Work Text:
Title: In His Dreams
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Pairing: Cottle character piece
Summary: Cottle has a crush.
Note:Not beta'd. I own the mistakes if there are any. This is a response toa challenge set down by Iris from the BSG chat on 1/13. Kind of sad Ithink.
In His Dreams
When he first met her, he was smoking a cigarette and she said, "Do you mind?" He responded with, "Yes, I do" and kept on smoking. Ever since that moment, she had his respect. She was offended but in that moment, she understood that smoking was his way of dealing with all of the crap that happened around him. They immediately had an understanding. She was the President. He was her physician. He would patch her up until, like Humpty Dumpty, she couldn't be patched any more. He would help her because he knew that she would lead them well and that with her impending death, she would devote herself fully to the cause of safeguarding the fleet. He more than anyone else, except maybe her faithful servant aide, Billy, knew her so well. He'd seen the many faces of Laura Roslin.
He saw her when she was the President and he saw her when she was Laura. He alone knew what was happening to her. On that, he had no doubt that even Billy didn't truly know. Her anguish at knowing that she had perhaps a month to live was enough to make his heart ache. Seeing her deteriorate was like carrying the weight of the worlds on his shoulders.
In his dreams, he cured her and loved her as much as she deserved to be loved. In his dreams, she looked at him like she looked at Admiral Adama. In real life, he watched her closely, admiring her spirit and admittedly, admiring her body, those legs in particular. He had seen a lot of bodies, naked and not, in his time as a surgeon in the Colonial Fleet but Laura Roslin had legs that were simply breathtaking. He is going to miss those legs. He doesn't know how to deliver bad news without being gruff and sarcastic, but she understands. She understands him in a way that not many people do.
She is in his Sickbay on the Galactica now. She's truly dying. The end will come soon. He doesn't agree with what Baltar is doing and he doesn't think that Baltar will be able to save the day. Billy has curled up on a spare gurney and is getting some badly needed sleep. The poor lad will be lost without her for awhile. Cottle slips into her room. She is asleep, perhaps for the last time. He gazes at her and then bends over and kisses her temple gently. He whispers into her hair, the color of deoxygenated blood, that he loves her. She sleeps on. He takes her hand into his own and does something he hasn't done in sometime, "Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer…"