Work Text:
On the coffee table in Bill and Laura’s house is a bouquet of flowers received in the afternoon. Big, extravagant flowers (like the person who gifted them) to celebrate their wedding. The note that came with it is no longer attached, but it used to read With my congratulations. To think I’m responsible for this miracle… Dr Gaius Baltar. He also had a copy of his book delivered to their home — My Triumphs, My Mistakes — not that they care about it. It might just be good to wedge something in place.
Laura is sure there will be a chapter on Baltar’s failed social experiment and the divorces that followed, and curiosity would almost make her open it, but Baltar’s full glamour shot on the front cover keeps her at bay. His claim was bold — that couples who swapped spouses for a month would come out with a stronger bond, an appreciation of their partner, and a willingness to work it out. That was the plan. While the other couples didn’t report outstanding results, the Adars and Adamas managed to tank the experiment all by themselves.
Richard wanted to give his friend Baltar and the university good press by participating in it, but that’s not exactly what happened. Neither he nor Laura came out unscathed, as the press fed on their divorce for months afterwards.
Laura still sometimes wonders where she would be if Richard hadn’t signed them up for the experiment. If she hadn’t found herself and allowed herself to be her own person again. If she hadn’t met the most unlikely match. If she wasn’t marrying Bill tomorrow.
She talked with Bill about that over the years, and he assumed that without the realisation, he would have clung to his marriage for the children, and his relationship with Carolanne would have been damaged beyond repair by the time they split, later, rendering co-parenting a lot more painful.
Really, Baltar did them a service. Under no circumstances was he to know that. He already called himself the future of television, he didn’t need any more encouragement.
It’s the night before the wedding, yet Laura can’t find it in herself to be nervous. Not when she’s on the couch, leaning against Bill’s side with one of his arms around her shoulders. Like they have done for the past fifteen years. This is the same place they shared their first evening together, when they both hated the thought of spending time together.
“Marcy thinks it’s bad luck to be together the day before the wedding,” Laura says, breaking the silence which settled a while ago.
“Lee said the same thing,” Bill replies. “But I’d much rather be home with you.”
If there’s one thing they have no need for, it’s these religious superstitions. When Laura married Richard, a scary number of years ago, he insisted on following every rule, every tradition, on parading around to announce it to the world. She felt alone then, despite always being surrounded by crowds, which, in hindsight, showed her exactly the way she would feel throughout their entire marriage.
"These rules may be good for the young, but we can leave them behind." She sighs, not out of exhaustion, or anxiety, but a sense of anticipation, and relief. She took Bill’s hand that was resting on her and held on to it. “I couldn’t be more ready to put a ring on it,” she grins, feeling a giggle building up in her throat.
Bill remains silent, which isn’t unusual, but his hand tightens in hers, and even though she can’t see his face, she knows what it’s like. He doesn’t have to speak for her to sense his unease. She runs her thumb over the back of his hand for a moment,
“What’s going on?” she eventually prompts.
The big breath that he takes in and releases in a sigh makes Laura’s chest move as well. "The first time I wore a ring on my finger, I failed my family,” he finally said.
Detaching herself from him, Laura turns around so she can look at his face, taking his hand back in hers as soon as she’s settled.
"So did I." Her marriage with Richard was the last thing her family would have wanted for her. Or that she would have wanted for herself. "But Bill, it was twenty years ago. They've forgiven you,” she tells him, making sure to catch his gaze. "And you made up for it. You were there for your children as they grew up. You gave them your presence and your support."
“I know,” is all he replies. She’s not sure he really knows.
“Do you?” she asks. "They learned that everybody makes mistakes, and their father is not perfect because nobody is. But when you make mistakes, what matters is when you try to fix them. I think that's an important lesson they learned from you."
"And from you,” Bill adds to her statement. “They've looked up to you from the start. They still do."
“I’ve learned a lot from them too,” she muses, then bites her lips, considering what to do next. There’s something she received a few days ago that she hasn’t shown Bill because she’s not sure how she feels about it. She was going to do it after the wedding, but since they’re on the subject of children... “Maddie had a baby last month.”
She leans over to the coffee table, and slides a letter out from under a book. She knows he saw it earlier, but he didn’t ask about it, letting her bring it up when she wanted. Handing him the letter, she watches him process the words. They haven’t discussed Richard’s daughter in a long time. She hasn’t had any contact with her over the years, ever since the divorce. After all, there was no love lost between them.
“Is that what the letter is about?” Bill asks, definite surprise along with some worry written in his frown.
“In a way. She wrote to me… to apologise.”
More worry, more surprise. “To apologise?”
She nods, lets him read the letter — better than her trying to summarise the whole of its contents. As Maddie was pregnant and reflected on her imminent start into motherhood, she thought back to the one mother figure she had known during her formative years. And it wasn’t her biological mother, who had been incarcerated since she was three, but who kept poisoning her life. The stepmother she had loathed beyond reason was that constant presence, and all she could see was the way Laura kept her mother and father apart.
“You never told me she had you arrested,” Bill grunts as he reads, glancing up at her, and she can’t help the sheepishness of her smile.
“She was resourceful and determined, just like her father,” she replies, placing her hand on his chest to soothe the remnants of anger away.
While she made her peace with it a long time ago, having to work with Richard again in the past year occasionally brings back feelings and past experiences, which are always a thing to navigate. It has taken him a very long time to get over the bitterness he felt after their divorce, and it still creeps up from time to time, but not enough to stop him from scheming in order to work with her again. They never talk about Maddie, however, so Laura had no idea she had taken her distance.
Folding the letter back, Bill looks at her again, as if he could feel her thoughts. “Are you going to reply?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question since Monday.” She lets out a small chuckle. “It must have been hard for her. She says she’s stepped away from both her parents. When I think about all the times Richard made me feel like I couldn’t handle children, and made her feel like she wasn’t worth his attention…”
Bill puts the letter aside and pulls Laura back into his arms in their previous position. She smiles, nestling into his chest.
“He’s a father who failed his family,” Laura continues, hoping that Bill will see the difference between Richard’s situation and his. “Your sons will be at your wedding tomorrow, probably dead set on saying something embarrassing, but happy for you.”
She can’t see him, yet she knows that made Bill smile as his chest relaxes and his arm squeezes her closer.
The wedding is a formality, really, after all these years, but the closer they get to it, the bigger it feels.
And after her recent health scare, Laura also wants to ensure that everything is settled if something happened to her, that any wealth she has goes back to Bill, Lee and Zak. The sum she received from the divorce is still largely untouched, despite buying half of a house and taking the family on holiday over the years.
Moving into Bill’s house permanently was a decision that they had gone back and forth over. At first, Bill said he didn't want to keep the house, that it'd be better if they started somewhere new. But he was attached to the house, and she knew that. This was where the kids had grown up, and maybe he thought she wouldn't like living where his wife used to be. But this was the place where she fell in love with him, and those were memories she held close to her chest.
So she covered half of it, and never regretted that decision. Now, she features in the family pictures hanging on the wall above the staircase, and her furniture and paintings ornate the various rooms, making it their home.
“The storm is going hard outside,” Bill says, taking her out of her thoughts. Rain has been hitting the windows for hours now, while it was so warm and sunny the past few days. And according to the weather report, the storm isn’t ready to go just yet.
“Bill Adama,” Laura starts in a mock-stern tone, “I’m not delaying the wedding, or I’ll have to wait another 15 years.”
“No,” he snorts and drops a kiss into her hair. “Come rain or shine or tornado, I’ll marry you tomorrow.”
“Good.” She smiles, her eyes following the path of a water drop on the window. "Have you prepared vows?"
"I've loved you fifteen years. All I want is more time with you,” he says instantly, his voice dropping to a softer tone. She’s not sure whether that’s his response or his vows, but her heart swells all the same. “Zak thinks I need to be more eloquent about it.”
“I think it’s perfect." She shakes her head. "That’s all I want too. I'm sure Zak will have a long speech with enough words for us all."
Bill chuckles at that. “He’s going to bring back old stories.”
“I’m actually looking forward to that,” Laura says. "You all accepted me into your family."
"As if that was hard.”
"Seems it was harder for you," she smirks.
That’s a bit of an understatement, and it makes him snort. "Do you remember the night we met?"
"How could I forget? It was awful."
“You wanted to leave after ten minutes.”
“I was an inconvenience to you.”
“I just thought you were a snob.”
“I’m glad you can’t see what I wrote about you in that journal,” she admits with a giggle.
“Rude and grumpy?” he guesses.
“Worse. Where’s your sense of creativity?”
He chuckles. "We proved each other wrong."
“Mmh yes.” She grins, turns around again, and kisses him. She lingers against his lips, deepening the kiss, relishing that familiar tingle in her belly. "Shall we go to bed?" she asks, a spark lighting up in her eyes. With another kiss, she gets to her feet and holds out her hand. "It is our pre-wedding night after all. That’s another tradition we need to mess around with."
#
Bill stands in front of Laura, in this three-piece suit he bought especially for the wedding, and she looks at him like she won’t get enough of this view. Her open staring will never cease to amaze him.
“Are you ready?” Laura asks.
“Yes,” he says, without an ounce of hesitation.
They sit at the living room table, next to each other, with the notebook in front of them. Laura isn’t quite ready for the ceremony yet, still in her dressing gown, but that’s okay, they have something else to do before leaving. A tradition of their own.
She picks up her pen and writes at the top of a new page the date and Wedding Day . “You can start.” She pushes the notebook towards him, along with the pen.
They’ve kept this habit from the experiment, of writing in a journal, except that now, they do it together, in the same book. They’ve even added notes, news clippings, and a lot of pictures. This is the story of them, with the good moments, the hard moments, and the milestones. There’s the time they moved in together, there’s when Lee graduated high school, when Bill lost his father, when they visited Aquaria, and all the times in between. Every year of Caprica’s fair, birthdays, anniversaries, children's celebrations, and those trips to the cabin that were just theirs.
They’ve accomplished a lot together. Not to say they never get on each other’s nerves, like they did at the beginning. They absolutely still do, but the feeling of simply being seen, through it all, has been life-changing. Maybe she was a little bit of a snob when it started. Out of fear, and grief, she had stopped taking space, valuing herself and what she wanted. Breaking out of those chains had been like being born a second time. And maybe he was rude and grumpy. He had let emptiness fill him, and the guilt of his actions overtake him until he wasn’t sure who he was either, and what he ought to do. Unlikely allies they were, friends, lovers.
His pen easily glides across the page. He knows exactly what he wants to write. He has had a long time to think about it, and perhaps these are the real vows they are exchanging today, words that will remain private, in the journal of their lives.
When he gives it back to Laura to read, she’s silent for a moment, until she reads the two words at the end.
“About time,” she reads, a smile taking up her entire face.