No Phoenix for Roslin

Chapter 3

"Frakking woman," Adama muttered under his breath. With an effort he kept himself from pacing the shuttle. "Why didn't you...?" His fist hit the wall. Pain jolted to his elbow.

Billy watched him apprehensively and relocated to the place furthest away from him, eyeing him warily. Adama looked at him hard, but then fell silent and stared out of the window, his jaws clenched.

Maybe he should have expected something like this when she had made herself scarcer and scarcer the past few days. She had always been a very self-contained woman and perhaps he should have anticipated that she'd choose to withdraw when it was time to die. It hurt him nevertheless. He'd thought that what they had between them meant more.

It did to him.

She probably wouldn't respond well to his meddling, he realized, and he conceded that he probably shouldn't interfere. A month ago he wouldn't have, but now, now he couldn't stay away.
He rested his head in his hands.

&&&

[time: 20 days earlier]

It had been the last thing he had planned. Though perhaps not really the last thing he'd wanted, and, as he had admitted to her later, his mind had previously wandered in that direction. It was, however, the last thing he'd expected to happen when he met her in her quarters for yet another round of briefings on the food situation.

It was not that she'd dressed differently. He'd seen the few suits she'd brought with her for the decommission of Galactica so often now that he would have noticed anything as obvious as that. And yet there was something about her that made him pause and look again. Even when he'd thought her an irresponsible religious hoodwink he'd considered her to be somewhere between lovely and striking, but now she was positively glowing, radiating. She looked more at ease with herself than he'd seen her before; she had dropped her polite political masks and he was faced with an unexpectedly uncomplicated sensuality.

His double take seemed to give her some private amusement. "Commander, please come in." Light-hearted intimacy had found its way into her voice as well and he felt himself straightening in reaction to it. He saw she noticed that too. Her smile deepened.

Was it just his imagination, or was the President of the Twelve Colonies feeling libidinous tonight?

"Madame President," he nodded his greeting, not visibly acknowledging her subtext, pondering who her lover was, and why nobody had reported anything even remotely suggesting she had one. Judging by the rather steamy look of the President, he expected that her lover wasn't far away. His eyes drifted to the half-open curtain leading to the compartment where she slept. Was he there now?

"Shall I come back another time?" Much as he enjoyed seeing this unexpected side of her, he did not want to keep her from what she was so obviously very ready for. But Gods, she was beautiful like this.

Her eyes lit up as if she realized why he'd made the offer. She shook her head. "No. Please, Commander, there's something I'd like to discuss. Why don't you have a seat?" She sipped her drink and then held the glass up. "Ambrosia?"

"Thank you." He squinted at her, wondering if she was intoxicated. This meeting was clearly not going to be about the food situation.

She brought him his glass and perched on her desk, looking down at him. Normally he would have resented that as a common demeaning politician trick, but now he only wondered if she realized how the position showed off her legs. "What's on your mind, Madame President?"

"You may have noticed that there are very few people in our particular age group in this fleet."

He nodded.