didn’t respect her role. Or her restraint. And that he knew exactly where to press without raising his voice.

Before Six could reply, Bill spoke. “That’s enough.”

The words weren’t loud, but they carried weight that was clean, measured, and final. He hadn’t said it to defend Laura, she didn’t need defending. He said it because lines like that didn’t get crossed in a room like this. Not in front of counsel. Not between professionals. Whatever existed between them outside these walls, in here, the rules still held.

Laura didn’t turn toward him. She didn’t need to. Instead, her mouth curled faintly, a small, ironic smile, her composure unshaken.

“I see you’ve done your research, Mr. Baltar,” she said, voice cool, gaze steady.

It wasn’t an accusation. It was a confirmation. He hadn’t pulled that line from nowhere. He’d read up. Dug into her record, her press coverage, her posture in interviews, maybe even rehearsed a few lines in front of a mirror. He hadn’t come unarmed. He’d come loaded, with enough facts to sound informed and enough contempt to aim low.

“But as much as I’d love to sit here and discuss how good I am at my job,” she went on, turning slightly toward Bill, “we’re here for the Participation Agreement.” She kept her eyes on him, not Baltar. Because what came next wasn’t for the showman. It was for the room. “So unless your client intends to formally withdraw,” Laura continued, voice even but edged, “he should pick up that pen and sign. Otherwise, our next meeting will be in court.”

Baltar didn’t move right away. He leaned back, eyes shifting between Laura and Bill, weighing whether this moment still had room for spectacle.

Then Bill spoke again, his voice was low and clipped. “Sign it. Or don’t. But if you turn this table into a stage again, I walk. You’ll be doing it without me.”

What followed was a heavy stillness. Baltar might’ve brushed off Laura’s words as posturing, but this wasn’t that. This was Bill Adama laying down a boundary that didn’t invite negotiation.

Laura blinked once. Her brow tightened, a muted shift that read as surprise, perhaps even recognition. She had expected him to push back, maybe even argue the tone or timing of her warning. A part of her had been ready for that. But not this. Not that calm, decisive end to the moment. She held her tongue and watched him a second longer than she needed to.

Baltar’s fingers tapped slowly against the table. The silence stretched. Then he picked up the pen. “No need to get litigious,” he murmured, the smirk reappearing as he signed with exaggerated flair, still convinced he was the most interesting man in the room. As he set the pen down, he glanced around the table. “Gods, you’re all so serious. It’s just a divorce.”

Six didn’t look at him. Laura didn’t react. 

Bill reached forward, drew the signed sheet toward him, and placed a steady hand on it. “Now we begin.”

Kara exhaled softly, somewhere between relief and exasperation. Lee clicked his pen shut. Laura pulled the next folder from her stack, tone composed, motion smooth.

“Let’s proceed with the itemized list,” she said, unfolding a new set of pages. “Personal effects of symbolic or financial value. Starting with the archive inventory compiled during preliminary disclosure.”

Bill gave a small nod, slipping an identical copy from his folder without a word.

Laura glanced down the list without lifting her eyes. “Item one, the gown Ms. Six wore to the 67th Colonial Film Awards, including the original garment bag and archival certificate.”

Before Six could respond, Baltar leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll be keeping that,” he announced. “It was custom. Commissioned by me. I chose the designer, oversaw the fittings, paid for every bead.”

Six blinked once, slowly. Her jaw tightened, and words slid out between clenched teeth: “It was a gift.”

Baltar’s smile curved smugly. “A gift worn at an event I funded, organized, and documented,” he replied. “The moment may have belonged to her. But the dress? That’s legacy.”

Without lifting her gaze, Laura interjected, firm: “It’s a dress, Mr. Baltar. Not intellectual property.”

Bill looked up, palm flat on the table. “We can negotiate compensation if your client believes the gown’s value exceeds the intent of gifting.”

“This dress isn’t about materials,” Baltar countered flatly. “It’s about symbolism, but more than that, what it represents.”

Six didn’t raise her voice. “You mean me, Gaius. It represents me. And you don’t get to display it like a trophy.”

Laura’s eyes flicked to Bill. One brow lifted, and her hand hovered for a beat over the next page. “So your client is claiming emotional equity in couture now? That’s a bold legal claim.”

Bill remained steady. “Not as bold as manipulating sentimental attachment to assert ownership when someone else paid for it.”

“She received it as a gift,” Laura corrected, voice level. “Intent matters.”

“Intent? Often murkier than the claimant believes.”

The room cooled perceptibly. Kara and Lee paused their note-taking in near unison, exchanging a look that wasn’t surprised, only resigned. They’d seen this before. How tension didn’t arrive all at once, but crept in slowly, bracing for the inevitable explosion.

Laura closed the folder, irritation starting to surface. “If we’re talking precedent, last year’s Caprica West case applies directly. The court ruled in favor of the recipient.”

Bill leaned back, still firm. “Yes, but that was about an engagement ring. Not a red‑carpet gown.”

Laura’s response was precise, “Principle is principle.”

“Which principle are we talking about,” Bill’s gaze locked then, direct, “image, money, power, or glory?”

Laura’s lips curved into a slow, tight smile. “Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Silence fell. Their gazes met. Steady, unblinking. The air between them wasn’t angry, it was intentional. Tense. Sharp.

Her eyes, icy clear, held his. And in his, she saw something quieter, something magnetic. He allowed the moment, and for a heartbeat, authority and attraction blurred.

Baltar watched it unfold, leaning forward with fingers steepled, enjoying the exchange. To him, this wasn’t dispute, it was performance. Six remained still. Lips firm. Posture composed. But her eyes scanned, scanning for cracks in the negotiation, tracking Laura with keen assessment.

Then Kara cleared her throat. “Shall we move to the next item?”

The moment shattered. Kara’s voice rewound the scene. Laura reached for the next page. Bill did the same, almost in sync, a reflex more than coordination. They didn’t acknowledge it. They didn’t need to.

“The next item under review,” Laura began, reading the line, “is a ceramic vase, hand‑painted, about eighteen inches tall. Gifted at the Caprica Spring Gala, three years ago.”

At first glance, it looked straightforward. Decorative. Neutral. Easy to settle. Or so they thought.

“It was a gift,” Six said, voice steady. “From his father. To me.”

Baltar snorted. “It belonged to my father. It’s been in my family for decades. He handed it to you because he didn’t want to carry it to the car. That doesn’t make it yours.”

“It came wrapped,” she shot back, arching an eyebrow. “With a card. Made out to me. That does make it mine.”

Baltar gave a short, cutting laugh. “How many ‘gifts’ does one person get to claim before it stops being coincidence and starts looking like a strategy?"

Six didn’t miss a beat. “You didn’t even like your father. You barely spoke to him unless there was a camera around. Don’t start pretending family heirlooms suddenly matter.”

Their voices stayed low enough to avoid full derailment, but the friction between them simmered beneath the surface, background noise to the room’s unraveling focus.

They all saw it. This wasn’t about a vase. It was principle again. A tug-of-war over symbolism, with lineage, legacy, and ownership wrapped in a ceramic glaze.

Two hours ticked by and still no resolution on the vase, the gown, or the delicate phrasing in the participation clause. Somewhere in the middle of it, Laura and Bill shared a glance. Exchanging fatigue, quiet clarity. They both knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

And, whether they wanted it or not, they were in this together far longer than anyone had hoped.

Chapter Text

The sheets were still giving off warmth when Billy shifted onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. Stripes of light slipped through the blinds, painting Dee’s bare shoulder with a soft brushstroke. He paused, committing the image to memory.

Their relationship had unfolded slowly, carefully cordoned off from their professional lives. For months now, Dee and Billy had been involved, though no one in either of their offices had the faintest clue. Given that they worked for rival attorneys in entirely separate firms, keeping things quiet wasn’t just smart, it was essential. Not out of shame or fear, exactly, but because whatever existed between them wasn’t built to withstand the constant churn of courtroom gossip and professional posturing. So they protected it, avoiding dinners in public or convenient run-ins, keeping to late-night drives, untraceable messages, and those rare, unscheduled hours when the world let its guard down and so did they, brief, stolen, and oddly sacred.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Dee murmured, eyes still shut.

“Like what?” he asked, a grin already forming.

“Like you’re freezing this moment in your head, just in case everything goes to hell.” She nudged closer, forehead pressing lightly against his chest, her voice low and laced with a half-laugh.

Billy chuckled softly, burying his face for a second in the curve of her neck. “Considering we work for two of the most stubborn litigators in the Twelve Colonies, yeah. I’m absolutely savoring the calm before the next round of chaos.”

Dualla cracked one eye open. “You know they’re going to fight.”

“They always do.” His hand skimmed along her back, tracing the lines of her spine, a motion that seemed to steady him. “And somehow, they act surprised every single time.”

“But this round’s worse,” she said, adjusting slightly to face him. “Because now it’s public. That panel? The way she cut him off mid-sentence? And the way he glared like he was daring her to throw the first punch?”

“Please don’t remind me,” Billy groaned, flopping back against the pillow. “I spent the whole afternoon dodging calls from media outlets, sponsors, and even a diplomatic but clearly irritated message from the InterColony Legal Network.”

Dualla snorted. “Kara says the legal blogs are having a field day. One of them called it ‘the most awkward duet in family law history.’”

He turned toward her, eyebrows raised. “She actually reads those?”

“Out loud,” Dualla replied, stretching beneath the covers. “With voices. She did a whole dramatic reading last night, pretending to be the poor moderator caught between two rival counsels who can't agree on the color of the sky. Said it was for method practice.”

Billy laughed again, one of those deep, sleep-heavy laughs that only happen when the world is, for once, still. “Gods. That guy looked like he was one comment away from pulling the fire alarm just to escape.”

“He was,” Dee said, eyes nearly shut. “I checked the floor plan after the event. He was five steps away. Bet he seriously considered it.”

Silence settled then, but not the awkward kind, this was the good kind. The kind that came with background hums, with the heater kicking on and pipes shifting quietly in the walls. The room was warm, cocooned. Legs tangled under the blankets, and neither of them saw any need to move.

Billy rolled onto his back, folding his hands behind his head, eyes tracing the faint pattern on the ceiling. “They’ll need another meeting. Just the two of them.”

It wasn’t merely about strategy anymore. The case had been public from the beginning, scrutinized, dissected, and speculated on by every legal columnist and gossip thread across the Colonies. Now, the time had come for a joint statement confirming that the collaborative divorce process was officially underway. The message needed to sound unified, composed, forward-looking, and above all, civil.

But the truth was, no press officer or junior associate could draft something that delicate alone. Laura and Bill would have to sit down together, in person, and decide not just what to say, but how to say it. Tone, phrasing, omissions. Every detail mattered. And whatever they agreed on still had to pass through two high-strung PR teams, one for Baltar and one for Six, both ready to veto anything that didn’t align with their respective client’s narrative. Even that level of supposed diplomacy required care and discretion.

Dee didn’t respond right away, only watching him as she thought. The truth was, Laura and Bill weren’t just difficult, they were deliberate. And despite all the legal choreography around them, the real obstacle wasn’t legal at all. It was ego.

“That’s the thing,” she finally said, her voice low, almost amused. She shifted slightly, the blanket slipping down her shoulder. “The funny part is, they both already go to the same place when they need to think.”

Billy turned his head, one eyebrow raised, the corners of his mouth curving in anticipation of something ironic. “Where?”

“The Androsia,” she said, almost matter-of-fact, though there was a spark of amusement in her eyes. “Bill likes to pretend it’s only for show, something he uses to impress visiting judges or puff up a client meeting. But I’ve seen the reservation logs. At least once a week he slips in, without company, with no calendar entry, and a menu he’s definitely memorized.”

As she spoke, she reached for her phone on the nightstand, tapping through a few screens until the sleek homepage of the restaurant appeared. She turned the screen toward him without a word, the soft glow of it catching the edge of her smile.

Billy’s brow arched, then he let out a knowing laugh. “Of course. Laura’s obsessed with that place.” He leaned over to glance at her phone. “Says it’s the one restaurant in Caprica City where the staff doesn’t hover, the acoustics don’t echo, and the espresso could actually wake the dead.”

They both paused, aware this wasn’t about espresso or ambience. Laura and Bill needed neutral ground, no courtrooms, no firm politics, no audience. The collaborative divorce process demanded diplomacy, but diplomacy without coordination became theater. And this was theater now, whether anyone admitted it or not. Every public statement had to pass through two fully staffed PR teams, each with its own agenda. The message had to be calculated, sharpened, in sync. And for that to happen, Laura and Bill needed to meet face to face, cutting out intermediaries and assistants, agreeing on the story before the headlines told it for them.

It wasn’t a conversation you could reduce to bullet points in an email. It needed more than words. It needed presence, where silence carried meaning and a pause could weigh more than a paragraph. Some things could only be read across a table, in the flicker of hesitation or the shift in someone’s tone. And for that, they had to be in the same room.

They didn’t need to say it out loud. The next move was already taking shape in the quiet between them. Dee opened the calendar app on her phone, thumb gliding through Bill’s schedule with practiced ease. “Lunchtime,” she murmured, eyes scanning the screen. “Midweek. Somewhere quiet but visible.” She paused, a small smirk tugging at her mouth. “Just formal enough to keep them polite.”

Billy was already reaching for his own phone, tapping into a shared planning grid. “We’ll call it a working lunch, stripped of assistants and clients, presented as a procedural follow-up.” His tone was dry, but there was something oddly satisfied in it.

She leaned closer, eyes flicking from his screen to hers. “He’s free after noon today.”

Billy’s mouth curved slightly as he checked Laura’s availability. “So is she.”

Dualla smiled, not a sweet smile, but a precise one. Intentional. “Neutral ground.”

“Elegant battlefield,” Billy murmured, almost reverently. It was a small orchestration, one their bosses would never notice, yet it made all the difference. They lay in silence for a beat, content in the stillness of the plan sliding into place.

Outside, the city kept its pace. Inside, time stretched thin and quiet. Their legs remained tangled under the sheets, but the moment was already shifting. The day was calling.

It had come together fast, like most things involving Laura and Bill. But where those two operated in declarations and ultimatums, Billy and Dualla worked in subtler languages. Timing. Friction. Openings. They read the air and nudged the pieces into position before anyone even noticed the board had changed. They didn’t just manage the chaos, they made it tolerable.

“Think they’ll fall for it?” Dualla asked eventually, her voice muffled against the pillow, a little amused but not quite skeptical.

Billy’s answer came with a small, lopsided smile. “They’ll say yes. Just to prove the other one can’t rattle them.”

She laughed, then let her head drop to his shoulder with a low, theatrical sigh. “We are such enablers.”

“Completely,” he said, wrapping an arm around her with mock solemnity. “But we’re very good at it.”

Eventually, the stillness broke.

Dee moved first, stretching in hope that the clock had lied. The sheets rustled as she slid out of bed, collecting her clothes with the efficiency of a morning well-rehearsed. Billy watched her move across the room, propped on one elbow again, eyes trailing the places where light touched her skin in a gesture of recognition.

She pulled her hair back, fastened the last button of her shirt, and gave him a look. “No lingering,” she said, a faint curve lifting her lips as she slipped on her watch. “You know how early she gets in.”

Billy groaned as he sat up, reaching for his pants. “She’ll just assume I crashed at the office again.”

And really, that wasn’t far from the truth, at least in appearance. Dee’s apartment was closer to Laura’s firm than his own place, and when he stayed over, he always arrived early, coffee in hand, tie straight, looking every bit the sleepless aide. Somewhere along the line, Laura had started assuming he spent his nights buried in memos, and Billy hadn’t corrected her. It was easier that way, less complicated. Nothing more than small, silent detail tucked into the rhythm of their days, unspoken but understood.

Dee walked over and pressed a kiss to his temple, something quick but not rushed. “Try not to look too well-rested.”

By the time they stepped out into the street, Caprica was fully awake. The sidewalk buzzed with the urgency of professionals on autopilot, and the air had that clean morning bite that made people walk faster. At the curb, they paused, a brief glance exchanged in the thin space that opened between movement and departure. Then she turned, melted into the stream of bodies, and brushed her fingers once, lightly, against the sleeve of his coat as she passed.

Billy arrived before anyone else. The building was still, a quiet lingering in the moments before the day fully hit its stride. Outside, Caprica was already humming, but in here, the world hadn’t quite caught up. He unlocked the front door, flicked on the lights, and moved through the familiar rhythm of opening up. The tall windows let in a faint wash of Caprica gray, casting long, drowsy shadows across the floor. He checked the conference room, realigned a few chairs in reception, and started the first pot of coffee himself. Then he poured it into Laura’s usual mug, the plain white one she always reached for without looking.

Laura arrived earlier than most, though not earlier than Billy. That seemed impossible.

The elevator doors slid open without ceremony. She stepped out with her usual precision, heels tapping against the marble, jacket folded neatly over one arm, and the faint scent of amber and bergamot following her through the air. Her hair fell in flawless waves, appearing effortless though he knew better. She paused just inside reception, gaze narrowing slightly at the sight of him already settled behind the desk, two folders open, and coffee steaming within reach.

“Billy,” she said, voice low and vaguely incredulous. “Did you sleep here again?”

He glanced up, blinking with manufactured innocence over the rim of his cup. “Your coffee’s ready,” he offered, bypassing the question and holding the mug toward her.

She sighed, a breath heavy with familiarity, reserved for people who insisted on being indispensable and made it hard to stay annoyed with them. She dropped her jacket onto a chair and stepped further inside, arms folding as she gave him the once-over. Same suit. Wrinkled collar. Tie that had clearly seen better days.

She accepted the coffee without comment, bringing it to her lips. “You need a raise. Or a cot,” she murmured into the steam.

Billy gave her a timid smile, already sliding one of the folders her way. “I’ll take a thank you, once you see what I lined up for you.”

Laura paused, cup just beneath her mouth. The steam curled between them, warm and fragrant, but she didn’t seem to notice. A flicker passed behind her eyes, neither dread nor surprise. A tension ran through her, born of bracing for something that hadn’t yet happened but would, inevitably. The mere thought of sitting down to talk with William Adama was already pressing at her temples, a headache forming before a single word had been spoken.

She lowered the cup, gaze shifting to the folder.

Billy kept his voice easy, almost casual. “Without assistants or clients, the two of you can finalize the language for the next press update before the PR teams start dressing it up with emotional flourishes.”

She didn’t respond at once. Her brow twitched slightly, and her grip on the mug tightened, small shifts that said more than words. She hated when he was right. Not because it touched her ego, but because it usually meant her day was about to get messier, and today was already skimming the edge of too much.

She exhaled through her nose. “I don’t believe you stayed here overnight just to schedule lunch with Adama.”

Billy raised a finger in mock protest, but she cut him off.

“Where is it?” she asked, already bracing herself for the answer.

He didn’t bother answering out loud. Just tilted his head toward the folder still between them. Laura took it, flipping the first page. Her eyes scanned the contents. One name stopped her.

“The Androsia,” she read, voice flat, but not without recognition.

Billy gave a cautious nod.

She didn’t exactly smile, but something around her mouth eased. “Well,” she muttered, snapping the folder shut, “at least the food will be good.”

She turned, coffee in one hand, folder in the other, and headed down the corridor with her usual purposeful stride. The early light trailed after her, catching the edge of her hair, lighting the glass door to her office ahead. Her hand paused on the knob. There was one more thing to say.

“Oh, and Billy,” she said, dry as ever, halfway through the doorway. “Get a life. And stop sleeping here.”

She didn’t wait for a response. The door clicked shut behind her, and the words lingered in the air for a beat, settling like the last line of a closing statement, more habitual than harsh.

Billy stood there a moment longer, the trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, a private flicker of satisfaction. The plan had clicked into place exactly as intended, and he allowed himself a brief moment to enjoy the precision of it.

He picked up his phone from the desk, unlocking the screen with practiced ease. A notification blinked at him: Lunch with Adama, confirmed. He tapped to highlight it in green. A second alert slid into view. It was a message from Dee.

Bill’s in. 12:30.

Also, you owe me. I skipped pancakes for this.

Billy huffed a quiet laugh through his nose, typing out a quick reply with one hand while scooping up the morning’s folders with the other. The meeting was officially locked, with dual confirmation and neatly timed, enough plausible necessity to pass unnoticed.

Phone back in his pocket, his mind already shifted forward. The morning held steady, smooth and precise, just the way he preferred things. Outside, the office had begun to stir, the stillness of early morning giving way to a measured hum of movement.

Soft voices carried from the lobby as staff trickled in, briefcases swinging, screens already lit. Footsteps struck the marble with clean rhythm. Someone passed with espresso in hand. Keyboards flickered to life.

Billy fell into step without missing a beat, fielding questions, trading schedules, shuffling files like second nature. His smile faded into something more neutral and professional. But every so often, his gaze drifted down the corridor.

Laura’s office was glass-lined, every detail in full view. She hadn’t noticed him watching, too deep in her own momentum. Head tilted slightly, brow furrowed, phone pressed between shoulder and cheek as she typed one-handed and underlined something in her legal pad. Her coffee sat untouched beside her, long gone cold.

Billy watched for a second longer than he meant to, then turned back to his work. She was locked in, fully engaged, and that meant the rest of the firm would follow her lead. Laura didn’t need to enforce discipline, she set the tone simply by being present.

She never brought up the lunch again, not a word, not a question. He caught the moment her eyes flicked to her watch. It was a cue, not a comment. She stood without fuss, folded her legal pad closed, and placed her pen beside it with care. Then, smoothly, she slipped the folder he’d given her into her bag.

He didn’t move from the reception desk, but he tracked her with the same attentiveness he gave to time blocks and deadlines. She shrugged into her jacket in one motion, composure returning with the ease of a ritual. The professional armor was back in place, not hastily thrown on, but assembled with a precision honed through years of practice. By the time she stepped into the hallway, there wasn’t a trace of uncertainty left in her. The softness had vanished, replaced by precision and purpose.

At 11:12 on the dot, she passed him without slowing. “Leaving,” she said, clipped and efficient.

Billy gave a small nod, already logging the departure in his tablet. There was nothing else to say, no follow-up, no need for confirmation. The protocol was already in motion, executed with a precision that spoke for itself.

Outside, Caprica’s midday rhythm had picked up. Traffic hissed, voices wove in and out, and the chill in the air felt sharper under the glare of sunlight. Laura didn’t linger at the curb. She walked half a block before requesting a car, tapping through the interface quickly, already thinking ahead. The address autofilled without her needing to type it.

The vehicle arrived in under three minutes. She stepped in, gave a faint nod to the driver, and leaned back without ceremony. Her gaze drifted to the window, not quite focused. She didn’t rehearse the meeting, there was no script. This wasn’t a courtroom, but it wasn’t neutral ground either, no matter how they dressed it up in strategy.

When The Androsia came into view, it did so without fanfare. It didn’t need to announce itself. The stone façade rose clean and symmetrical, crowned with wrought iron accents and arching windows. Amber light spilled through the tall glass, soft and steady. Inside, the shapes of chandeliers and polished wood gave the space a glow that seemed curated rather than lit.

The terrace was quietly alive with well-dressed patrons speaking in low tones over linen-covered tables. She stepped out, adjusted her jacket, and crossed the walkway with a purpose that neither rushed nor hesitated. Her heels moved across the polished stone, a steady rhythm that blended into the measured pulse of the place.

Inside, The Androsia was calm, elegance arranged with intention. Amber sconces lined the walls, crystal fixtures shimmered overhead, and each table was spaced just enough to make privacy feel curated. The scent of rosemary and lemon butter drifted faintly through the air. Around the room, the midday crowd spoke in low tones over polished plates and half-filled glasses of wine, voices softened by routine and the unspoken rules of the setting.

Laura stepped inside with measured composure, eyes adapting to the warm lighting after the brightness outside. The staff moved on silent cues, practiced and nearly invisible as they slipped between tables. She scanned the room once and found him immediately.

Her gaze fell on the delicate watch at her wrist: 11:45. Fifteen minutes early, and he was even earlier.

For a moment she considered being annoyed, but it didn’t last. Her mind flicked back to the panel weeks ago, to the moment he’d walked in late and caught the look in her eyes. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t needed to. Whatever he saw there stuck. Evidently, he remembered.

She inhaled slowly, composed herself, and crossed the room with the same poised calm she displayed at the witness stand. As she neared the table, Bill stood with the measured discipline of someone who chose to arrive early, sit calmly, and wait. Not to show off, but to prove something subtler.

Laura paused at the table, posture flawless and gaze steady.

“You’re early,” he said evenly.

Her brow lifted. “So are you.”

In that unspoken exchange, their sense of timing became an exercise in tactics. Arriving early wasn’t merely practical anymore, it had turned into its own kind of contest. A fifteen-minute lead spoke volumes. An arrival time was a deliberate signal. They both understood exactly what it meant.

Laura set her bag on the chair, opened the folder, and placed it between them. Bill sat down with ease, his expression unreadable but clearly attentive.

He glanced at the folder, then back at her. “Have you eaten?”

The question sounded casual, almost polite, but Laura knew better. Nothing William Adama said was ever accidental.

She shook her head, adjusting the napkin on her lap without looking up. “Not yet.”

Bill leaned back, a subtle shift that suggested relief or maybe just confirmation. “Neither have I. Let’s use the table while we use the time.”

It wasn’t peace. It was an opening, and Laura acknowledged it with a single nod, a gesture shaped by pragmatism over concession. And truth be told, it felt welcome.

She’d been hungry since midmorning, though she’d ignored it, filing the ache away behind her obligation. Now, with the faint aroma of rosemary drifting in, she conceded that she was relieved by the promise of food. A moment when professionalism could give way to something more human. She kept that thought carefully to herself.

Bill opened the menu slowly, fingers tracing the page as though reacquainting himself with an old friend. Not scanning, but remembering. He took his time. He’d eaten here before. Settings aside, he carried himself with an ease that suggested he belonged, his elbow resting lightly on the table’s edge.

Laura said nothing, letting the silence stretch, testing the space between them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, on the contrary, it was almost crafted. Like both of them had agreed, silently, to allow the air to settle before breaking it with something trivial. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t small talk.

“They still make a proper risotto alla milanese here.” His words came lightly, but she caught the shift beneath them. A subtle thread of respect reserved for a dish whose reputation had been hard won.

She lifted her eyes over the top of her menu. “With saffron?”

He nodded, lowering the menu. “And bone marrow, if you ask.”

“That’s a heavy lunch,” she said, though her voice showed no protest.

Beneath her words lay the unspoken: you surprised me. She hadn’t expected him to notice that kind of detail or to care. But perhaps she should have. He struck her as someone who insisted on things being done properly or not at all.

“It’s balanced,” he replied, finally meeting her gaze. “Rich, simple. No need to prove anything.”

She paused, just slightly, just long enough. Something unreadable flickered behind her eyes. And in that brief shift, the roles blurred. For a moment she wasn’t the lawyer seated across from an opponent. She was simply a woman, trying to understand the man in front of her.

“Funny,” she murmured. “That’s exactly why I order it.” Her confession slipped out before she could filter it.

He blinked once, his face unreadable while his mind calculated. “I didn’t think that dish was your style,” he said after a beat, his voice stripped of arrogance and shaped instead by genuine curiosity.

Laura tilted her head, studying him, intrigued rather than offended. “Because it’s decadent?”

He shook his head, lips curving subtly. “Because it’s unassuming but demanding. If you get it wrong, there’s nowhere to hide.”

The words lingered between them, unhurried but deliberate. On the surface, Bill was talking about risotto, but part of him knew it went beyond that. There was nothing decadent about Laura Roslin. No excess, no indulgence. She moved through the world with refined austerity, all clarity and control wrapped in grace. She didn’t bluff, she didn’t posture. She expected precision, and not the showy kind, just the kind that didn’t waste anyone’s time. Bill admired that, without noise or compliments or acknowledgment, simply noting something rare and choosing not to overlook it.

She gave a small, genuine hum of approval, closing her menu without looking down. “I like knowing it’ll be right,” she said. “I don’t have time for clever failures.”

He nodded, posture easing. “That’s why I come here,” he added softly. “They don’t improvise.”

In that moment, the air shifted again. She could have made a teasing remark, about how he always stuck to the familiar, maybe even about his dependable watch or black coffee, but she didn’t. There was something unspoken between them, a shared hunger not just for food, but for reliability, for control, for something in the day to go exactly as planned.

They didn’t need to say it out loud. The choice had already settled between them before the menus were even opened. Risotto alla milanese. A dish that came with expectations and structure, neither flashy nor forgiving. When made right, it spoke in quiet, confident notes. Rich without being showy. Precise without trying too hard. But get it wrong, and every misstep showed. There was no hiding in a dish like that.

Laura’s gaze dropped for a moment, fingers smoothing an invisible crease from her napkin. This wasn’t just lunch, and it wasn’t idle conversation, either. It was something more conscious. Signals traded in silence, lines drawn with cutlery and saffron. Because even a dish as simple as risotto, when chosen between two people like them, could carry the weight of everything they weren’t quite ready to say.

The waiter returned with impeccable timing, setting down two small plates: delicate greens, fennel, shaved radish, thin onion, all dressed in citrus vinaigrette. The house salad, complimentary and renowned. Laura had had it before, admired its clean simplicity, the way it struck that fine line between sharp and fresh. But this time, she didn’t lift her fork, not right away. Her focus had already shifted, shifting gears from attorney to strategist.

Bill placed his order, risotto with bone marrow and sparkling water. Laura echoed it almost exactly, opting for still water instead. They exchanged a slight nod as the menus were taken away.

Then they moved to the real issue. Laura opened the folder, fingers brushing the draft press statement. Her tone was even.

“This makes it sound like Baltar proposed the terms. He didn’t.”

Bill leaned in, reading the phrasing. “We can shift the emphasis. Make it clear it was mutual.” He was collaborative, almost gentle. Laura let herself hope.

And then there were the onions. He spotted them first. Without breaking her composure, she nudged the slivers aside with her fork, a subtle, almost automatic motion that disrupted the salad’s otherwise precise arrangement. She adjusted quietly, tucking it at the edge of the plate. Bill watched it happen. He couldn’t help himself.

“You don’t eat onions?” The question was innocuous enough at first, but there was a glint in his eyes, something sharp edged and vaguely amused.

Laura shrugged, not looking up from her plate. “I don’t like them.”

His voice was even, carrying curiosity, maybe tinged with a hint of disbelief, but never meant to provoke. “Did you used to get your meals adjusted at home, with onions left off and crusts trimmed away, everything tailored to your taste?”

Laura’s fork hovered mid-air, stalled above a slice of radish she’d already decided not to eat. Her jaw tightened, barely, but noticeably if you were looking. She knew he hadn’t meant it to sting. His tone hadn’t carried malice, and the comment had drifted out more like idle reflection than pointed critique. Still, intention didn’t always cushion the blow. What hurt was the ease of the assumption, the casual belief that her childhood had been all soft edges and tailored comfort. That narrative didn’t fit.

She looked up, her eyes slicing across the table, voice clipped. “No. I didn’t.” The words landed flat, unadorned. Then came the rest, slower, sharper. “My parents didn’t cater to me. They trusted me to figure out what I liked. And what I didn’t.”

Bill exhaled softly, tone even. “That sounds unusually considerate.” He let the words settle long enough to suggest a contrast. “Not everyone got that kind of say.”

Silence stretched a beat too long. And the moment he’d said it, he knew it had landed wrong. The jab, if it even was one, had been wrapped in a lazy sort of banter, but it struck somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe it was. Maybe he’d aimed, just not consciously. Her tone had a chill to it, and the way she stared him down, steady and unflinching, did something to him. Triggered something. A reflex. A need to push back, level the field. That’s what it had always been like with them, a constant pull, a quiet dare. And though he told himself it was just history, old habits, a rivalry that never quite cooled, part of him suspected he liked it more than he was willing to admit.

What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t know, was how close he’d come to something she didn’t let most people near. Her parents weren’t just gone, they’d been taken. Sudden, brutal, no silver lining. She rarely spoke of them, not out of fragility, but reverence. Their absence was a void she carried with her, one that didn’t want fixing. And now here he was, dragging them into a half-joke, speaking of them like they were still around to indulge her whims. As if they hadn’t been taken from her. As if they were still here to spoil her. That was what stung, and it lit something in her.

Across the table, Laura didn’t flinch. But her posture shifted, almost imperceptibly. A subtle lift of the chin, a gathering of stillness in her spine. Her fork found the edge of her plate, her fingers letting go with purposeful grace.

She felt the heat rise in her chest, not embarrassment, but the effort of containment. She wouldn't let it spill out. Not in her voice, not in her hands, not in the way she looked at him. But inside, there was a throb, a grief mistaken for entitlement, a memory rebranded as excess.

“Well,” she said, chin slightly raised, gaze leveled, “it’s not my fault your parents didn’t think you deserved a choice.”

There was no bite in her tone, no dramatic flourish, but a clean hit delivered like a scalpel. It wasn’t about salad anymore, it was about how he saw her, turning independence into indulgence, twisting clarity about her own wants into something spoiled. And she wasn’t going to let that pass.

That’s how she carried anger, not loud, not showy. On the outside, she looked composed, almost indifferent, but inside, everything was measured, sharpened. Her words didn’t explode, they landed with purpose, edged and exact. When she was mad, they didn’t just hit. They were aimed to kill. And later, when things had cooled, she almost always regretted how cruel she could be when she really wanted to hurt.

Bill didn’t answer, not at first. He just sat, hands braced beside his plate, eyes unfocused as they traced the glass in front of him. For a second, it looked like he’d missed her reply altogether, but he hadn’t. Every word had landed, and more than that, the steel beneath them had, too.

He hadn’t meant to hurt her. At least, not like that. But somewhere in him, a part wasn’t entirely sorry. That pang inside, was it guilt? Maybe. Or maybe it was the dawning recognition that he’d gone too far, that he’d trespassed into something sacred.

He shifted in his chair, exhaled through his nose, and reached for his sparkling water, mostly to kill time. The tang of vinaigrette lingered, bitter now. Across the table, Laura stayed perfectly still. That stillness did something to him, twisted something.

Then, in an act of divine mercy, a waiter broke the spell. “Your risotto, madam. Sir.”

He arrived with scripted interruption, all polish and timing, placing plates before them with elegant efficiency. The saffron rice sent up a delicate steam. Laura nodded her thanks, voice soft, eyes fixed on the food. Bill gave a barely-there nod, his mouth set.

The clink of silverware briefly filled the space between them, cutting through the tension. For a moment, the air cooled. Two professionals, slipping back into their roles. Two adversaries remembering the script.

Laura picked up her fork but didn’t eat right away. Her eyes lingered on the risotto, the way the steam curled gently upward, the golden sheen of butter catching in the low light. She knew she’d hit him hard, that had been the point. What unsettled her wasn’t the precision, it was how reflexive it had been.

She didn’t enjoy the way anger made her feel, but over time, she’d learned how to contain it, how to redirect it. Not by softening, exactly, but by stepping sideways into something more controlled, letting the heat settle, transformed instead of extinguished. And then she did what she always did when emotion threatened to take over. She moved forward with purpose.

It was Laura who spoke first. Her tone was even, almost textureless, but the pivot was intentional.

“We’ll need approval from both sides before we give anything to the press,” she said, eyes still trained on her plate. “Six’s team will want language that suggests stability. Baltar’s will want—” she paused, guiding her fork through the rice, “—vindication.”

Bill looked up, gave a brief nod. “Naturally. Nothing like shared vanity to turn a twenty-minute process into a three-day standoff.”

That earned him the barest lift at the corner of her mouth, a trace so slight it hovered between absence and smile, and he caught it. She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she took a bite, chewing slowly, the act itself helping to settle the atmosphere between them.

He followed her lead, grateful for the simple focus of food. The risotto was perfect, rich and balanced. Their conversation resumed in pieces. Functional, at first. Talk of tone, phrasing, how to strike a balance between sincerity and diplomacy. Gradually, the rigidity between them began to ease, thinning like steam into the dim light above their table.

They ate slowly, their pace in sync with the subtle recalibration underway. By the time the plates were cleared and the waiter slipped into the background, they’d outlined the contours of a joint statement, shaped by compromise and shaded with quiet irony.

Laura reached into her bag and pulled out a slim tablet encased in dark leather, setting it on the table with the ease of routine. With a quick tap and swipe, she opened a new document. Her fingers hovered for a moment above the keyboard, weighing the first words.

Across from her, Bill already had a black notebook open, pen in hand. The metal caught the light with every small shift of his fingers. He flipped to a clean page, clicked the pen once, and leaned forward, ready.

Laura caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t look at him, not immediately. But the faintest smile curved her lips, dry and almost fond.

“So,” she said, voice light and deceptively casual, “the rumors are true.”

Bill glanced up, pen held midair. “What rumors?”

She typed a single word — Joint — a neutral beginning for a document that needed to suggest harmony. Then she looked at him, head tilted slightly, enough to frame her curiosity as amusement.

“That you’re not a fan of tech. Apparently, there are people who still think you dictate briefs on a typewriter.”

He didn’t glance up, but the shift in his expression said he’d heard her and was deciding how much to give.

“I’m not against it,” he said, pen moving again. “My office runs on it. My team couldn’t function without it.” He paused, long enough to make her look up again. “But I don’t trust it. Technology causes more problems than it solves. Promises speed, but mostly just finds cleaner ways to trip over itself.” Only then did he meet her eyes. His voice was steady, not defensive. “I’ve just seen what happens when people forget who’s really supposed to be in charge.”

Laura tilted her head slightly. It wasn’t a challenge, more a recalibration. Her fingers moved across the screen with confidence, but her voice slipped in with the practiced timing of someone who knew how to steer a conversation.

“And yet here we are,” she muttered, the corner of her mouth twitching into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Crafting a public statement to manage a story that’s already out of control.” She didn’t bother to look at him, she didn’t have to. “If that’s not digital warfare, I don’t know what is.”

Bill let out a short breath, barely more than a cleared throat, quiet enough to pass for an exhale. Laura didn’t react. She was already turned back to the tablet, scrolling slowly with one finger, her mouth drawn into a focused line she wore whenever she was deep in thought.

He watched her, neither rival nor colleague, his gaze free of analysis or suspicion, lingering instead with a hesitant openness touched by reluctant familiarity. She was focused, absorbed, and in that stillness, she looked less armored than usual. Maybe even captivating.

Her brow pinched slightly as she edited a sentence. Her free hand hovered at the edge of the table, fingers grazing the rim of her plate, unaware. There was precision in her movements, but it wasn’t sterile. It was lived-in, survival-honed. She didn’t carry herself like someone chasing control, she moved like someone who depended on it.

Then her voice cut through, pulling him back before the thought wandered too far. “Are we keeping the part about mutual respect?” she asked, still staring at the tablet. Her tone had an edge, like she’d already made up her mind. “Or is that a stretch for two people who’ve both threatened to quit this case twice in one week?”

Bill blinked, his focus shifting from her face to the draft in front of him. He flipped a fresh page in his notebook. The sound was sharper than it needed to be, crisp against the low hum of the restaurant. “Let’s keep it,” he said, pen already moving. “Let them think we’re more civil than we are.”

Laura gave a soft laugh, muted but real, and her fingers resumed tapping quietly on the keyboard. “Now that’s a lie I can live with,” she murmured.

Bill let his eyes rest on her for just a beat longer. That laugh was unsettling, not because it was bad, but because it was undeniably different. It wasn’t armored, wasn’t coated in the usual sarcasm or strategic distance she maintained with everyone else. It had slipped out, unfiltered and completely honest. And oddly, that made it harder to forget than anything else she’d said that afternoon.

The hours passed more smoothly than either of them expected. Not effortlessly, nothing between them ever was, but marked by an ease that caught them both off guard. They worked mostly in silence, speaking only when needed. It wasn’t tense, it wasn’t cold. It was collaborative, strangely enough, a sign that something had shifted.

Somewhere between a paragraph on “shared values” and a debate over how to phrase “amicable resolution,” they both arrived at the same truth, though neither dared to say it out loud. They worked better like this. Not in court, not trading jabs in mediation, but here, side by side. Minds in sync. Words negotiated, not weaponized. 

Too bad the outside world hadn’t gotten the memo.

The PR teams were at war, entrenched in passive-aggressive deadlock from opposite corners of the city. One version of the statement, a clean, courteous draft about mutual respect and privacy, got a thumbs-up from Six’s team and an immediate veto from Baltar’s. The next draft, more performative, was flipped: loved by Baltar’s people, dismissed by Six’s. And so it continued, the email threads stacking up like casualties in a conflict neither Laura nor Bill had started but both were now forced to referee.

They ordered coffee in rounds, each cup cooler and more bitter than the last. The day wore on, sunlight slipping into that golden hour glow before surrendering to streetlamp light. By nightfall, they’d cycled through at least six versions of the statement, all rejected.

Laura sat up straighter as she skimmed the latest denial. The tablet’s glow cast a soft halo against her glasses. Without a sigh or a grumble, she removed her glasses with a sense of finality, folded them, and laid them beside her empty cup. Her fingers pressed gently to the bridge of her nose.

“They’re frakking with us,” she muttered, her voice stripped of eye-rolls or dramatics, nothing but tiredness, real, bone-deep tiredness.

Bill watched her closely. The tension in her shoulders had softened, replaced by something muted. Not resignation exactly, but an inward defeat. Nothing of the theatrical surrender she so often brandished as a blade. This was smaller, quieter, and somehow more real.

He didn’t overthink it. For once, he acted on instinct, free of calculation or measured impact.

“Laura,” he said. The name landed softly, free of bite, irony, or undertone. Plain, unadorned, reaching across the table like a hand.

She looked up, caught not by the word itself, but by the way he said it. Different. When Baltar used it, it always came laced with performance, a calculated twist meant to undercut her authority. But this... this was something else entirely. It didn’t shrink her, it met her.

He offered a small smile, not quite full, not quite reaching his eyes, but honest in its intent. “Maybe we stop trying to write the perfect statement,” he said, voice low. “Keep it simple. Let them shape the rest however they want.”

Laura blinked, something in her shifting as she recalibrated. The exhaustion didn’t leave her face, but a tension eased, just slightly.

“Simple,” she repeated, mostly to herself. Then, after a pause, “I thought we gave up on simple a long time ago.”

He shrugged, resting his pen against the edge of the notebook. “Maybe. But it’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”

They wrote the final version together, stripped of clever phrasing, careful metaphors, or branding polish. A short paragraph confirmed the process had begun, that both parties were committed to handling it with mutual respect and privacy, and that no further statements would follow. It was, for once, exactly what it needed to be. Simple.

Laura typed it out in silence. Her shoulders were lower now, the line between her brows gone. Bill sat beside her, his notebook closed, pen untouched for the first time that evening. He read the lines over her shoulder once. Then again. Then nodded. There was nothing left to add. They sent it.

And this time, there were no redlines, no rejection emails, no back-and-forth from overworked interns trying to thread impossible PR needles. What came instead was simple: confirmation. Approved.

Laura leaned back with a breath that wasn’t quite relief, but close enough. Bill allowed himself a rare flicker of satisfaction, not the kind that came from winning or proving a point, but from getting something right. Together.

When they finally looked up, the restaurant had emptied around them. No staff hovering. The candle on their table had burned out. The city outside shimmered under the hush of a late hour. Laura glanced at her phone.

“Ten,” she murmured, surprised. Her voice was softer now, stripped of its usual cadence. “We’ve been here all day.”

Bill hummed in agreement, eyes drifting over the empty plates and cooling coffee cups, the shadows on the walls that hadn’t been there when they arrived. They’d come in at lunchtime, and now, the world outside had shifted into something slower, dimmer.

It struck them both in a mutual realization that they’d spent nearly twelve hours side by side. Two people who, by every measure, should have been at odds. And yet, beyond the occasional spark, the day had been... not tense. In flashes, it had even been almost pleasant.

Laura wouldn’t call it enjoyable, that wasn’t her style. She didn’t gush or smile too easily or bask in the glow of shared effort, but there was something in the way she hesitated a second longer before closing the tablet.

And when she said, “Well. That’s done,” her voice was stripped of edge and sarcasm, carrying instead a tired finality that felt strangely gentle.

Bill nodded, slipping his notebook into his briefcase and sliding the pen in beside it. “For now.”

Their eyes met for a moment. The look wasn’t loaded or tense, only steady, a shared breath at the end of a long day. No lingering smile, no dramatic shift. Still, something moved between them, subtle and unspoken.

And for the first time, under the soft amber light of the restaurant, Laura noticed the exact shade of his eyes. Blue. Not the steely, courtroom kind that felt distant and cold, but something deeper, calmer. Like the ocean under cloud cover.

She blinked, breaking the moment, and reached for her bag. He followed suit. The scrape of chairs was the only sound between them as they stood and made their way silently to the door.

Outside, the night met them with a cool, easy breeze.

“Where’d you park?” he asked, his voice easy, though his body leaned ever so slightly forward, the concern showing more in posture than tone.

Laura paused for a beat, not long, but enough to register. “Didn’t drive,” she said simply. “You?”

He gave a slow nod. His eyes narrowed for the briefest moment, something quiet shifting behind them. “Car’s in the shop,” he said smoothly, without a flicker of hesitation. The lie wasn’t careful, it was instinctive. “I called a ride.”

His car was, in fact, parked around the corner. But the idea of her standing there alone this late, after the day they’d had, didn’t sit right. Not with the street this still, not with her standing there, all worn edges and resolve, that armor of hers finally showing signs of strain.

Laura pulled out her phone and started ordering her ride. Bill mirrored her gesture, thumb gliding idly across his screen while his eyes stayed fixed on her. When she confirmed, a light breeze stirred the edges of her hair, sending the strands drifting gently from her shoulders. He caught a faint trace of her perfume in the air. It lingered like a secret.

He didn’t look away, not immediately. For a second too long, he watched her, her brow knit in focus, the way she stood, anchored and unpretending. Then she spoke, voice calm, cutting through the stillness.

“Eight minutes,” she said, eyes still on the screen. Then she turned to him. “Yours?”

He blinked, caught slightly off guard, and glanced down a little too quickly. It wasn’t subtle. She had caught him watching, not merely glancing, and certainly not pretending otherwise. She didn’t call him on it, but the way her eyes stayed on him made it clear she’d noticed.

He gave a half-shrug, his mouth tugging into a faint, slightly embarrassed smile that all but admitted he’d been caught. “Ten.”

It was harmless, a small lie meant to buy time. Eight minutes more next to her under the pale spill of a streetlamp.

Laura shifted her weight, arms crossing loosely as her gaze drifted down the empty sidewalk. The breeze had quieted into something gentler, a soft presence moving around them. Overhead, one of the streetlamps buzzed softly, casting stretched shadows across the concrete. She checked her phone again, not out of necessity, but because standing still didn’t come naturally after a day like this.

“After all that coffee,” she said, not quite joking, “I might actually finish the book I started.”

Bill angled toward her slightly, his expression unreadable but present. He didn’t speak, just waited, letting her offer the next piece of herself if she chose to.

“A Murder on Picon,” she added, her thumb grazing the edge of the phone. “Been sitting on my shelf for months.”

That got a slight shift from him, not surprise, but curiosity. His mouth moved, almost a smile.

“I’ve read it,” he said, voice low. “Twice, actually. Once for the plot. Once to see how I missed it.”

Laura glanced over, one brow lifting with a trace of amusement. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “I like mysteries. The ones that only reveal themselves at the last second, when they’ve been right in front of you all along.”

Her expression softened. She turned a little more toward him, something in her face unwinding slightly, warmer now, more open. “That’s exactly why I picked it up. I’m two-thirds in and I’ve changed my mind about the killer four times.”

She studied him for a moment, not out of suspicion but because she was trying to place him differently now. Seeing him not as the opposing voice in a boardroom, but someone who read whodunits with attention and, apparently, re-read them with intent. It was oddly disarming. Comforting, even.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Hardcover reader, legal pad on the side and notes in the margins.”

He tilted his head. “Close,” he replied. “Hardcover, yes. Dust jacket as a bookmark. Notes in the margins and Post-its everywhere.”

Laura let out a quiet laugh. “Of course you do.”

Bill watched her for a beat, that usual mix of scrutiny and mild humor flickering in his gaze. “You strike me as someone who color-codes things. Highlights. Marginalia. Maybe even dog-ears the pages.”

Her brows shot up, a hand flying to her chest in mock scandal. “Gods, no,” she said, eyes wide. “I would never hurt a book like that.”

He laughed, really laughed this time. It was low, genuine, softening the edges around his mouth. “Alright. My mistake.”

“But,” she added, a little sheepishly, “I do keep a list. Of every book I read.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed, more curious now than teasing. “A list?”

She nodded, glancing down at her phone like she might show him, though she didn’t. “Titles, dates, and… ratings.”

The words slipped out before she had time to second-guess them, and as soon as they did, a flicker of self-awareness caught her off guard. Why was she telling him this? It wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t something she usually volunteered. Not in passing conversation. Not to someone who, until not that long ago, had occupied the adversarial corner of her mind. There was something absurd about the intimacy of it, small, mundane, but personal. And maybe it was the lateness of the hour, or the hush in the air between them, but suddenly Bill Adama didn’t feel like someone she had to measure her words around. He felt, unexpectedly, easy to talk to. And that realization nudged something loose in her chest.

“Ratings?” he asked, his mouth curving at the edges, a smile threading with disbelief. “You’re cataloging your books like they’re case files.”

Laura gave a small, half-defeated shrug just as the breeze caught her jacket. A faint shiver passed through her, maybe from the wind, maybe from the way his smile lingered. “I’m not proud of it,” she murmured.

“You should be,” he said after a breath, voice warm, teasing but kind. “That’s the most on-brand thing I’ve ever heard.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was no edge in it. If anything, there was a trace of appreciation, for the conversation, for the fact that he didn’t mock her. He just met her there, in that odd space where trivia felt like something more. And standing beneath the faded glow of the streetlamp, waiting for separate rides to separate destinations, the night felt less sharp, less distant.

After a small silence, he tilted his head slightly. “You ever read The Picon Widow?”

His tone was light, casual on the surface, but it carried a weight that didn’t quite match the question. It wasn’t just about the book, it was a thread he didn’t want to drop yet. Something in him wasn’t ready to step back from whatever this was, however temporary.

Laura turned her head, her eyes narrowing, not suspicious but thoughtful. Her curiosity was still there, sharp as always, but now it had softened, touched by something closer to warmth. It showed in the way her shoulders eased, in the subtle shift in her voice when she answered.

“It’s on my list,” she said. And simple as the words were, they held an intimacy too distinct to overlook.

Bill gave a slow nod, holding her gaze, a small offering left gently in the space between them. “Worth moving up.”

The conversation lingered in the stillness, held by nothing but the shared quiet of two people momentarily outside the roles they usually occupied. Somewhere down the block, a car turned onto the street, but neither of them moved. For now, they weren’t strategists or litigators or names on press statements, they were simply two people talking about books and sharing air.

When her car finally rolled to a stop by the curb, Laura stepped forward, hand on the door. But before sliding in, she turned back. Her eyes found his under the soft light, and her voice was quieter than before, less guarded.

“Good night, Bill.”

It was the first time she’d used his name like that. Not Adama, not tossed mid-debate, just Bill. And to her own surprise, it felt natural and unforced. As if the name had always belonged to her mouth, waiting to be said this way. There was no edge in it, no armor.

He nodded, hands resting in the pockets of his dress pants. “Good night, Laura.”

He didn’t make a thing of it, but he’d heard it, the way his name sounded in her voice. And maybe he liked it more than he should.

She slipped into the back seat, the door closing with a soft click as he watched the car pull away until the taillights disappeared into the quiet.

Only then did he turn and start walking toward his own parked car, toward whatever came next. And maybe, when he got home, he’d read A Murder on Picon again. Just to see what she might be seeing.

Chapter Text

The room wasn’t just cold, it was calculated. Glass walls, sanitized air, and a conference table so pristine it dared anyone to feel at ease. They’d all been here before, though today the layout had shifted enough to suggest something was different. Caprica Six and Gaius Baltar faced each other across the long, gleaming slab of wood, their expressions tight, polite. Almost too polite.

To Six’s left, Laura sat poised, legs crossed, a folder open in front of her but left untouched for now. Beside her, Lee maintained a silent watch, posture disciplined, eyes quietly alert. Across from them, Bill mirrored Laura’s stance, with his hands folded and shoulders squared. Kara sat to his right, arms crossed tightly and gaze already tinged with doubt, looking ready to pounce the moment the conversation took a wrong turn.

Earlier, they’d sorted through the easier stuff. The gown would stay with Six; the vase, with Baltar. No one had cracked a smile, but at least there’d been agreement, thin as glass, and just as liable to shatter. Now came the heavier lift, work sure to pull old resentments back to the surface.

Six finally broke the silence, her voice smooth, almost regal. “I’d like to propose a clause regarding control over the use of our image. Any future marketing or press use involving both of us should require my explicit consent.”

Baltar exhaled sharply, a breath edged with mockery more than surprise. He slouched a little, one arm tossed over the back of his chair, eyebrows raised in theatrical disbelief. “You mean the campaigns we co-created? The ones that paid for your lake house and... what? Half your shoe collection?”

Laura didn’t blink. She gave Six a brief look, then focused on the center of the table. Her tone was clipped and steady, marked by a precision that brooked no debate. “We’re not here to relitigate past profits. We’re talking about future boundaries. There’s a difference.”

Bill’s jaw flexed, barely. He didn’t jump in right away, just stared at Baltar, then down at the open folder in front of him, calculating the next move.

When he did speak, his voice was level, but the message behind it landed with weight. “You’re asking for veto power over anything that shows both your faces. That’s not a light ask.”

Six offered the barest hint of a smile. “Neither is the brand.”

The pause that followed was subtle, but it stretched long enough to register. Bill felt it, a tremor before the fault line shifts. Whatever came next wasn’t going to be untangled with clean logic or prior case law. He glanced briefly at Laura. She was already leaning in, hands calmly folded, every ounce of her focus anchored in the now.

“Intellectual property tied to human likeness isn’t new,” she said, her voice measured. “And this isn’t some emotional outburst. It’s a question of agency. She was the face of your product, Gaius. That doesn’t entitle you to use her image indefinitely.”

Bill adjusted in his seat, a small, measured motion. Barely there, but purposeful enough to signal a shift.

“The campaigns were built under a shared enterprise,” he said, addressing the room, but his eyes lingered on Laura, just a second longer than necessary. “The brand wasn’t a person. It was a partnership. Public-facing, legally constructed, and fully bankrolled by my client.” He didn’t break eye contact.

No need to look at Baltar. The man would mistake it for endorsement. And that wasn’t the point. This wasn’t about loyalty, it was about framing. About establishing position.

Bill leaned back a bit, a man working to appear neutral while holding his breath. “If we start rewriting the rules, introducing retroactive consent clauses or implied associations, then we’re setting a precedent that’s bigger than this room. And we don’t take that lightly.”

In truth, he was already weary. Not of the argument itself, but of the theater it demanded. He believed in consent. He valued autonomy. But he also knew Baltar. Knew exactly how he’d spin this in front of a camera or bury it in a soundbite once the papers were signed. Still, Bill held the line. That was the job.

Across the table, Baltar began tapping his fingers against the edge, lightly at first, then with growing emphasis. “So now you want a piece of the future?” he asked, his voice dipped in sarcasm. “Is that what we’re calling this? Emotional trauma, repackaged as equity?”

Six didn’t blink. Her tone stayed calm, but something in her frame had shifted. Her back was straight, chin high, presence sharpened.

“I want control over my image,” she said. “And a share of any future profit made from content we created together. You made money off my body, my face, and my name. That ends here.”

Silence followed, dense and unyielding, thick with the sense that this wouldn’t be resolved with polite compromise. Baltar’s smile curled tight, more sneer than grin. He leaned back, arms folded, not like someone bracing for dialogue, but like a man digging in for battle.

“Oh, come on,” he muttered, shaking his head slowly. “Now you want to be both a brand and a victim? That’s convenient.”

Six’s face didn’t crack, but something in her expression faltered for a fraction of a second. A flash of something raw, quickly sealed behind composure. Her jaw set. When she finally spoke, her voice came out lower and carried a sharp edge that cut colder than contempt.

“You always hated it when I asked for more than you were willing to give.”

Bill felt the sentence hit before he could process it. That was it, the personal, slipping clean through the professional, no hesitation. He started to speak, ready to intervene, to reel it back before things tipped too far. But the moment had already snapped.

Baltar stood up so fast his chair screeched across the floor. “I’m not sitting through another revisionist monologue,” he said. The usual sarcasm was gone now, replaced by a brittle, bruised pride. “You want to split hairs over percentages? Great. Talk to my accountant. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to process your emotions.”

“Gaius,” Bill said sharply, but it was already pointless. Baltar had turned, already walking out. Whatever remained was no longer up for negotiation.

Six rose more slowly, still weighing the cost of leaving. She adjusted her blazer with that eerie, almost mechanical grace, but never once looked in Baltar’s direction. Her silence said more than a rebuttal ever could.

Laura didn’t raise her voice, but the words followed with surgical precision. “We’ll be in touch with revised terms. Assuming you can stomach reading them.”

Neither Six nor Baltar responded. The door shut behind them with a sound that didn’t leave room for ambiguity. It wasn’t a pause, it was an ending.

Kara shifted slightly in her seat, arms uncrossing long enough to lean toward Bill and mutter under her breath, “Well. I guess that’s our official adjournment.”

For a few seconds, the room just sat in the aftershock.

Bill was the first to exhale. Even the air seemed to need recovery. Across from him, Laura rubbed the bridge of her nose, not out of frustration, but because she had seen the collision coming long before impact and still couldn’t stop it.

Lee’s voice finally broke the silence. “Honestly? They lasted longer than I thought they would.”

Laura stood with the precise, grounded composure she had spent years perfecting. She moved to the far end of the room, where a side table offered the usual: an over-polished tray, a half-full carafe of coffee that had long since lost any ambition to be hot, and a row of ceramic mugs doing their best to appear refined.

Her hand found the handle of the carafe. She held it firmly enough to steady her breath.

Bill watched her go before standing as well, the legs of his chair scraping softly against the floor. He didn’t speak. He stepped over to the opposite side of the table, keeping a few feet of diplomatic distance, but it was enough to shift the room’s charge.

From their seats, Kara lifted an eyebrow, and Lee angled his head slightly, caught between stepping in and bracing for what came next.

They’d assumed the worst was over. Six and Baltar had thrown their sparks and slammed their doors. But as Laura and Bill drifted closer to one another, not quite facing off, something unspoken settled over the space. Heavier, more electric. The performance was over, what remained was real.

Laura poured herself a modest cup, no sugar, no offer. Bill didn’t wait for one.

“I hope you’re happy,” she said at last. Her voice was low, measured, but tight enough to cut.

That tone. Bill didn’t need more. He recognized it instantly. Whatever fragile understanding they’d managed to build over that one lunch, whatever it was, had vanished, replaced by a finality that felt like a door clicking shut from the inside without warning. She was already retreating, and he hadn’t even opened his mouth.

He let out a short, dry sound. “Thrilled. That went exactly how I planned.”

Laura turned, finally, her mug cradled in one hand, and fixed him with a look that didn’t need volume to be devastating. “You’re letting him steer the tone of this process.”

Bill answered without pause, the words lined with the restraint of someone who’d been holding them back too long. “And you’re letting her turn a legal negotiation into a therapy session.”

This wasn’t new. They’d done this dance before. Squared shoulders, clipped tones, a breath away from some line they hadn’t yet dared cross. The difference now was distance. Or the lack of it. Inches between them. Maybe less. Laura’s hands still cradled the warm mug. Bill’s fingers twitched slightly, a restrained effort to keep them still.

Kara didn’t speak. Her expression sharpened, though. Lee had stopped pretending not to look.

Laura’s voice dropped lower, more dangerous in its control. “This isn’t about image rights anymore. She’s trying to reclaim a story that was stolen the moment he treated her like a footnote, and you know it.”

Bill’s jaw moved, barely, a flicker beneath the surface. “Wanting to take back control doesn’t mean you get leverage. That’s not how contract law works.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Her words snapped out, still low, still controlled, which somehow made them land harder. “You think I walked in here without knowing exactly how thin this ask was? Of course she’s overreaching. People overreach when they’ve been humiliated.”

The silence that followed didn’t just sit there, it pressed in.

He stepped forward with measured purpose, closing the distance until she had to tilt her chin slightly to maintain her stance, her posture turning to defiance instead of invitation.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, with something brittle folded into it. “You’re treating me like I’m the one who humiliated her. Like I’m the villain just for defending my client.” He paused. “Laura.”

Her name seemed to land harder than he intended. Laura’s jaw set, eyes narrowing with something heavier, more uncertain. The air between them didn’t cool, it thickened.

“Maybe,” she said at last, her voice level but cool, “that’s because your client’s not exactly innocent either.” A pause. “Bill.”

Kara blinked slowly. Then turned her eyes toward Lee, her expression doing all the talking. Did that just happen?

Lee answered with the faintest nod, one brow lifting a hair’s breadth. In sync, without saying a word, they both mouthed the names — Laura? Bill? — realizing the conversation had tilted into something more personal than expected, and that they were no longer just watching but witnessing.

Bill didn’t notice. Or maybe he did and chose not to care.

He took a breath. “Your client,” he said, voice tightening, “once smashed a mirror with Baltar’s head.”

Laura didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed on him, unreadable for a second too long, then drifted toward the coffee cooling between her hands. When she finally responded, her tone had a faint lilt, something like amusement, but there was steel under it.

“If I’d spent years married to Gaius Baltar,” she said, placing the mug down with careful precision, “I probably would’ve done worse than break a mirror.”

From her seat, Kara caught her breath. Not out of shock, more out of admiration. The timing. The aim. The complete lack of apology. A remark that would’ve earned a smirk in any briefing room she’d sat in. And this one, for all its formality, wasn’t all that different.

She fought the smile threatening to climb up one side of her face, disguising it behind a quick cough and a lowered gaze. But inside? She was sold. She liked Laura Roslin.

Not personally. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words. But on instinct, on principle. There was something about the way Laura used intellect as a weapon, how she stayed sharp even when her temper peeked through, that made Kara want to see how far she’d go. Few people could stand firm in front of Bill Adama. Fewer still could make him hesitate. And she had. Even if just for a breath.

Kara’s eyes flicked back to Lee. He caught the change in her expression and lifted one eyebrow, dry and silent. Now what? She gave a slight shrug. The show wasn’t over.

Bill shifted his stance, fingertips brushing the tray beside him with no real intent. The room had gone taut again, electric, not because of the fallout from Baltar and Six, but because of something more volatile and far less scripted.

“You’re being irrational,” he said at last. And for the first time all day, openly accusing.

Laura blinked once, slowly. Her chin lifted a fraction. Not in defiance, in disbelief. “I’m being irrational?”

It wasn’t a question, it was a warning.

She hated that word. Irrational. Didn’t matter who said it. Every time, it landed the same. Like a slap. It wasn’t just an insult, it was an attack on her foundation, the structure she’d spent years crafting through logic, composure, and control. She could take being called demanding, even unyielding. But irrational? That one always went deeper. It suggested her instincts couldn’t be trusted, that her decisions weren’t grounded in thought. And hearing it from Bill, here and now, brushed against something raw.

She had let her guard slip, enough to cooperate, maybe even trust. And this was what it got her. The heat behind her ribs wasn’t just anger anymore. It had become something else, disappointment. But she wouldn’t let him see that. 

She stepped forward. One deliberate click of her heel on polished flooring, sharper than any retort. Her face stayed composed, but the heat behind her eyes had no interest in hiding.

“Because I don’t want to reward the man who humiliated her in public,” she said, voice clear and hard-edged. “The one who’ll take whatever we give him and twist it into soundbites. Drag this process through every cheap media outlet he can find, just because we left him half a clause to work with?”

Bill didn’t flinch, but something shifted in him. His weight adjusted. His shoulders pulled inward by the smallest degree.

“You’re trying to fix this,” he said, quieter now, though not softer. “Fix her. And him. Clean this mess up, put a bow on it, give it meaning.” A beat. “But that’s not how this ends, Laura. We’re not their therapists. We’re their lawyers.”

They stood too close, the space between them reduced to something dense and almost volatile, without a single touch or reach. Bill’s face was level with hers. His breath came slow and steady, quiet enough that she could feel it more than hear it. Her arms stayed at her sides, but tension coiled through them, unsure whether to push forward or pull away. And the worst part was that neither direction felt like surrender.

The room had gone still again, but it wasn’t silent. It was attentive. Behind them, Kara and Lee exchanged no words, but the shift in their focus was clear. This wasn’t a dispute about terms anymore. This was something else, raw and unfiltered and edging toward dangerous.

There was something strange between Laura and Bill. Something unresolved. Magnetic, but dissonant. Frequencies that weren’t built to harmonize but still found themselves vibrating together. It wasn’t affection and it didn’t feel like the residue of something old. No, this was current and active. Running just under the surface of every sentence, every glance.

Laura could feel it too. She wouldn’t call it attraction, not aloud, maybe not even to herself. But there was pull, friction. A weight to every exchange that made it all feel too alive, too charged. And Bill, he wouldn’t name it either. But he knew it was there. In the way her presence unsettled the air around him, made him sharper, made him brace.

They didn’t understand it. Not fully. But neither of them was stepping back.

Lee leaned forward, just a bit. His brows drew together in what might’ve been concern, close, but not quite there. Kara’s arms were crossed again, but her knuckles had gone white, and she wasn’t blinking. Whatever this was, she wasn’t ready to look away. She wanted to see how far it would go.

Laura didn’t speak. There wasn’t anything left to say, not right now. He’d won this one, and they both knew it. He hadn’t gloated, hadn’t twisted the knife. But the truth had landed. And the sting wasn’t in losing the argument, it was in knowing he was right.

It wasn’t her job to mend what Six and Baltar had broken in each other. Not her burden to inject conscience into a man who fed on chaos, or to prop up dignity in a woman still learning she was allowed to claim it. She was their lawyer. No more, no less. She could quote that boundary in her sleep. Had drilled it into interns, into younger women who mistook empathy for obligation. And still.

Still, she’d tried. Because something in her wouldn’t let it go. Because watching another collapse, another unraveling, without stepping in, it felt like complicity.

Her lips pressed together, not in defiance but to keep anything else from spilling out. She hadn’t expected this exchange to touch a deeper nerve, but it had. Because he saw right through her. Not the posture or the logic or the argument. Her. And that recognition scraped against something still healing. Grief.

She was still inside it. Still playing the part of someone whole, even as she gathered broken pieces in silence. These moments, the ones that cut through the pretense, reminded her she hadn’t moved past the wreckage. She was still standing in the middle of it, still trying to walk through smoke that hadn’t cleared. So she said nothing. Not because she lacked words, but because saying anything else would’ve been dishonest.

Across from her, Bill didn’t move either, didn’t speak. He just stood there, holding the silence with her, breathing in rhythm, letting the weight of it all settle between them.

The physical space was narrow. Just inches. But the distance between them? It felt like miles.

Laura was the one who stepped back first, her movement small but enough to shift the air between them. A quiet signal carried in posture and intent, a line drawn.

The soft echo of her heels followed her as she moved toward the table. She started gathering the papers quickly, her hands moving with practiced efficiency. Not careless, but fast. A speed that betrayed something she wasn’t saying out loud. Her motions were sharp and focused. Less about tidiness now, more about escape.

When she spoke, her voice had settled back into something cool and composed. “We’re done here,” she said, eyes on the documents, never on him. “Start packing up. We’re leaving.”

Lee sat up straighter, almost reflexively. His eyes flicked to Kara to confirm that he hadn’t imagined it. Kara didn’t say anything. She just let out a breath, then reached to fasten her briefcase.

Bill stayed where he was. He didn’t speak. Didn’t shift. Just stood there, watching Laura like he could will her to glance back. She didn’t. Her focus remained on the paper, on the angles and edges, on making something in front of her feel orderly again. But it wasn’t about neatness, it was distance. It was defense.

Something lodged in his throat. Not quite words, not quite breath. He wanted to say something, not about the case, not about the logistics, but about this. Whatever this was. The thing that had sparked, surged, and then vanished without recognition. But he knew better. The part of him that understood her too well already knew that if she’d chosen not to acknowledge it, nothing he said would change that.

He let the silence stretch a moment longer, then finally exhaled, the sound thin against the background of rustling folders and shifting chairs.

“You’re right,” he said, finally moving. “This meeting’s over.” His voice held only finality.

He reached for his papers, his hands steady, his movements smooth, mechanical. There was a line now, and she was already on the other side. He wouldn’t follow.

Laura and Lee packed up in near silence. Their movements were brisk, purposeful. There was no need to talk about what had just happened, not here, not with Bill still at the far end of the table, and certainly not with Kara nearby, watching everything without seeming to.

Laura slipped her folder into her bag, snapped it shut with a single motion, and walked out without waiting. She didn’t look back.

Lee followed without hesitation. He swung his bag over one shoulder and let the steady click of Laura’s heels lead them down the corridor. The air outside the room felt different, not lighter, exactly, but thinned out, as if whatever had passed between her and Bill had drained more oxygen from the space than anyone had realized.

They reached the car without a word. Laura slid into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed with a little more force than necessary, though her face didn’t give anything away. She didn’t buckle her seatbelt right away. Just leaned her elbow against the door, two fingers resting lightly at her temple, eyes already turned toward the window. By the time Lee started the engine, she clicked the belt into place, mechanical, detached.

The car pulled forward into traffic. She kept her phone untouched and left the files where they were, sitting still and watching the city pass in fragments. Buildings, people, motion that felt irrelevant.

Lee glanced over once, briefly. Her face was composed, but her mouth held something he couldn’t quite read. Not anger. Something flatter. Maybe disappointment, maybe just fatigue.

He let a few more blocks slide past before speaking, voice low, tentative. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer right away. Blinked. But her eyes stayed on the window, following nothing in particular. When she did speak, her voice was quieter than usual.

“Do you think I was delusional,” she asked, “to think we could handle this like adults? Civilly. Maybe even—” she paused, the word stuck for half a second, “—cordially. After the lunch.”

Lee didn’t say anything at first. The word “cordially” felt misplaced. Nothing about what just happened had even brushed civility, much less warmth. But he didn’t think she wanted him to break it down. She wasn’t asking for logic. This was something more personal. Something bruised.

Then she added, almost in passing, her voice even softer, “We even talked about books.” It came out like an afterthought. Like a detail that didn’t matter but somehow did. “While we waited for the ride.”

Lee turned his head slightly, just enough to glance at her. Not too obviously, but enough to register the way she said it. We even talked about books. We waited for the ride. Together. The phrasing struck him as off, not wrong, exactly, but... heavier than it sounded.

He kept his tone light, neutral. “You waited?” A beat. “Together?”

Laura didn’t turn. Didn’t shift in her seat or glance his way. She just gave a slow, single nod, eyes still following the city slipping past the window.

“I was waiting for mine.” The words came easily. “He was waiting for his.”

Lee kept his gaze on the road, but his grip on the steering wheel tightened, just slightly, a subtle reflex that gives you away before you know it.

“He didn’t drive?” he asked, aiming for casual, but the words landed flatter than he meant them to.

“No.” Now she turned, just a little. There was no edge in her tone, no suspicion in her face. Only mild curiosity. “He said his car was in the shop. Why?”

Lee thought about brushing it off with a shrug. He knew better. She would’ve seen right through it. So instead, he offered a vague shake of his head and looked ahead again.

“No reason,” he said. “Just didn’t picture him calling a car.”

And that part was true. Bill Adama didn’t do curbside. He didn’t open apps or wait for license plates to match the screen. He barely used his phone unless it was for a call. That was his rhythm, efficient, solitary and untouchable.

But apparently, that night, he’d stood there. On the sidewalk. Next to Laura. Waiting.

Lee didn’t say it. He kept his eyes on the road, let the tires fill the silence, but the thoughts didn’t fade. They built. Quiet, stacking somewhere behind his ribs, layering themselves into a pressure he couldn’t name. He wasn’t sure what unsettled him more, the fact that Bill had waited, or that Laura had noticed. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d brought it up at all.

Beside him, Laura had gone quiet again. Her head rested lightly against the window, but she wasn’t really watching the storefronts anymore. They just slid past, unregistered. She looked calm, always did, but calm wasn’t the same as distant. Inside, her thoughts were looping. Not loud, but persistent. Pressing into places she didn’t want them to go.

She wasn’t sad. At least, that’s what she told herself. This wasn’t sadness, it was something else. Tighter. Irritation, maybe. Frustration. A knot that refused to loosen, pulled tighter by how ridiculous it all felt and how quickly something that had felt steady turned fragile.

What bothered her wasn’t the fight. It was the fact that she’d liked talking to him. And not about motions or witness prep or jurisdictional nonsense, but about books. About stories. About ideas that mattered. It had caught her off guard, that conversation. Honest. Unprotected. And for a minute, it had felt... real. Too real.

That was what unsettled her. Before everything cracked open in that room, there had been, if only for a moment, a sense of ease. Not comfort, not familiarity, but something that felt... possible. The exchange about the book. The waiting. The way he’d stood next to her on the sidewalk like it meant nothing. Or maybe, impossibly, like it meant something.

And for that moment, she’d allowed herself to consider the idea that Bill Adama might be easier to talk to than she’d expected. Not easily, not often, but enough. Enough to get through this mess with some degree of civility. Maybe even with clarity. Then he called her irrational.

The word lingered, carrying the dull ache of something she hadn’t realized could still touch a nerve. It wasn’t just the word, it was how easily it swept aside everything that had come before. Made her wonder if she’d imagined it all. If she’d mistaken a brief alignment for something it wasn’t.

That’s what stuck. That she had let her guard drop. Let the conversation drift beyond legal precision into something resembling understanding. And he had cut it off, clean, without a second thought.

What burned wasn’t the insult. It was the implication. That there had never been anything between the lines to begin with. That she was the only one who’d noticed.

And the worst part? She didn’t even have the right to be this angry. He hadn’t made any promises. Hadn’t said or done anything that couldn’t be shrugged off as professional. And still, she was furious. Not because he’d crossed a boundary, but because he hadn’t even seemed aware that one had been there.

Her fingers moved slightly in her lap, the faintest shift, resisting the urge to curl into something tighter. She blinked once, slowly, like she could push the thought away. Outside, the city lights turned to streaks across the glass.

The car slowed in front of her house, tires whispering over the curve of the driveway. The light filtered down through the trees above, scattering shadows across the windshield. The house rose quietly in front of them, all burnt sienna and clean lines, framed in the kind of muted elegance that didn’t need to announce itself.

Laura shifted in her seat, smoothing the edge of her blazer.

As Lee shifted the car into park, Laura reached down and pulled her bag onto her lap, unfastening the clasp with a familiar flick. Her hands moved on autopilot. She knew exactly what she was looking for, a slim navy folder, red tab on the corner. The one she’d pulled aside during the final stretch of the meeting. Meant for Lee. Notes on the image clause, her edits marked cleanly for him to work from later.

But when she slid her hand inside the bag, her fingers met loose pages, the edge of a binder clip, and not much else. Her brow knit slightly. She adjusted the angle, reached deeper. Still nothing.

“Hold on,” she muttered, mostly to herself. Her tone was calm, but there was focus behind it now.

Lee glanced over. “Something missing?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Just began pulling folders onto her lap, flipping through them with efficiency. Nothing. Then she looked up, her voice flat. “There was a file I meant to give you. My markup of the image clause. The version with the alternate language we went over last week.”

That got his attention. He reached for his own folder from the center console and began thumbing through it, eyes narrowing slightly as he scanned the pages. “You sure it wasn’t in mine?”

She waited, watching him flip through the clean stack of documents. Page after page passed, but the red tab never showed.

“Frak,” she said quietly, almost to herself, fingers still frozen over the open mouth of her bag.

After a pause, she exhaled through her nose and looked back at Lee. Her voice was measured, but a tightness had crept into the edges. “It might’ve ended up in someone else’s pile. Kara’s. Or…” she hesitated, long enough for the name to land. “Bill’s.”

She didn’t say more. She didn’t have to.

Lee leaned back in his seat and closed his folder with a soft snap.

“We were the ones who packed up first,” he said, half-thinking out loud. “Could’ve been shuffled without anyone noticing.”

Laura gave a small nod, her jaw tightening slightly. “Exactly. We moved too fast. I should’ve checked.” She didn’t add that, in that moment, all she’d wanted was to get out of that room as quickly as possible, before anything else could come undone.

Her voice was free of edge and defensiveness, filled instead with clipped, compact frustration born of someone who usually stayed ten steps ahead and hated losing that ground.

Lee adjusted the strap of his bag, eyes flicking toward the dashboard. “I’ll swing by and check. If Kara has it, great. If not...” He let the sentence hang. She’d know what he meant. He’d ask.

He hadn’t said why he was volunteering, and she hadn’t needed to. It was there in her posture, in the tension held too tightly in her shoulders, in the way she hadn’t looked up when she said Bill’s name. She didn’t want to see his father again, not today. And Lee, without needing explanation, understood that. He read it in her eyes, in the space between each clipped word. So he offered, simply because she hadn’t asked.

Laura gave a single nod, already closing her bag with the same calm, controlled movements she’d maintained all day.

“Appreciate it,” she said, her tone level again, everything buttoned back into place.

She stepped out of the car with a brief nod and closed the door gently behind her. Without looking back, she walked toward the house, her pace steady, heels quiet against the driveway.

Lee didn’t move right away. He stayed behind the wheel, eyes lingering on the passenger seat. She’d been sitting there less than a minute ago, but the space already felt different. He kept thinking about the way she’d said his father’s name, casual and practiced, as if it belonged on her tongue. That didn’t sit right.

These were two people who used to barely make it through a meeting without tension flaring. For years, they couldn’t share ten minutes in the same room without something sparking. And now she said his name like it meant nothing. Or worse, like it had started to mean something. Like it had always been easy.

He blinked, shifted into drive, and pulled away from the curb. One glance at the dashboard clock told him it wasn’t too late. His father’s office could wait five more minutes.

By the time Lee pulled up near the Adama & Associates building, the knot in his chest hadn’t moved. Whatever he and Laura hadn’t said still echoed in the silence they’d left behind. It hadn’t faded. It had just settled, lodged somewhere between thought and breath. He still couldn’t pin down what had unsettled him more, the way her voice had softened when she talked about books, or the shift that came right after. That muted tightening, a door cracked open and then slammed shut again.

He climbed out of the car with more force than necessary, the door closing harder than he meant. He adjusted the strap on his messenger bag and walked toward the building, his steps quicker than the task demanded.

Inside, the reception area felt unusually subdued. Phones remained silent. Papers lay untouched. The only sound came from a quiet exchange of voices near the front desk.

Kara was leaning over Dualla’s workspace, one elbow propped on the counter, the other hand twirling a pen in slow, absent circles. Dualla sat upright, face composed, but there was a flicker of something at the edge of her mouth, amusement, maybe, or the shadow of it.

They fell silent the moment they saw him, and Lee knew they’d been talking about something private.

He approached the front desk with a polite nod, tipping his head slightly in greeting. "Hey."

Dualla straightened, offering a cordial, "Hi, Lee."

Kara raised an eyebrow in half-surprise, a small smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

“Well, look who it is,” Kara said, her tone light but pointed. “We didn’t expect to see you again today.”

Lee shifted his bag on his shoulder, forcing a casual smile. “Yeah… Laura thinks some of the mediation documents might have ended up with you. Thought I’d drop by and check.”

Kara nodded slowly, still twirling her pen between her fingers. “Sure. They’re probably in my folder. I’ll go get it.” She turned away, stepping toward a filing cabinet.

Then Lee added, casually, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, does my dad need a ride, by the way?”

Kara paused, mid-stride, and glanced back. “Why would your dad need a ride?”

Lee offered a shrug, adjusting the strap on his shoulder. “Laura said his car’s in the shop this week.”

At that, everything froze for a heartbeat. Dualla's fingers halted mid-keystroke before she continued with practiced normality. Kara pivoted fully, arms folding across her chest, expression sharpening. Her voice remained measured, but there was a change in it.

“She said that?” Kara asked.

Lee paused, caught off guard. “Yeah. She said he mentioned it the other day… while they were waiting for their cars after lunch.”

Kara blinked, that final piece shifting into place. “Wait. They shared a ride?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory. It carried more disbelief than anything else.

“No,” Lee said quickly, brows knitting. “She ordered hers first. He ordered his. He just waited with her.”

Dualla didn’t look up, but her lips quivered in the corner, barely visible. Kara let out a short, amused exhale, a ghost of a smile lighting her eyes. “Interesting,” she said, drawing out the word in a way that said more than any question.

Then Kara glanced at Dee without a word. Their eyes met, and though neither of them smiled openly, a spark of amusement passed between them. Clearly, something had clicked, something Lee was only just beginning to piece together.

He felt it too, the gap widening between what was being revealed and what he understood. Their reaction, that shared look, the almost-smile, everything hinted at a private understanding he hadn’t arrived at yet.

His brows furrowed as he picked up on the silence. “What?”

Kara tilted her head, amusement flickering in her eyes, but there was something sharper hidden behind it. “Nothing. Didn’t know the boss was one to wait on a sidewalk for a ride. His car’s been parked downstairs all month.”

Dualla let out a soft cough, barely suppressing a smile, her gaze still lowered.

Lee blinked. “Wait, what?” His brow furrowed, eyes narrowing. “His car hasn’t been in the shop?”

Kara let out a short, amused breath. “Not for a single day.”

Lee’s confusion deepened. "What am I missing?”

He was partway through the question when the office door swung open. Bill stepped out, his blazer off, sleeves rolled up, carrying a stack of folders. His surprise at seeing Lee was fleeting, then it was gone, replaced by a neutral nod.

“Lee,” he said, his tone controlled. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I—” Lee began, shifting between Kara and Dualla. “I came by to pick up a file. Laura said Kara might—”

Kara cut him off as decisively as she ever had. She slipped between Lee and Bill, folder in hand, as though expecting Lee to arrive.

“Here you go,” she said, offering it with a polished smile. “Nothing interesting. Just standard lawyer stuff.”

Lee removed his gaze from the folder and glanced toward Kara. “You sure his car’s not—” he started, but Kara stepped in again, firm, no hostility, but unmistakable boundary.

“Lee,” she said. Her eyes flicked toward Bill, then back to him, “you got what you came for.”

There was something there, a veiled awareness and a shared understanding that this moment didn’t need more voices. Not now.

Lee nodded, slowly and a bit more confused than before, but he didn’t push the issue. “Right. Thanks.”

He shot Bill one last look. His father still stood there, words unspoken, expression unreadable as ever.

Folder in hand, Lee stepped toward the door. “See you later, I guess.” But Bill was already walking away, fully absorbed in whatever task waited for him behind that office door.

When the door clicked shut, Lee paused and glanced back.

Kara and Dualla were still at the desk, but now they sat a little closer together, voices low and laced with soft laughter. Light, conspiratorial, not cruel. It was as if whatever had passed earlier had settled into an inside story only they shared.

Lee frowned, holding the folder tight against his side. He felt the missing piece wherever it lay, a thread of understanding he’d walked in late and couldn’t quite grasp.

Chapter Text

They came in waves.

Not the dry court dispatches or the tidy legal recaps, those, Laura could handle. Hell, she even welcomed them sometimes. But for days now, the media had been drunk on the spectacle: Six and Baltar, front and center. Headlines buzzed with glitzy gowns and broken dynasties, rumors of wiretaps, freeze-frames from fundraisers picked apart like crime scenes. It was all loud, tasteless, invasive, but not surprising. They were celebrities. Of course the trial would turn into a circus.

Then something shifted.

The glare of attention, once fixed squarely on the star-crossed litigants, drifted. And with unsettling precision, it found her.

It wasn’t the scrutiny that rattled Laura. It was the tone that made her pause. The subtle shift from news to narrative. From analysis to drama. Like the press had grown bored of the glitterati and turned their lens on the people pulling the levers behind the curtain.

The first headline dropped that morning, cool and clean on the Caprica Tribune’s homepage: “Divorce of the Century: Baltar vs. Six Gets the Roslin-Adama Treatment.”

She was still nursing her first coffee when another pinged her phone, blunt and brazen: “Legal Titans Reunited: Are Roslin and Adama Finally Playing Nice?”

By the time she’d made it to her desk, jacket still on, Billy handed her a printed blog post, hesitating a beat before letting it go. Some legal gossip site that should’ve stayed buried in the algorithm.

Laura scanned it. Her eyes narrowed.

“Roslin and Adama, known adversaries for over two decades, appear to be adopting a surprisingly unified front in the Baltar-Six proceedings. The legal community is watching closely as two of Caprica’s most formidable attorneys take the same stage once again, this time not as opponents but as parallel forces in what may become the most high-profile divorce case of the decade.”

Not wrong exactly, but overblown. Designed for clicks. A piece that turns years of hard-earned credibility into a plot twist.

She dropped the page onto her desk and let out a slow breath through her nose, half annoyance, half resignation.

Billy stood beside her in that particular kind of silence reserved for headlines that didn’t blame her directly but still managed to make her the centerpiece. His posture was measured, respectful, an understanding that the wrong stillness could tip things the wrong way.

Laura felt the tight coil at the base of her skull, the early warning of a headache that came from holding everything in rather than from stress.

“They’re not even pretending to care about the case anymore,” she said. Her tone was clipped, pared down to function. “It’s not about what we’re doing. It’s about who we are. Or whatever version of us they think sells best.”

Billy didn’t jump in. He shifted slightly, just enough to mark his presence, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes darting briefly from the paper on her desk to her face. The sympathy there wasn’t heavy or pitying, it was protective.

“It’s a good headline,” he said eventually, choosing his words one by one, careful to find solid ground. “Roslin and Adama. People know the name. You’ve said it yourself, we could use the attention.”

Laura exhaled barely a breath that wasn’t quite agreement, wasn’t quite pushback.

“I wanted visibility,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “Not to end up in someone’s gossip column. It was supposed to be about the work. About the firm. Not some recycled fantasy about rival attorneys finally learning to play nice.”

She turned toward her computer and tapped the space bar. The monitor blinked awake: open tabs, depositions, filings. Work, real work. Her fingers hovered over the trackpad for a moment before she opened a browser and typed in the blog’s name. The article loaded instantly. Still trending. Still glowing with that smug sheen only gossip outlets seemed to master. She started to scroll.

Billy stepped in a little closer, unhurried, unobtrusive. “Don’t,” he said, voice low, concern tucked neatly beneath his usual calm.

Laura paused, finger still on the scroll wheel. She looked at him over her shoulder. Face composed. Eyes sharp. “Why not?”

He hesitated, a pause measured enough for her to catch the calculation in his eyes. Say too much, risk a crack. Say nothing, and risk more. Finally, he offered the one truth that wouldn’t cut too deep.

“Because searching your own name online is never a good idea,” he said, his tone dry, almost amused. A small, strategic deflection, but not a lie.

She held his gaze a beat longer than necessary. Her lips were pressed into a line that wasn’t quite disapproval, but it wasn’t agreement either. She was reading him, and he knew it. But she didn’t push.

Instead, she closed the tab. Didn't even glance at the comments. And Billy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

What he hadn’t told her, what he wouldn’t, was that he’d already read them. Just a glance, he’d told himself. A quick skim, hoping for nothing and finding too much.

“She looks at him like she wants to bite his throat or kiss him. Maybe both.”

“Decades of repressed chemistry. You can’t fake that in a courtroom.”

“If my divorce was handled by two people with that much unresolved tension, I’d reconsider staying married.”

They weren’t cruel, but they weren’t about the case either. Just strangers online, tossing off commentary like it was nothing. People who still treated the internet like a no-man’s-land, where you could say anything, joke about anyone, and never think twice about who might be reading. Saying things for effect, for attention, never for truth. But words like that still land.

Because they weren’t really commenting on the trial. They were focused on her. The way she stood. The way she looked at him. The way her body occupied space near someone she wasn’t sleeping with, followed by the lazy presumption that she should be.

And Billy knew Laura. Knew how little she tolerated being reduced like that. How tightly she held the reins of her life, her image, her intent.

So he stayed quiet. Let her think the article was the worst of it. Because sometimes protection didn’t mean stepping in. Sometimes, it meant stepping back.

She didn’t thank him. She didn’t have to. The way she gathered her things, with her face unreadable, said enough. Laura Roslin didn’t splinter under pressure. She compartmentalized it. Filed it where it belonged. Moved forward.

Billy stepped aside as she crossed the room, her heels tapping in that steady, unhurried rhythm. She paused for a moment, her eyes drifting back to the printout still lying on the desk, then continued without a word.

“You’ve still got the Hastings hearing today,” he said softly, careful not to puncture the quiet. “Judge Salder rescheduled.”

She nodded mid-stride, already halfway through the door. Bag slung over her shoulder, hair in perfect waves, untouched by headlines, unread by the world. Whatever she felt, it wouldn’t follow her into the courtroom. The door clicked shut behind her.

Billy stayed where he was. Let the silence settle like dust. Counted to ten before moving again.

The morning bled away in hearings and filings, in objections that went nowhere and questions no one really wanted to answer. By the time courtroom 3C had cleared out, Bill Adama stepped into the corridor with the weight of the session still sitting heavy between his shoulders.

The motion hearing had been exactly what he expected, asset enforcement, post-divorce technicalities, a showboating opposing counsel who seemed more interested in dramatic pauses than actual outcomes, and a client who couldn’t give a straight answer if her life depended on it. While nothing about it was dramatic or disastrous, the cumulative effect was enough to wear on his nerves.

He loosened his tie, more from habit than need, and pressed a thumb to the corner of his forehead, where that familiar pressure had started to build. The hallway around him was a blur of movement, attorneys speed-walking through closing arguments, clerks juggling folders like unstable towers, and the background hum of the judicial machine churning forward, slow, clunky, and hopelessly human.

There was no rush. With no further hearings on the docket and no urgent calls waiting, he planned to end the day early, grab a coffee, maybe breathe for once, and head home before the city choked on its own traffic. The idea of going back to the office just to stare at inbox purgatory made his spine stiffen.

He made his way to the courthouse café, a narrow, state-sponsored alcove off the rotunda that barely qualified as a coffee shop. It smelled like burnt espresso and dust from decades of case files, and the line was already trailing into the hallway.

He nearly turned back. But then again, what else was he going to do with the next fifteen minutes?

The queue crawled. Two exhausted baristas, a flickering card reader, and a man at the front who apparently believed choosing between herbal tea and an oat milk latte required divine intervention. Typical.

Bill stepped in line anyway, reaching for his phone to check the time, when a voice, too familiar to ignore, sliced through the ambient hum.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who waits in line.”

He didn’t turn right away. Didn’t need to. The voice had that familiar precision, measured and contained, sharpened over years of saying only what mattered and never a syllable more. It slipped through the ambient murmur with the ease of something refined and tested. There was only one person it could’ve come from.

Still, he waited a beat before shifting. Something about her always made him pause. Not out of reluctance, exactly, more like instinct. Meeting her eyes too quickly felt like stepping into a tempo she already set.

When he finally did glance over, she was facing forward again.

Laura stood in the next line, barely two feet away. He hadn’t noticed her when he joined, but now he couldn’t not notice her.

Two baristas. Two lines. Two small clusters of tired professionals pretending not to know one another. She stood with her hand resting lightly on the strap of her bag, the other relaxed, casual. Her hair, loose, brushed clean around her shoulders, caught the flat overhead lighting in glints of copper that didn’t belong in this building. She looked composed and faintly, unmistakably, unimpressed.

He exhaled slowly and shifted just enough to acknowledge her, shoulders angled and head slightly turned, a practiced middle ground between facing her and looking away.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said finally, voice low, sanded at the edges by fatigue.

She didn’t look over. “I could say the same.”

The line crept forward. They moved as if choreographed, one slow step, no eye contact. A delicate avoidance. Around them, the café buzzed on with the hiss of steam, the clatter of cups, the monotone rhythm of orders and card readers.

“I thought you didn’t drink courthouse coffee,” he said, flicking her a sidelong glance. “Most say it tastes like regret and burnt grounds.”

Now she looked at him, just slightly, just enough. Her eyes met his without turning her head, calm and unreadable. Amusement flickered there. Or maybe it was tiredness wearing a more elegant disguise.

“It does,” she said. “But sometimes bitter’s better than nothing.”

Bill let out a quiet huff, almost a laugh, but it didn’t make it that far. His gaze shifted forward. The man with the oat milk indecision had finally chosen a side. Small mercies.

“I just sat through a motion hearing that made me question whether words still mean anything,” he muttered. Mostly to himself.

Laura adjusted her bag on her shoulder. Her tone didn’t change. “Let me guess. Opposing counsel with flair for drama and a loose relationship with facts?”

He glanced over. “That narrows it down to about half the profession.”

The line stalled again. Up ahead, someone was arguing over a refund. Something about the wrong milk. Or the wrong size. Or maybe just the wrong attitude from the barista. Hard to tell. Bill didn’t really care. He just noticed the way the movement stopped, how no one asked questions, and how the collective patience of the queue sagged under one person’s indecision.

He shifted slightly, weight rolling from one foot to the other in a move so small it was barely visible. Laura didn’t budge, still as ever. Her gaze stayed forward, and the fingers of one hand brushed the strap of her bag in a slow, idle rhythm.

A full minute passed before she spoke, low but clear, each word passing through a gate of thought before reaching her lips.

“Did you see the articles?”

He didn’t respond right away. His eyes flicked toward her, then back to the front, where the argument still dragged on. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, offhand almost, but not careless.

“Dualla showed me a few. Headlines, mostly.” He paused. Then added, a bit quieter, the edge of something more thoughtful threading beneath the words. “I try not to give it too much oxygen. It’s all noise. Gossip in a suit and tie. People seeing what they want if it sells. Doesn’t matter if it’s true.” He looked at her then, meeting her eyes for a fleeting second. “It gets in your head if you let it.”

He didn’t explain or say what thoughts it stirred, or where they went. The silence that followed lingered long enough to suggest he didn’t have to.

Because Laura had closed the tab before scrolling. Bill hadn’t. He’d waited until Dualla left the office that morning, then read more than he meant to. Not just the headlines, those were easy. It was the rest that stuck. The commentary. The guessing games dressed as insight. The way analysis bled into suggestion, and suggestion slid straight into fantasy.

He hadn’t planned to, but once the words were on the screen, they had a way of continuing without him.

He told himself it was professional curiosity. That he needed to stay ahead of the narrative, keep an eye on what might creep back into court through the side door. That it was about strategy. About control.

And yet, standing there now beside her in a café line that hadn’t moved in three full minutes, he could still feel fragments of it clinging to him, a fine dust that seemed to settle deeper the more he tried to shake it off.

“They look at each other like they’ve been undressing each other for years but never crossed the line.”

He had scoffed. Closed the browser. Thought it was ridiculous.

Except one comment had lodged itself deeper than the rest. Not because he wanted it to. It just... settled there. Quiet and uninvited.

At first, he’d dismissed it outright. I don’t look at her like that. He wasn’t some intern nursing a crush on a mentor. He respected her. Respected her work. She could be impossible. Exhausting. Brilliant.

But then he paused. Did he?

The doubt didn’t land right away. It crept in later, hours after, when the screen had gone dark and the coffee was cold. He remembered her that night under the streetlight, her eyes even greener and brighter, hair catching gold under the dull city glow. There’d been something about her stillness. Watchful, not withdrawn. Her voice had softened when she said his name. It wasn’t flirtation. It didn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t have.

But it had stayed with him. Pressed itself into memory in a way he couldn’t quite unpack. He had always found her infuriating and just as long, he’d found her, undeniably, attractive.

He’d tried to shake it off. Push the thought back into that quiet box where things go when you’ve had years of history, habit, and good reason not to touch them. Professional lines. Personal pride. He’d built a whole structure on those.

But denial only works when there’s space to lean on. And right now, with her standing inches away, entirely composed in that way she always was, he had to admit, the worst part wasn’t that the comments were inappropriate. It was that they weren’t entirely wrong.

He tried to be better than that. Older. Wiser. But there were truths he couldn’t edit. He had always admired Laura Roslin. Always. Her sharp mind, her spine of steel. The way she could silence a room without raising her voice.

And yes, she had always been attractive. Compelling in a way that was inconvenient. Especially now, in the tired light of a courthouse café, where nothing should’ve felt personal and everything suddenly did.

She didn’t say anything at first, just gave a short nod. Could’ve meant agreement or disapproval. Or nothing at all. With Laura, silence was never neutral.

Bill didn’t press. He never did. Pressing made her dig in, and once she planted her feet, there was no moving her.

The line crept forward again. They moved together now, naturally, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow space. Their pace synced without trying. For a second, it felt like the building had gone still around them.

She ordered her coffee, black, without sugar or anything extra. Then stepped aside. He asked for the same. The barista barely looked up. The exchange didn’t need words, and neither did they, not until both held their cups, steam rising in twin spirals between them as they walked out side by side.

The hallway outside was brighter, laced with motion. Clerks moved quickly with stacks of paper. Lawyers barked into phones. A bailiff leaned near the elevators, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning the crowd with authority.

They walked without speaking. The silence wasn’t awkward, it had weight, not lack. But something about Laura shifted. Her shoulders, stiff with tightly contained tension since the moment he saw her, rose slightly. It was small, barely a change, but enough for him to notice.

And then she did something else. Almost anything, really. She moved the strap of her bag from one shoulder to the other, adjusted the edge of her jacket. An ordinary motion. One most people wouldn’t register. But Bill did. Because he knew what composure looked like when it cracked.

“You carry too much,” he said quietly. “Even when it’s not yours.”

She slowed, just long enough for it to register. Her head tilted slightly toward him, though her gaze didn’t shift.

“There’s only so much you can control, Laura,” he added, his voice gentler now. “And the press? That’s never been one of them. You could do everything right and they’d still twist it into something else. At some point… you’ve got to let a little of it go.”

She didn’t answer or move. She stood there, holding her cup, watching the steam rise like it might give her something back. His words didn’t bounce off her, they landed slowly. She didn’t flinch, but he saw the slight shift in her jaw, neither relaxed nor tense. Somewhere in between.

She thought back to the mediation. A few days ago. Standing face to face. His voice low, sharp, calling her irrational in that calm, maddening tone of his. She remembered the heat climbing in her chest, the control it took to hold her ground. Still, it had left her feeling cornered.

And yet here he was, no trace of condescension in his tone, speaking to her as though he understood something no one else had the nerve to name. 

How did he do that? How could someone so predictably aggravating also be so disarmingly composed when it mattered most? Whatever smugness he’d carried was gone, his ego quieted, replaced by a calm certainty she didn’t know how to meet.

What unsettled her more was that he saw her. Really saw her. And knew, without asking, which words might make it through.

She took a slow sip, using the moment to delay her answer. Her eyes narrowed slightly as the bitterness landed. Then she exhaled and changed the subject on purpose.

“Can you believe that many people waited in line for… this?”

So flat. So dry. So perfectly timed that he laughed without meaning to. A short, low sound that came from deep in his chest.

She laughed too, quick and reluctant, as if the sound had slipped past her before she could catch it. The corner of her mouth lifted as she looked ahead, and just for a moment, the weight of everything softened into something simpler. Something almost warm.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. The laughter had faded, but what lingered wasn’t discomfort. They kept walking down the corridor, footsteps echoing softly against polished tile. The building had started to empty, lunchtime creeping in, loosening the pace. Two clerks passed by murmuring about an adjournment. Their voices trailed off behind them, swallowed by the hallway.

Bill spoke first. His tone was light, but there was weight beneath it. “You heading out?”

She turned her head slightly, enough to meet his eyes. “Not yet. I’ve got another hearing in a few minutes.” Her shoulders lifted in a small, easy shrug. Then she raised a brow and returned the question. “You?”

He nodded. “Done for the day. Just needed caffeine and a believable excuse before I vanish.”

That earned a quiet huff from her, half breath, half acknowledgment. She glanced at her watch, then exhaled through her nose. “I should go,” she said, adjusting the cup in her hands. “It’s about to start.”

But she didn’t leave, not right away. Instead, she looked at him again. Her gaze held his for a second longer than it needed to. Not soft exactly, but open. Then, unexpectedly, a small smile appeared.

“Bye, Bill.”

Her voice was stripped of irony and edge, the words softened into a farewell from a woman who’d been met, not managed.

He answered with steady calm, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Bye, Laura.”

She turned and walked off without looking back. And this time, he didn’t match her pace, didn’t try to keep step. He just stood there and watched her go.

Laura crossed the courthouse hallway with practiced ease, the result of doing it too many times to count. Her pace was brisk and efficient, calibrated to the exact moment when being late started to matter. Her heels struck the floor in sharp rhythm, but her mind was already ahead of her, sorting through arguments, filing tone and posture into place.

The hearing wasn’t complex. Property reassignment after a separation. A condo no one wanted to live in, but no one wanted to give up either. The opposing counsel was young, far too young for the case, really. His objections fumbled, citations half-formed. She didn’t have to try hard, but she did anyway. She made her case, clear and steady, let the transcript catch every stumble he couldn’t recover from. By the time the judge ruled, her client was nodding, satisfied. The room was already emptying.

The ruling came and went without any real sense of victory, her breath easing out as she gathered her notes and moved on.

Back at the office, she moved through the routine. Signed where she needed to sign. Initialed the margins. Reviewed a brief. Answered Billy’s question with a nod and a half-spoken “thanks” that trailed off somewhere between thought and voice. He noticed, she knew he did, but he didn’t press. Some silences are better left intact.

By the time she stepped through her front door, the sky had already let go of the day. Night had settled in, sure of itself. She dropped her keys in the ceramic bowl by the entrance, slipped off her heels with two practiced motions, and stood there for a second, still. Her mind emptied, leaving space for the quiet to take up all the room around her.

The phone didn’t ring, and the house held its emptiness without apology. Only the soft hum of the refrigerator and the faint rush of distant traffic slipped in, a reminder that life was still moving, untouched by her pause.

She showered. Let the hot water run longer than usual, her fingers pulling through damp hair, dragging out whatever thoughts tried to stick. She wasn’t reflecting or processing, wrapped instead in the heat, the tile, and the muted comfort of silence.

Dinner wasn’t really dinner. Something cold from the fridge, eaten while standing, more impatience than appetite. She didn’t need comfort. She needed quiet and repetition. Something she could control.

Still, the thought was there. It had been trailing her all evening. It clung to her through the hearing, followed her through the paperwork, rode with her in the car. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Billy’s voice whispered the reminder: don’t search your name online.

But she wanted to. More than that, she needed to. Needed to see what was out there. What they’d said. What of her had been taken and repackaged without her consent.

The wine came first, a generous pour. Then she saw it, the laptop. Still sitting on the edge of the dining table, exactly where she’d left it that morning, half-lost in the soft glow of the kitchen. This time, she didn’t hesitate.

She held the glass in one hand and pulled out the nearest chair, lowering herself into it with a precision that came from habit. Her fingers hovered over the laptop lid for a second longer than necessary. Then she opened it. The screen lit up, casting its pale glow across her face as she reached for the trackpad.

And then, almost against her better judgment, she started typing.

The first article was the one Billy had printed earlier that week. The one he’d handed to her without a word, like silence could soften the shape of what was written. She already knew the headline. She already knew which photo they’d picked: her and Bill outside the courthouse, walking side by side, facing forward. It was an old shot, from a case years ago. She still remembered that day, the two of them arguing like cats and dogs, storming out of the building while a local reporter from a small paper snapped the photo, a frame where they weren’t touching or looking at each other, yet still close enough to invite a story.

This time, she didn’t skim. She read.

The article circled professionalism, but only as a formality. Beneath the surface, it was all implication. “Undeniable courtroom chemistry,” it read. “Neither party has commented on the tension, but the footage speaks volumes.” Language that pretended to be objective, all while nudging the reader in the direction it had already chosen.

She scrolled to the comments. At first, they blurred together into a stream of usernames, avatars, and snarky attempts at wit. But soon a rhythm emerged. Always the same.

“You can cut the tension with a knife.”

“They look like they’ve been undressing each other for months.”

“If they’re not sleeping together, they’ve definitely thought about it.”

Her spine straightened. She took another sip of wine, and this time, the bitterness that lingered at the back of her throat had nothing to do with the glass.

She closed the tab. Opened another. Different headline. Same photo. New flood of commentary. And not a word about the case. Not a mention of legal arguments, or strategy, or precedent. Just glances. Body language. Proximity treated like confession.

“He stands so close to her it’s like he’s trying not to touch.”

“She talks to him like she already knows what he tastes like.”

“Tell me this isn’t peak enemies-to-lovers energy.”

It landed in her chest slowly. A low hum of disbelief, then something sharper. Not surprise. Not even outrage. She’d been a woman in the system long enough to know how it worked. But this felt different. More personal. It wasn’t just indignation crawling up her spine, it was recognition.

She didn’t look at Bill like that. She didn’t think about him like that. Did she?

Sure, she knew he was attractive. That wasn’t fantasy, that was fact. Observation, plain and simple. He had that broad-shouldered, grounded presence that didn’t need to speak to be felt. That low, gravelly voice could cut across a room with half a sentence. And his eyes, always a touch too sharp, a touch too blue, lingered a little longer than they needed to.

But noticing wasn’t the same as thinking. At least, that’s what she told herself. Still, the thought lingered, and she wondered if she was really thinking about him after all.

Maybe she found his mind... engaging. Maybe, once or twice, she’d wondered what his laugh would sound like if it weren’t wrapped so tightly in self-control. Maybe she felt her posture change when he walked into a room. A shift. A recalibration.

But that was habit. Strategy. Awareness sharpened by years of working against someone who could outthink her on a good day. It wasn’t desire. Couldn’t be. Right?

Still, she clicked into another thread. And then another. Each one louder than the last, echoing like they’d been tailored to pierce her defenses. No matter how much she tried to ground herself in logic, her hands stayed on the keyboard. The wine sat forgotten beside her, cooling into irrelevance. And her pulse, annoyingly, kept reminding her she was very much present.

She didn’t fantasize about kissing Bill Adama. She didn’t imagine reaching for him. Or him reaching back.

But when she tried to summon a memory, anything solid, anything neutral, what came wasn’t neutral at all. It was the sound of his voice behind her in the café. The weight of her name in his mouth outside the restaurant. The way he looked at her today, not like an opponent or a problem, but something else, calmer, closer. And that unsettled her far more than anything buried in the comments section.

The longer she scrolled, the more the commentary shifted. What began as surface snark slowly gave way to something sharper. More invasive. As if, headline by headline, photo by photo, her reality was being rewritten by people who’d never seen the inside of a courtroom. Who didn’t know the work. The hours. The effort it took to be taken seriously.

And now, with a few too-clever captions and an avalanche of anonymous projection, everything from her credibility to their history was being flattened into a single narrative. Glances. Proximity. A plotline she hadn’t written and couldn’t seem to outrun.

It got under her skin. More than she liked. More than she’d admit.

She closed the final tab and leaned back, the chair creaking softly beneath her. The laptop screen dimmed as her fingers slipped away, the glow fading into a dull blur. She stared at it for too long, maybe, before reaching for her phone, which lay face-up beside the laptop, its black screen catching the ceiling light like a half-lidded eye, quietly judging.

A few swipes, and she was in her contacts. Names slid past in clinical alphabetical order until her thumb froze on one she hadn’t seen, or dared to say out loud, in months.

Richard Adar.

Her finger hovered, motionless.

It wasn’t that she longed to talk to him, she didn’t. Missing him wasn’t quite it either. Their relationship had never really been about connection. It had been a lifeline, of sorts, a way to keep breathing through the rubble of something far more painful. In the vacuum left behind by loss, he’d been there. Convenient. Clever. Dangerous in a way that made forgetting easier. A man who turned criminal defense into a performance, balancing charisma and corruption with practiced ease. Someone who often mistook intensity for affection, or simply didn’t care to tell the difference.

She’d broken it off months ago, not because she stopped wanting him, not at first, but because she had to. Because she’d grown tired of stoking her emptiness with borrowed fire.

And yet, here she was again. That familiar tug, bitter and embarrassing, like biting your tongue in the same place twice.

She exhaled through her nose, lips pressed into a thin line, and locked the phone without another glance. The screen blackened, but his name lingered, vivid and unwanted, somewhere just behind her eyes.

The silence wrapped itself around her again, heavy and unimpressed. It used to be something she wanted. Now it felt uncomfortable, almost intrusive. She didn’t move. Didn’t drink. Just sat there, still, marinating in the echo of her choices. Eventually, without thinking much, she tapped the laptop awake. Her fingers moved on their own, guided by muscle memory and habit. Browser. Search bar. This time, a different combination of words.

The results weren’t what she expected. Instead of a legal blog or a serious outlet, it was a gossip site, low-rent and poorly designed. A header image with a grainy, askew photo of her and Bill, snapped from across the street, maybe. Awkward. Unflattering. And yet the content? Crystal clear.

She skimmed at first. Then slowed. Then began to actually read.

The blog didn’t bother with subtlety, skipping any trace of vague language or journalistic restraint. It dove straight in, naming them both, speculating without caution, and tossing out accusations with unearned confidence. The tone was gleeful, even triumphant, as if it had unearthed something juicy enough to explode online if it caught the right algorithm.

“Sources say there’s more going on between Roslin and Adama than courtroom tension. One look at them and you’d swear it’s personal. The way he watches her? The way she doesn’t flinch when he does? That’s not rivalry. That’s foreplay.”

Laura stared at the screen. Her jaw tightened, a slow burn rising in her throat and spreading to her chest.

She wasn’t sure what bothered her more, whether it was the crude language, the assumptions, or the uncomfortable part of her that quietly wondered what exactly people were seeing that she hadn’t allowed herself to name.

Still, she didn’t close the tab. She read it again. Then again.

She kept telling herself it was nonsense. None of it was true. Not the tension, not the looks, not the invisible pull that total strangers online had somehow latched onto. It was fantasy, coincidence, projection, people seeing what they wanted to see.

And yet, the line wouldn’t let go. It echoed, stubbornly vivid. The way he watches her. The way she doesn’t flinch. It wasn’t foreplay. It was familiarity. Years spent in the same rooms, under the same pressure, learning each other’s cadences without ever intending to. That was it. That had to be it.

Her jaw clenched tighter. Then, without really deciding to, she closed the laptop. The lid snapped shut with a dull, final thud that lingered in the hush.

Her hand moved to her phone without hesitation this time. Her thumb scrolled through contacts until the name appeared. Richard Adar. Still there. Still waiting. Just like always. 

She hit “call.” One ring. Two. Then his voice came through the speaker, smooth and familiar, like he’d never left. “Laura.” It wasn’t a question, it was a door opening.

She didn't say much. She didn't have to. Richard had always known how to read her silences, when to speak and when to hold back. He didn’t ask anything. There were no explanations, no attempts at clarity. What passed between them wasn’t conversation. It was motion, a kind of distraction, and a familiarity that lingered just beneath the surface without asking for more than she could give.

He never pushed. Never reached for context or meaning. And maybe that was why she kept coming back. Because he accepted only what she offered. He didn’t pry into her thoughts or chase after feelings she wasn’t ready to name. He wanted her body, nothing more. And some nights, like this one, that was all she had left.

Less than an hour later, headlights swept across her driveway. The doorbell rang. And when she opened the door, he didn’t ask if it was too late, he just stepped inside, and within seconds, his mouth was on hers. She let it happen. She had always known this part. And for a few minutes, maybe less, she would forget everything. Her mind would quiet, the noise would fade, and there would be only this.

She told herself it wasn’t about Bill. Not about rumors or glances or the things she’d nearly let herself believe. This was her decision. A choice made in the stillness of her own mind to prove something. Not to Richard. Not to Bill. To herself.

Chapter Text

She hadn’t made a reservation.

It was a small oversight, really. One of those telling mistakes that only happen when your head's already full of everything else you're trying not to think about. Laura stood in line at The Androsia, her heels shifting restlessly against the sleek marble floor while the maître d’ glided through the lobby with that rehearsed calmness found only in places like this. Around her, suits murmured into phones and tapped their watches. She waited. Ten minutes, maybe more. Arms crossed, shoulders pulled back, she made a performance of patience. She acted like she didn’t mind. Like she didn’t already regret showing up. Like she wasn’t just putting off going home to the echo of her own thoughts.

When the maître d’ finally led her to a table, tucked in a corner near the kitchen and far from the soft spill of window light, she didn’t object. She nodded, thanked him too politely, and sat. Unfolded her napkin with care. Tried not to notice how often lately she found herself in moments like this, seated somewhere she didn’t choose and doing her best not to fall apart.

The truth? She regretted it the second Richard stepped out of her house.

Not during the easy familiarity of his arm around her. Not when he left a kiss on her neck like they were still something they weren’t. The regret came later, with the click of the front door sealing her into the hush of the hallway. She stood there barefoot, her breath caught in her throat, eyes blinking into the dimness. The realization came all at once, sharp and undeniable. This was a mistake.

Not because Richard had changed. He hadn’t. He was still infuriatingly consistent, charming in all the ways he knew would work and selfish in all the ways she’d once excused. No, the mistake was hers. She had known exactly what she was doing when she made the call. She just didn’t care. Or maybe she did, and that made it worse.

She’d wanted to disappear for a bit. Not from the world exactly, but from the version of herself people thought they knew, the one flattened in headlines, twisted by gossip, trapped in the black-and-white certainty of strangers’ opinions. She wasn’t that person. At least, she didn’t want to be. In calling Richard, she’d tried to reclaim something, perhaps a sense of agency, maybe even just the illusion that she still had control over the story.

And for a little while, lying beside him, she almost believed she could vanish into that fiction. Almost.

He called the next morning. Then again in the afternoon. And again. Persistent, as always. Maybe he thought the night had carried some hidden weight. Or maybe he just wanted to prove he could win. She picked up once, just once, to say it wasn’t happening again. Her voice was cool, offering no explanations, and he didn’t ask for any. But he didn’t back off either. To him, it wasn’t over.

Still, his silence felt intentional. He didn’t argue, didn’t plead. But the texts kept coming, short, cryptic, sometimes just his name lighting up her screen at two in the morning.

She hadn’t answered a single one. And yet, she hadn’t blocked him either. That hesitation clung to her, delicate in size, stubborn in staying. A splinter she couldn’t quite dig out.

She reached for her water glass, fingers curling carefully around the stem, and took a slow sip meant only to keep her hands busy. The Androsia hummed around her with its usual chaos, where conversations overlapped, glassware clinked, and waitstaff glided between tightly packed tables. At one point, she'd found the place exhilarating. Now it just felt noisy. Distracting in a way that let her disappear. Why had she even come?

Billy had nudged her toward it. "Take a real break," he’d said. “Go somewhere that sounds alive. Somewhere that makes you feel like the world didn’t stop.”

She hadn’t told him about Richard. Hadn’t told anyone. It wasn’t something she ever spoke of, not back then, not now. But Billy, in that quiet way of his, always seemed to know when something was off. He didn’t press, he never did, but his eyes lingered a little longer than usual.

And really, nothing had happened. Nothing that hadn’t already burned out and collapsed under its own weight years ago. It was just... weakness. The past stretching a hand through the fog, pulling her back. A reflex, almost. And she loathed herself for it.

Not because it was scandalous. Or even wrong, by most standards. But because she’d wanted so badly for it to mean absolutely nothing. And it hadn’t. Not entirely.

It meant something, because it reminded her of everything she’d clawed her way out of. That numbness she used to call stability. The hushed convenience of disconnection. What once felt like control now just looked like surrender.

She’d chosen him again, even if just for a night. And in doing so, she'd undone something. She’d betrayed the part of herself that had started to believe she might deserve more.

She was still caught in that thought when she looked up and saw him. Richard. Striding toward her table with that same unearned sense of belonging. Hands tucked in his pockets. A smirk she knew too well, marking her as his without question. As if the idea of her being anywhere without him was absurd, but not surprising.

Her breath caught. “Frak,” she muttered, barely audible, clipped at the edges.

No time to stand, no bathroom door to duck behind, no pretending. He’d already seen her. And just like that, the moment to vanish was gone.

He reached the table without missing a beat. His tone was breezy, too casual.

“Well, this feels familiar,” he said with a half-gesture, sliding into the moment, confident he’d be welcomed without question. His eyes flicked over her face, scanning. “You’ve been ghosting me. Lunching alone. I was starting to get worried.”

Laura didn’t respond at first. Instead, she smoothed her napkin with slow, precise fingers. Then she looked up. “I’ve been busy,” she said, voice even, emotionless.

He tilted his head slightly, unimpressed. That near-smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, amused and, somehow, expectant. “Too busy to text back?” he asked, light as ever, his tone turning the moment into a small joke. “That doesn’t sound like you. You always text back… eventually.”

It wasn’t quite accusatory, which made it worse. It was condescending, an indulgence reserved for someone you think you’ve already figured out.

Because Richard didn’t need to argue. He knew the script. First, she would vanish. Then came the firm lines, the no’s, the performance of resolve. But the silence would eventually stretch. The stillness of her house would grow heavier, more intimate. And something inside her would crack. Then she'd call.

He knew that rhythm by heart. Not just how it started, but how it ended. And he didn’t just wait. He waited with meticulous care, knowing exactly when to step back in.

He moved closer now, one hand resting lightly on the back of the empty chair beside her. His fingers tapped once against the wood, casually, marking a beat. Then he slid it out just enough to suggest belonging.

“Well,” he said, stretching the word into something playful, nearly teasing, “you’re not busy now, are you? Sitting here all alone. And lucky for you, I’ve got time.”

He didn’t sit, but the way he stood there, with his shoulders angled toward the table and his fingers resting loosely on the back of the chair, said enough. He was planning to.

Laura didn’t answer right away. Her hand hovered near her water glass, close but unmoving. Something in her spine tensed. She hadn’t expected to feel surprised, and maybe she wasn’t exactly, but the discomfort was fast, sharp, and unwelcome.

The weight of her own decisions came rushing in, the act itself fading beneath what followed, the part where consequences took shape. That part always came later.

Then, a flicker of movement near the entrance caught her eye. She turned without thinking, and just beyond the host stand stood Bill.

He wasn’t doing anything dramatic, only waiting like everyone else. Phone in one hand, the other in his pocket, still and calm in that way only he seemed to manage. His face gave nothing away, yet he was there, alone, clearly not part of any meeting or plan.

She blinked once, silently putting the pieces together. He didn’t have a reservation or a table, no one waiting for him, and he wasn’t waiting for anyone either. He wasn’t there for work.

“I don’t have time, actually,” she said, too quickly. The sharpness in her tone surprised even her. She softened it, barely. “I’m meeting someone.”

Richard raised an eyebrow, already mid-motion, starting to lower himself into the chair. Her words froze him.

“Here?” he asked, adjusting his posture with that easy, practiced grace. There was a faint curl at the edges of his voice now. “With who?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed on Bill, watching the small shift in his stance as the line stopped, watching how he didn’t glance around, didn’t fidget, just waited.

Then she leaned in slightly. Elbows on the table, chin angled forward, her body speaking before her voice did. “With Bill,” she said.

The name landed between them with muted impact. Richard’s expression tightened. A mere flicker, recognition maybe. Or annoyance. Something beneath the surface.

“Bill?” he repeated. “And who exactly is Bill?”

But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, on the man still waiting there. Watching. Holding still.

And then it happened. Barely a moment, but unmistakable. Bill’s eyes drifted across the restaurant, unhurried, almost distracted. Then they stopped. Landed on her.

For a second, he didn’t react. His expression remained even, his posture still, his gaze holding that familiar, unreadable calm. And she didn’t look away. Instead, she smiled. Too big. Too open. Too deliberately warm for two people who could barely share a room without drifting into an argument.

She lifted her hand in a small wave. Then, without a word, pointed to the empty chair opposite her. A simple, unmistakable gesture. An invitation.

Bill blinked once. His gaze shifted briefly as he glanced behind him, checking whether she might have been signaling someone else, but there was no one. Only her, still smiling, eyes steady.

He turned to the host, said something quick. The woman nodded, barely glancing up before returning to her list.

Laura watched him start across the room, weaving through the tables with that effortless calm he carried everywhere.

Next to her, Richard shifted. She didn’t turn, but she felt it, the slight change in weight, the fingers tapping once against the chair he hadn’t quite made his own. He followed her line of sight. Saw him.

His voice came after a beat, still casual on the surface, but cooler underneath. “Oh,” he said. “Adama. So it’s Bill now?”

She didn’t respond, didn’t rise to the bait in his tone, or acknowledge how he lingered on the name, turning it into a challenge. Her eyes stayed on Bill. The silence between her and Richard stretched, drawn thin but purposeful. It said enough.

Bill reached the table moments later. He moved with that composed assurance she recognized, never needing attention but impossible to overlook. He wasn’t in a rush, his gaze calm on the surface, the awareness beneath it unmistakable. A flicker of instinct, maybe. The way Richard stood a bit too close, his energy a bit too present, didn’t require context to feel off.

Laura leaned back in her chair, slightly. Tilted her chin up toward him. Her voice, when it came, was light. Almost playful. “You’re late.”

It wasn’t quite a jab. Not even teasing, really. It was something placed gently in the air, light and purposeful. A thread left hanging for him to pick up.

She didn’t ask for help, she never did, but still, there was a quiet urgency behind the words. A kind of hope that didn’t reach her face but lived just under the surface. That he would catch on. That he’d see the shape of what she couldn’t say out loud. That he’d step into the moment she was leaving open, and say something that made it easier.

Because right now, whether she admitted it or not, she needed someone to stand beside her. And for better or worse, Bill was the only one close enough to be trusted with that role.

He looked at her, then at Richard, then back again. His face didn’t change, not visibly, but something in his eyes sharpened. He knew who he was looking at. Everyone in their world knew Richard Adar.

Not for his brilliance. Not for his integrity. For his ambition. For the messes he left behind. The man was a magnet for complications. Loud ones. Public ones. The kind of person who won battles by burning bridges behind him. And now here he was, standing at Laura’s side like he belonged. Bill didn’t like it.

Still, his voice stayed even when he spoke, with a thread of dry amusement slipping through. “And you’re early. As always.”

There had been no plan. No lunch scheduled or quiet agreement. For all Bill knew, she might’ve had her own reasons, her own strategy playing out. Maybe she still did. But the way she looked at him, the brightness of her smile just a little too forced, the way her gaze lingered, said more than she ever would. She needed something, not necessarily from him, but through him. A moment to pivot. A reason to break the frame she was stuck inside. And that, at least, he could offer.

He pulled out the chair across from her and sat without hesitation. His hands rested on the table, casual, his presence settling into the space, as though both of them had known this was coming all along.

Richard didn’t sit. Didn’t speak. But something in his body shifted, his fingers curling tighter against the back of the chair, a flicker at the corners of his mouth. He’d felt it too. The shift. The balance tipping.

Laura turned to him then. Her face stayed calm, her distance unmistakable. And when she spoke, her voice held nothing warm. “I won’t keep you,” she said, her tone polite, final, a dismissal dressed in civility.

Richard’s jaw flexed once, a hint of objection in the movement, but then he smiled and said, “I’ll call you later.”

She tilted her head slightly. Her eyes narrowed with dry irony, and her voice carried the same edge. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Please don’t.”

Richard let out a soft laugh, its sound closer to doubt than amusement. Then he turned and walked away. The confidence was practiced, but it didn’t quite hide the sting.

Laura watched him disappear into the crowd, then let out a slow breath. Just one. Then she turned her full attention to the man sitting across from her.

Bill waited, letting the moment pass before speaking. He followed Richard’s retreat with a composed stillness, observing without revealing anything. When his gaze returned to her, there was a flicker of something behind it. It wasn’t pity or curiosity, it was concern, genuine if slightly veiled.

“Everything all right?” he asked. His voice was low, even, careful.

Laura didn’t answer right away. She picked up her water glass and took a sip, her calm too controlled to feel casual. Then she set it down and met his eyes.

“Yes,” she said, her voice simple, clear, firm enough to close the door on further questions.

He didn’t push. Bill reached for the menu, leaned back slightly in his chair, and let his eyes drift across the page, calm settling where insistence would have been.

She watched him for a moment. Something in her chest loosened, not much, only enough to notice. It wasn’t anything he said. It was the fact that he didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to name what had just happened. Didn’t ask what it meant. Didn’t wrap the moment in commentary or concern. He gave her space to leave it untouched, and that, somehow, felt like more than comfort. It felt like respect.

She wouldn’t thank him. Not out loud. But the feeling stirred anyway, something warm and unexpected blooming under her ribs. Gratitude, quiet but certain.

Bill glanced around the dining room, then back at the menu. When he spoke, his tone was light, his smile easy. “This place is packed,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it like this.”

Laura smirked faintly, folding her hands neatly on the table. “I know. It’s like someone let the secret out.”

Bill lifted an eyebrow, just a touch. “That this place has the best risotto in the city?” he asked, mouth curving at one corner.

This time, her smile was real. She let out a soft laugh, light and effortless. It slipped between them with the ease of something long familiar. A shared memory, tucked inside a private joke.

“That was our secret,” she said, her eyes catching a spark. “Clearly someone’s been talking.”

Bill leaned back slightly, narrowing his eyes with exaggerated suspicion as he set down the menu. “Something tells me it was Billy. Probably trying to impress someone.”

Laura gave a discreet smile, a recognition of the teasing beneath his words. Her voice shifted, threaded with something playful. She didn’t miss a beat, slipping into the mock formality of a defense attorney mid-trial.

“He’s invoking the Fifth,” she said lightly. “And I’m prepared to argue immunity if you keep pressing.” She paused, then spoke more casually. “I wouldn’t rule out Dualla. People tend to listen when she talks.”

It was gentle bait, harmless on the surface, but Laura knew exactly what she was doing. Kara Thrace had always held Bill’s admiration, but Dualla was the one he listened to. The one whose words actually landed.

Maybe he didn’t know Laura had noticed that. Maybe he wasn’t meant to. But she’d made a career out of reading people who didn’t want to be read. And even in jest, she knew where to press.

Bill’s mouth twitched, the beginnings of a grin forming as he reached for his glass. “Objection,” he said. “Dualla has an impeccable record. Persuasive, yes, but always within ethical bounds.”

Their eyes met across the table, and for a moment, something hung there between them. Not something they could name. Not something they needed to. It was new, and warm. And neither of them said anything about it, but they both felt it. And they liked it more than either of them would admit.

The waiter appeared at their side, efficient as ever. They ordered the usual — the risotto, of course — and Laura added a glass of white. Bill echoed the choice without a word. A few minutes later, the waiter returned with a pair of small salad plates. 

Laura didn’t really look at it. She picked up her fork and began her routine, separating out the onions and nudging each slice to the far edge of the plate.

Bill noticed, of course he did, but he said nothing. No quip, no half-joke about her being fussy. No sideways glance or smirk. He just unfolded his napkin and reached for his glass. He’d learned, and she noticed that too. It wasn’t the silence itself that stood out, rather the awareness that lived beneath it. He’d remembered, adjusted, chosen not to make it a thing. And something warm flickered inside her, sparked by the simple fact that he paid attention.

The silence between them softened. Companionable now. It didn’t press or demand, it made space.

Then he spoke, casually. He speared a piece of lettuce and pushed it through the vinaigrette. “I finished rereading A Murder on Picon this week.”

Laura blinked. Not surprised that he read, she knew that, but the rereading, that caught her off guard. They’d last talked about that book right here, just outside this place. One of those rare in-between moments that felt unexpectedly easy. She hadn’t thought he’d remember. Certainly hadn’t expected him to revisit it. And yet, he had. And he’d finished it.

A curiosity stirred in her chest. Had it been her suggestion that nudged him back to the book? Had he picked it up because of that moment?

She tilted her head slightly, watching him over the rim of her glass. “That’s your third time reading it, isn’t it?”

That made him look up, a brief glance, but something flickered across his face, surprise maybe, before it softened into an almost reluctant smile.

“You remember that?” he asked. His voice, usually composed, dipped into something rougher, more real.

She didn’t respond directly, offering a shrug, understated and easy, like remembering how many times someone had read a murder mystery wasn’t strange at all.

Bill took a slow sip of wine, then set his glass down with care. “It gets better every time.” His voice had shifted, more thoughtful now. “I always catch something I missed before.”

Laura gave a nod, genuine in its simplicity. “I finished it,” her voice quieter now. “That night, actually. After lunch here. Had too much coffee.” She gave a small, almost sheepish laugh. “Couldn’t sleep. Just... kept reading.”

Bill smiled, a small knowing thing that barely touched his lips but somehow warmed the whole room. “Figures.” His tone was smooth, easy. “That was the night I decided to start it again.”

Their eyes met again. And in that shared glance, something passed between them. Not the memory of a book, not just the comfort of routine. It was subtler than that. A feeling. Unspoken. Unpolished. Something that settles between people who’ve read the same lines, turned the same pages, and somehow ended up in the same place without ever planning to.

And when he admitted it, without deflection or performative shrug, just honest and unguarded, it caught her off balance. The steadiness of his voice. The way he was looking at her now, with those too-blue eyes that never gave anything away and yet somehow saw too much.

It sent a flicker through her, a spark waking up deep inside. She didn’t look away. Didn’t smile. Just let it wash over her and held his gaze longer than she meant to.

“Did you see it coming?” he asked. “The twist?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s what I loved. No cheap tricks. It was all there, right in front of you, if you knew where to look.”

He kept her gaze. “That’s what makes it dangerous.”

Her breath caught, subtle but not so subtle that Bill didn’t notice. There was a weight in his voice that made the space between them feel smaller. Closer.

“You don’t even realize you’ve fallen for it,” he went on, voice low now, more reflective than certain, “not until it’s already too late.”

For a moment, the world softened around her. The clinking of silverware, scattered conversation, the shuffle of feet across tile all receded. What stayed was the weight of his voice and the flicker in his eyes. And for just a second, the timing of his words felt too precise to be accidental. Was he…?

The thought drifted through her, quiet as breath. Was he flirting? No, she couldn’t quite pin it down. Or maybe she didn’t want to. But the flutter rising beneath her ribs told her something had shifted. Something hadn’t just been said, it had been revealed.

She knew flirtation. Had long since mastered it. A glance here, a tilt of the head there. It had been her armor and her art form. She’d learned to navigate rooms with a smile that could disarm or destroy, depending on the need. And once upon a time, that charm had thrilled her. But this? This was different.

Flirting with Bill didn’t feel like theater. It didn’t feel like tactics. It felt... still. Grounded. Like something genuine was beginning to root itself beneath the surface of their banter. And instead of brushing it off, she let herself feel the warmth of it. Let it expand. Let it catch.

Her reply slipped out before she had time to sculpt it. “Maybe that’s when the best things happen,” she murmured, half to herself. “When you’re not looking. When you don’t realize you’ve stepped into something... until you’re already standing in the middle of it.”

The words hung between them, suspended in a space that felt both tender and dangerous.

She told herself it was just another exchange, just talk. But this wasn’t like before. The rhythm they once mastered, fast and clever and all edge, had slowed. Words landed softer now, stripped of armor. What filled the space wasn’t rivalry but a pull, drawing them in before either could stop it.

Once, they’d goaded each other with wit, with barbed observations and well-timed silence. Now, it felt like they were exploring something softer. Something that edged toward closeness. And, if she let herself admit it — really admit it — she liked this version of them better.

For the first time since she’d walked into the restaurant, her mind wasn’t crowded with Richard. Or regrets. Or the ache of everything left unsaid. The headlines, the hush, the gnawing sense of being watched, it all faded.

It was still there, of course, waiting in the margins, close enough to sense but too distant to grasp. It was buried under the current in her blood, the faint quickening in her chest, and the way Bill was looking at her, with eyes open and present, stripped of any trace of boldness. And somehow, impossibly, closer than anyone had been in a very long time.

Whatever this was, it didn’t feel dangerous. If anything, it felt safe. Harmless, even. Just two people talking. A moment suspended in time. Something she could lean into without fear of consequences.

She raised her wine glass, let it hover near her lips, her posture settling into something looser, more at ease. “And you know,” she continued, her voice lighter now, though still thoughtful, “the best twists are the ones that feel inevitable after the fact.”

A gentle retreat. A small step back toward solid ground, an instinctive move to restore balance between them. But her eyes gave her away. There was a glimmer there, a tension between ease and hesitation, the door left slightly ajar. And she saw it. A flicker in his gaze that wasn’t surprise or hesitation. It was warmth. A search for a trace of understanding. Maybe even admiration.

Bill hadn’t meant it to sound like that, or at least he told himself he hadn’t wanted it to. That earlier line had slipped out before he could stop it, the idea of falling for something without realizing, not until it was already too late. He felt it the instant the words left him. The tone and the weight had shifted. It hadn’t been rehearsed. There was no calculation in it, yet the line landed with a precision that startled even him. Slow, careful, and somehow charged.

And Laura had caught it. More than that, she’d met it. Matched it. And in return, she responded with equal intensity, inviting the tension to linger, daring it to go further.

Her tone had stayed calm, reflective, almost casual. But underneath, there was texture. Intention. The way she shaped each phrase, the way she timed her delivery. There was control in it, yes, but also depth. Something seductive in its ease. It wasn’t exactly seduction. It was something that exuded from her, natural and unforced. Something he couldn’t quite define, but he liked it. Liked it more than he meant to.

And he felt it. In his breath. In his chest. In the ache of tension that curled low in his stomach, catching him off guard.

She was clearly practiced, that much was obvious, but it wasn’t her polish that unnerved him. It was the truth behind it. The sincerity tucked between the lines. She didn’t just respond, she built it, expanded it. Turned a spark into a flame that threatened to catch.

He didn’t speak right away. Didn't move. Just let himself watch her for a second longer, noticing the way her fingers rested at the base of the wine glass, the shape of her mouth still softened by that last sentence. And for the first time in what felt like years, he couldn't quite tell what the rules were anymore.

This was unfamiliar terrain. Not their usual game of verbal fencing. Not the sharp, carefully staged exchanges they'd honed over the years. This felt warmer. Unscripted. And that, of course, was the danger.

Because he already knew how this sort of thing ended. Or rather, how it didn’t. This wasn’t a beginning. It couldn’t be. Whatever was unfolding between them now was just a passing moment. Fleeting. Delicate. Something neither of them would ever dare name out loud.

And that was fine. It had to be. He told himself as much, but still, the thought left a tremor in his chest. Not quite disappointment, not fully regret. More an ache, low and quiet, because he knew this was something he could only ever see, never touch.

Even so, he didn’t let it slip. Didn’t let his eyes linger or the silence stretch too long. He inhaled slowly, steadied himself, just about to speak.

Then the waiter arrived, gliding into their orbit with the ease of long practice. He balanced two plates of risotto, the scent of saffron blooming in the air between them.

The food was placed in front of them with practiced elegance. A nod, a brief murmur about pepper, and then he was gone, folded back into the choreography of the dining room.

Bill looked down, then across the table. Laura was already unfolding her napkin, expression unreadable but calm. Maybe even graceful. But he caught it, the slight flush at her collarbone. The tiny pause before her hand moved toward her fork. He mirrored her timing without meaning to.

They began eating in silence, a quiet stretch filled with thought instead of unease. As always, the risotto was excellent, creamy and fragrant, the rice just past al dente.

Laura took a slow bite, then lifted her gaze over the rim of her glass. “You know,” she said, voice light again, conversational but not careless, “what really stayed with me from A Murder on Picon wasn’t the twist. It was how meticulously the author shaped what we were supposed to believe.”

Bill looked up, still chewing, then gave a small nod. “She never lies,” he said. “But she knows exactly how to lead you off the path.”

“Exactly,” Laura replied, her tone sharpening just slightly. “All the facts are there, but the way they’re arranged... it tells a version of the truth that isn’t quite real.”

Bill let out a soft hum of agreement, his gaze steady on her. “Narrative control.” His voice was even. “It’s subtle. And powerful.”

Laura tilted her head slightly, fingers turning the stem of her wine glass in slow, absent circles. When she spoke again, her voice had dipped just enough to signal a shift, thoughtful and a little heavier.

“It’s a form of manipulation, really. Never cruel, more... selective. You highlight one moment, leave out another. Adjust the angle. Add a shade of meaning. And suddenly, it’s not what happened. It’s what’s believed.”

She hadn’t meant to steer the conversation there. At least, not consciously, but the words lingered longer than they should have, brushing up against things unsaid, wrapped in old headlines and lingering whispers of public opinion.

And even after everything, after the spark of flirtation and the openness between them, part of her still wanted to push back. To reclaim control over a version of herself that had been rewritten without her. She didn’t know whether he’d seen the articles, the comments, the accusations hidden in tone rather than text, but here she was, in her own restrained way, trying to revise the narrative. Not just for him. For herself.

Bill took his time with the reply. “And once the story’s out there,” he said slowly, “truth stops mattering. People stick to the version that fits their expectations.”

Laura didn’t respond right away. She stared at her plate, her eyes distant. “The lie feels more true than the truth,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “Because it confirms what they’re already prepared to believe.”

Bill shifted slightly in his seat. There was no impatience in the movement, only an intention to remain engaged, to let her know he was fully there. His gaze stayed on her, patient, receptive to whatever she might be willing to offer.

“You know,” he said, voice low and measured, “at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which version people believe.” He paused to choose his words with care. “What matters is that the people living the story know who they are.”

He wasn’t talking about the book anymore. And he wasn’t trying to comfort her. That wasn’t his style. What he offered was a fragment of honesty. A truth with no embellishment.

Laura felt it, not just the words themselves, but the way he said them. Their rhythm. Their intent. He wasn’t talking about the book. He was talking about her. About them. And she understood that.

She held his gaze without retreat, without deflection, without trying to sidestep it, the quiet between them lingering a moment longer than it should have.

“You’re right,” she said, the smallest of smiles tugging at her lips. It wasn’t flirtatious, it was recognition. A kind of thanks. Then, a little softer, “They did know. That’s what made it work.”

Bill returned the smile and reached for his glass again. He took a slow sip, eyes still on her over the rim. Then, with no drama, he nudged the moment forward.

“You still haven’t told me what you thought of the ending.” He set the glass down, his tone easy, but he was watching her closely.

Laura leaned back just slightly, her smile lingering. The shift in conversation was welcome, a gentle return to fiction, to its clean structure, defined rules, and endings that, at the very least, tried to make sense.

“I liked it,” she said after a beat, her voice open now. “The ending, I mean. It felt earned. It wasn’t grand, but it was honest.” Her gaze drifted past him for a second, taking in the soft blur of the dining room before settling on his again. “It didn’t fix everything. It let some things stay broken. But it held on to what mattered.” She let that hang between them for a moment, then reached for her fork and added, with a glint of dry humor, “I still don’t trust the sister, though.”

Bill let out a low laugh, soft enough to crease the corners of his mouth. “No one should.”

He took another bite, his eyes still returning to her between chews. There was something different in her now, lighter and less guarded. And he found he liked that more than he expected. Maybe that’s why the next question slipped out so easily, carried on a tone that didn’t try too hard.

“So?” he asked, head tilting just a little. “What score does it get?”

Laura blinked once, then gave him a small, knowing smile. “You remember the list?”

“Of course I do.” His tone held its evenness, touched by amusement. “You said you keep a list. Titles, dates and ratings. Probably a whole rubric. Columns. Subcategories.”

There was a flicker in his eyes, a trace of teasing that caught just enough light to soften the moment between them.

She let out a short laugh, easy and unguarded. “It’s not that serious.”

His mouth curved slightly, not quite a grin. “You rate fiction the way some people judge wine. I’d say it’s exactly that serious.”

Laura tilted her head, the playfulness blooming now. “Fine. It’s getting a ten.”

Bill looked at her, a flicker of curiosity crossing his face, touched with mild surprise. “That rare?”

“Very,” she replied, reaching for her glass and taking a small sip. “And it’s officially going on my favorites list.”

There was something in the way she said it, a blend of certainty and shyness, that made him smile again. This one was softer. It stayed more in his eyes than on his lips.

He leaned back a little, watching her without urgency. “Did you know there’s a film adaptation?”

Her eyebrows arched, intrigued. “Seriously? Is it any good?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He set his fork down, brushing his fingertips lightly along the napkin’s edge. “I’ve never watched it.”

That gave her pause. “Why not?”

Bill gave a small shrug, thoughtful. “It never felt like the right time, I guess.”

The words came lightly, but something more settled just beneath them. The truth was, he’d had chances but never quite the impulse. Watching it alone always felt off. Like the story wasn’t meant for solitude. Like it asked for company. A particular kind. One he hadn’t found yet.

Laura studied him, her face unreadable for a beat. Then she smiled, slow and a little sly, her tone airy. “Well. Maybe someday you’ll give it a chance,” she said, tapping her fork gently against her plate. “When the time feels right.”

The line lingered and he caught it. There was playfulness there, a lightness that somehow carried weight. Neither a promise nor a suggestion, only a quiet what if suspended between them. An invisible string connected them, delicate, charged with everything left unspoken. He didn’t respond right away. He only looked at her, the silence holding steady.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe I will.”

Laura smiled at that. Small, unforced, and a little unexpected. Bill returned it with warmth that didn’t ask for attention, it simply settled in and stayed. For a while, they just looked at each other, saying nothing, needing nothing more.

They lingered longer than they meant to. Lunch stretched, unhurried. Conversation flowed easily, winding from books to films to half-forgotten work stories. Light moments, ordinary ones. They didn’t sidestep anything, they just didn’t need the heavy subjects. Not today. Not in this space. And somehow, without planning it, neither mentioned the case. No talk of Six. Or Baltar. Or the press. For two people so defined by the fallout of that divorce, its absence should’ve felt strange, but it didn’t. The rhythm between them had simply left space for everything else.

Laura found herself surprised by how natural it all felt. How relaxed she was. She wasn’t following a script or working an angle. There was nothing guarded in her tone, nothing calculated. Only Bill listening in a way that made her feel heard. And this version of him, the one who spoke about novels and films, was the same man she’d met here weeks ago. The one who stood beside her under a streetlight, letting silence do the talking. The one who made conversation feel simple. Safe.

And before she could talk herself out of it, before she could remember all the reasons to be cautious, she was speaking. She didn’t even notice that she wasn’t pivoting, wasn’t managing the flow, wasn’t measuring every sentence. She was just talking, honestly and freely, in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. It was easy with him. Maybe too easy. But in that moment, she didn’t want to hold anything back.

Across the table, Bill felt it too, that subtle shift. He watched her as she talked, her hands gesturing softly, her eyes lighting up when something amused her, her expression shifting with thought. And when she smiled, really smiled, not the polished one she used to wear, but the unassuming one, the one she didn’t even seem to notice, he felt it land. And he caught himself wanting to say the right thing, not to impress her, but to keep that look on her face a little longer. To keep her there, with him, just like this.

She looked the most like herself when she wasn’t performing, and it hit him. He could sit across from her a hundred times and still want to keep finding out who she became when she thought no one was watching. Even if they were.

Eventually, the plates were cleared and the wine glasses left with just a trace at the bottom. Around them, the restaurant slowly came back to life with new arrivals, a swell of chatter, silverware clinking faintly in the background. Still, everything felt gentler somehow, a little hushed, as if the world had lowered its voice just for them.

Neither of them seemed in a hurry to move. A sense of newly discovered calm had settled between them. The sense that something was quietly starting to unfold, even if neither of them could name it yet.

Bill glanced at his watch, then let his eyes wander across the dining room. Most of the tables were full again. Near the entrance, a small group lingered by the hostess stand, stealing the occasional look in their direction.

“We should probably give them their table back,” he said with a small, almost conspiratorial grin. “Any longer and I think the staff might drag us out by the ankles.”

Laura let out a soft laugh, but it wasn’t just any laugh. It was genuine, unguarded, and he felt it settle in his chest like something rare. He hadn’t expected to hear that sound from her again, not today. But here it was.

He didn’t rush to stand. Just stayed there a moment longer, letting the light catch the edges of her hair, warm and gold, a little tousled.

“Thanks for lunch,” she said, her voice low and sincere. “And the company.”

He tilted his head, amused. “You invited me, remember?”

She raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth pulling into a small smile. “I did,” she said. “And I don’t regret it. It was the right call.”

Something in the way she said it made him pause. She wasn’t putting on a show, wasn’t dressing it up, it was honest, and somehow, that made him want to hold the moment still, to keep it from slipping away too soon.

Laura, for her part, wasn’t sure why she’d said it that way. Why she’d let the words come out so plainly. Maybe it was something about him, about the way he made space for honesty without ever asking for it. That open, easy manner. The small jokes. The way he got her to laugh like she hadn’t in years. Whatever the reason, she didn’t regret being truthful. Not this time.

She met his gaze for a beat longer, then stood, smoothing her jacket with that practiced grace, but her smile stayed, soft and unforced.

Outside, the sunlight was bright but not harsh. They walked side by side, unhurried, their steps quiet on the pavement.

They hadn’t said anything that marked a turning point. There were no grand declarations, no obvious shift, but still, something had changed. And without quite realizing it, they were simply two people beginning to align, drawn together not by what was said, but by what was felt.

It wouldn’t be a moment they’d mark on a calendar, but later, days or weeks from now, they’d both remember it.