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THIS OUGHT TO BE DIFFERENT
Chapter Nine
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It’s been over forty eight hours since the Galactica left the Algae planet system. Admiral’s presence was required during the analysis of the findings from the planet’s surface. He had to change all the security codes and protocols that were known to Athena, who re-joined the cylons. He needed to supervise the damage report, even if he could leave it to his XO under certain circumstances. He needed to debrief his crew. Well, he should have known the document that now lay in front of him for that, but somehow managed to skip it. He needed to plan the course of next actions with the President, even if she’d said they might do it later. He needed . . .

Well, there was only one thing he needed to do. Take cognizance of the list of casualties. But he stared at the document on his desk and the letters somehow didn’t want to form into words.

The Admiral pushed the paper away, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Maybe he should get some sleep first?

As if on cue someone knocked at the hatch then.

“Enter!”

“Bill?” Tigh’s bald head peeked through the opening. “Not sleeping yet?”

The XO walked toward his commander’s--and friend’s--desk, and stopped right there, scrutinizing Bill.

“I was just going to.”

Saul didn’t say anything, picked up the casualties list, glanced it over and nodded. “We lost many good men there.”

“Not as many as after New Caprica,” Bill responded harshly, looking away.

Tigh’s one eyebrow jumped all the way to the top of his head. “Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“I’m tired. Haven slept in a few days. I think we’ll put off sweeping through the crew manifesto until the morning.”

The Admiral stood up, his face hardened like the battlestar’s shielding. He was dismissing his XO, and he trusted his friend would not poke his head up at this moment.

But Saul Tigh shrugged, sat down, and put the list back on the desk, in front of Bill, with a mockery of a smile on his lips.

“Put off, huh?” he murmured. “That’s what you’ve been doing these past couple of days. Well, if you want it that way . . .” He blew his lips, deep in thought, staring at his hands. “Crew manifesto . . . We need a new CAG, Helo can’t be the filler any longer. Along with CAG we lost the lead pilot.” Bill sat down, and Saul shot him a glance. The Old Man’s arms slumped, his face shrunk. He was dumbly gaping at the document on his desk. The XO took a breath and continued. “The CIC personnel can fill in the gap after Lt. Dualla for a while, but with the pilots--we must assign them now. The obvious choice is Narcho, he’s the squad leader--”

“Stop it.”

Tigh fell silent. Watched his commander and best friend and felt his pain.

“I wish--” Bill’s whisper was barely audible. Saul didn’t move. Waited. “I wish I could resign.”

“But you can’t.”

None of them moved, none said anything for another eternally long moment.

Bill Adama felt he could go on only as long as he didn’t acknowledge the full extent of what happened.

“Chose CAG,” he grated. Got up and took the two steps to his rack. Sat down. “Good night,” said without looking at his visitor.

And Saul, sterling Saul, took his cue, sighed, and left.

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Bill Adama had once presented President Roslin with a document like the one he was staring at right now. Except that he had trouble filling the last line now. I recommend . . . Whom? . . . As the Commander of the Fleet. Whom?

He stared at the paper and his thoughts were blank.

He heard a knock on the door.

“Enter,” he said.

Didn’t look up, but the sound of her steps was recognizable enough.

“Bill?” she asked. “You didn’t attend the ceremony.” There was concern in her voice, worry for him.

He didn’t need that.

“It’s over already?”

“Yes. Colonel Tigh did the honors.” She sat, but he refused to look up at her. She continued in a soft voice. “There was no delay, no stir. He really outdid himself there.”

“I’m going to have to thank him,” Bill commented dryly.

“How are you holding up?”

He hesitated. She was getting straight to the point, and perhaps that was what he should do too?

“I was going to--” he choke. Somehow it was even harder to say the words, than think them. “But I have a problem,” tried another approach, “with the replacement. It’s stupid really. I don’t know, maybe you’ll find it easier, maybe with some advice . . .”

“What are you talking about?” She noticed the document he was staring at, held out her hand and took it. He let her. “What is it?” Her eyes scanned the text. “What is it? You’re not serious.” She took off her glasses and looked at him, her eyes piercing right through his tormented heart. She saw his pain and her face softened. “Bill. I know how you feel.”

“Do you?”

“No,” she agreed. “I don’t. But--”

“You can’t know that. Not until you really experience--” His grief choke him again. “I didn’t know,” he sobbed. And then, suddenly, the words started flowing from him like a water that breaks the dam. “I thought I did, but I didn’t, I had no idea. Remember what you asked me?” He looked up, and saw how she looked back then: frightened, wary. It had only been a few days ago! “‘Are you prepared to sacrifice Lee?’ you asked.” She rememberred. “I thought I was. Gods, I lost him so many times, I thought I knew how I’d feel. But that was that: so many times. I never lost him for real not until now.” The tears flooded his face. He’d never cried before, not even back then, when he’d had another reason, just like this, to cry. “When I thought he was gone, I kept going, but at the end of the day he was always back one way or another. I keep expecting him to be back now, too. But he’s not coming back. He’s not coming back,” he sobbed. Wiped the tears, but new ones came right away. “I never imagined I would feel like this,” added in a whisper. That was true, even back then--after Zak’s death, his younger son—it had all been different. The world had been different. “I thought I’d grieve, and keep going, because that’s my duty. Because I’m an Admiral. But no. My Lee is gone. And with him my purpose. All my purpose.”

“Bill--”

“All my life.”

Laura looked at him and waited. Gave him the time to gather his wits about him, was the most understanding.

He counted on it, actually. “That’s why you will accept it this time.” He pointed at his resignation.

Laura’s eyes opened wide.

“And you will do what?” she asked in accusatory tone. “Just give up, rot away on some civilian ship? Do you think that’s what he would have wanted?”

“This isn’t about him.”

“Isn’t it? Who is it about then? You?”

He shot her a glare, but that was Laura Roslin and she could take him up on the glare contest on most days of the week.

“It should be about him,” she picked up, softly again. “You owe him that much. And for him you should keep fighting.” Laura kept pressing, and seeing him stubbornly shake his head, she tried a different tactic. “Imagine him coming back. What if his raptor had jumped away? You don’t know that for sure, do you? What if he comes back eventually and sees his father has given up, abandoned his post. Do you really want that?”

Bill stared at her blankly. Totally missed the later part of her elaborate.

“You think they may have jumped away?” he asked hoarsely.

Laura swallowed. She was sure Bill considered this possibility somewhere along the way, but apparently not.

“Then we hurried with this funeral ceremony!” he rose suddenly. “Maybe he--”

“Bill. If he’s alive, he’ll have to find us--”

“We have to go back! I promised him--” his voice faltered, tears threatened to flow again. “--I’d never leave.”

“He knows where we are going,” she assured, surprising even herself with that hope that it was--by some miracle--true. “If he’s alive, he’d have to find us, we can’t search for him. Meanwhile just do your job, and stop whining, okay.”

She was fully aware how thin her argumentation was, but Bill so desperately needed a purpose, he clung to this belief that Lee was still alive, like it was his lifeboat. And the President started worrying how long the Fleet would survive, if it was led by a man, who lived in an imaginary world.

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.tbc