Laura knew that she'd be dead soon, but she accepted this fate. Earth, as Bill had just named the planet, promised their people a chance at life. She'd gotten to see its waving fields of grass, clear skies, and blazing sun embrace her travel-weary people. But when the sun reached for Laura, it couldn't warm her pale skin.

"So much… life," she whispered with the faintest smile on her lips. The animals running across the fields were just a fuzzy haze to her eyes as she and Bill flew above them in a Raptor. She was fading fast. Earth would be a paradise and a new beginning for her people but not for her. That was alright. The Dying Leader had done her job, and there was peace in that.

"It's a rich continent. More wildlife than all the Twelve Colonies combined," Bill said, piloting the Raptor into a tilt, showing her as much of the world as possible. He accepted her approaching end now, even though it pained him. It was better to focus on the time left and make one last happy memory.

As they soared above the treetops, the Raptor engines covered the death-rattle in Laura's lungs as they looked down at the planet. It cost so much. Laura tried not to dwell on how much she wanted to live down there with the only man with whom she'd ever wanted to share her life. Her heart faltered, thinking of the life they could have made. My promised land would have been a home together, she thought. But I'll never see it. Others will enjoy their own promised land because we did, Bill. She wanted to reach for his hand but lacked the energy. Her hand fell to the side instead. The pain was fading.

"Just looking for a quiet little place to build that cabin," Bill said, and the low rumble of his voice seemed to wrap around her. Closing her eyes, she pictured a cabin nestled in the mountains as everything faded.

I'll be waiting for you, Bill.

Then there was nothing.

...

"Just looking for a quiet little place for that cabin," Bill said, looking at the rolling hills while piloting the Raptor. This was his great act of love—letting her go and making her passing like slipping into a dream. Despite the pain, she'd held on as long as she could for his sake. In return, Bill wasn't giving in to bitterness about her death or raging about how he couldn't live without her. Instead, he helped her go to a well-deserved rest with one last happy memory. "Maybe a garden. I don't have much of a green thumb, so I sure hope you do."

When she didn't reply, Bill looked over at her. For a long second, he stared. Then, snatching up her hand, he searched for a pulse he knew wouldn't be there. Grief slammed into him; as he took the first ragged breath after her death. She was gone. Gone. While he still breathed, he'd never see her smile again or hear her laugh. Her wonderful, unique spark had left. Tears stung his eyes, and he allowed them to flow down his cheeks; Laura Roslin deserved to be mourned by the man who'd loved her more than anything.

She looks peaceful, he thought. He bent down and kissed her hand, wishing he'd spent more time telling her how much he loved her. Then it hit him, like the force of a thousand explosions: he never said 'I love you' to her at all. It was like being punched in the stomach and stabbed in the back. He looked at her hand and, without hesitation, pulled the wedding band off his hand and slipped the gold onto her finger. It glinted in Earth's sun as he kissed her hand one last time.

Colonial religion claimed that those married before the gods remained together for all the eternities. So for the woman who'd taught him to believe in more than what he could see, his first prayer was to be reunited with her somehow.

With infinite tenderness, he set her hand back on her lap.

"Right there. I'm gonna build it right there, Laura."

He pictured a cozy cabin on the hilltop before them. Bill knew they would have been happy there together. Bringing the Raptor into a gentle descent, Bill mourned what might have been.

On the top of the hill with the best view of the Earth, he dug a grave. Every time he drove his shovel into the dirt, Bill's heart hammered harder in his chest. He often needed to pause, catch his breath, and wipe away the tears. Finally, he finished digging as the stars started to appear and gently placed her body in the grave.

He folded her hands in dignified repose and looked down at her one last time. What might life have been like if we'd met sooner? he asked. Gut-wrenching visions of a laughing wife, a warm home, and children with Laura's eyes flashed in his mind. Trembling with the weight of his grief, he reached for the shovel.

Before the last bit of dirt covered her, Bill made Laura a promise. "I'll find you. If there is something else, I'll find you."

...

Everybody dies. Coming to terms with mortality can teach one to live fully and cherish every moment; when Laura Roslin learned her life would be cut short, it forced her to embrace the time left. She'd accepted the responsibility of ensuring humanity's survival, fighting harder and smarter because of her limited time. She'd learned how to be vulnerable again and found the love of a good man.

After living and then slipping into a terrible, beautiful darkness, Laura didn't expect to bolt upright in bed and gasp for air.

Her heart rushed with adrenaline, and her eyes searched the room frenetically. As her mind processed the space around her, memories of the apocalypse rushed in. While letting the memories come, Laura tried to figure out where she found herself. She noted the blandness of the small room in which she'd awoken; white walls, grey curtains, and dull paintings.

This isn't right!

Despite shivering from the cold air nipping at her skin, Laura pushed the blankets away and jumped out of the bed. She stumbled away from it, backing against a wall with ragged breaths. This wasn't Elysium.

"Sandra? Cheryl?" Laura called. Somehow, she didn't think they'd answer. Still, she had to try. "Mom? Dad?"

No one answered. This time should be her reunion with her family, so Laura wondered why no boat carried her to the afterlife. She'd missed her family so much and anticipated seeing them again. Taking a deep breath, Laura winced as her head throbbed again and her chest tightened. More flashes of memories from the past few years interrupted her line of thinking. Bill, she remembered as love flooded her. Then came the longing. She trembled against the wall; I was going to wait for him on the Shore, she thought. And we'd never be parted again.

Without thinking, Laura ran a shaky hand through her hair. She gasped and reached up with both hands. Her long red curls, tangled with sleep, slipped between her fingers. She then noticed the lack of pain anywhere in her body as if the agony she'd lived with had melted. It left her body equal parts foreign and familiar; her heartbeat felt strong and steady once more, her lungs breathed air without feeling like a knife stabbed into her.

What is going on? She noticed a door in the room left slightly ajar and correctly assumed it was a bathroom. Moving inside, she flicked on the light and gazed into the mirror. Staring into her own eyes, her pupils dilated with adrenaline, she examined her reflection that showed a significantly younger version of herself. Her hands moved down from her hair, touching the skin of her cheeks and neck. It felt real. She swallowed hard before carefully and deliberately searching lower on her body. No tumor. Wrenching her shaking hands away from her body, she crept back out to the main room.

She pressed herself against the other door, looking through its peephole. A boring hallway without a single soul lay on the other side. Her forehead dropped against the door.

"Bill," she whispered, praying to the Lords of Kobol that somehow, he would answer. Only silence replied. She turned around to face the room. "Mom? Dad? Cheryl? Sandra?"

"Bill?" Nothing changed. She remained very alone and very overwhelmed. Trying to keep her breathing controlled, she closed her eyes. She hated not knowing what was happening. So, stay calm and figure out the facts, she ordered herself in a harsh mental tone. With a deep breath, Laura buried the panic that threatened to take her.

Pushing off the door, she walked through the room. Her senses fired, and she sorted through everything she noticed. A trace of fresh linen and lemon wafted through the air. It smelled crisp and clean, but the nice kind of clean instead of sterile. After recycled air and disinfectants, this smelled wonderful. Bending down, she retrieved a pair of heels discarded on the floor. She recognized them as a favorite pair from years ago until she'd broken the heel. She frowned, trying to hypothesize what might be happening during this strange and unwelcome experience.

At the desk in the room, Laura stopped. Her fingers trailed over the face of a journal. She'd picked up the habit of journaling in college, and she remembered this book and some of the memories she'd put in it. She fiddled with the red bookmark ribbon that stuck out before using it to open up the last entry. At the top of the page, the scrawled ink formed a date from sixteen years before the Fall. Laura blinked and reread the date. It was sixteen years before the Fall, and the ink looked fresh.

Beneath the date, the familiar loops and slants that formed her messy cursive rambled on about being on Picon and an education conference. It sparked a distant memory not entirely forgotten, and Laura looked around at the room once again. She remembered this hotel room. She walked over to the window and pushed the fabric of the curtain to the side.

In front of her, she saw Picon before the Fall.

She felt light-headed. She stood there until the sun broke over the horizon, and blazing light spilled into the room. People jogged along the boardwalk. Birds cawed and soared above the sprawling sands. Bright cobalt sky stretched out above her, so different from the inky black of space. It was stunning.

It was not the afterlife.

This felt too much like the Twelve Colonies she remembered. She paced back and collapsed onto the bed in which she'd awoken. Her heart longed for her family and Bill, not puzzles and riddles. The burned-out woman needed a respite.

"Didn't I do my job?!" She hurled the question into the empty room, feeling so very drained. She wanted to rest.

She laid there for a long time thinking. Then, finally, an idea struck her. She sat up and opened the bedside table's drawer. A copy of the sacred scrolls rested in it, hardly touched by most of the patrons of the ritzy hotel. Laura flipped through the pages until she found the right passage.

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

The second she read the line, an inexplicable, unshakeable knowledge took root deep inside her—this verse was the answer. Yet, the notion of returning to the past remained absurd. Time was like a stream; it moved in one direction. Right? A headache threatened to form with the existential questions the whole situation provoked. Irritated, Laura threw the scrolls as hard as she could into the corner of the room and felt slightly better.

I'm never touching that damned book again.

An alternative idea presented itself; perhaps, she'd dreamed it all. The idea immediately felt wrong. Even so, Laura curled into a ball on the bed, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her eyes stung, and her head and between her eyes throbbed in time with her heartbeat. It was not a dream, it was not a dream, Laura repeated again and again as tears trickled down her cheeks. She allowed herself to weep, overwhelmed and confused. It would take time to come to terms with everything, but her burdened heart found momentary relief in freeing her tears.

After some time passed, she decided that she'd cried enough. Moving to rub her face clear, Laura bumped into something in the bed. Laura sat up, easily startled at another unexpected sensation. Frowning, she searched under the covers and pulled out a book. The loudest choked sob yet then tore from her throat. She held Searider Falcon. The cover bore burn marks from being damaged during the attack on the hub.

"It can't have been a dream." Her breath caught in her throat, and she hugged the book to her. It was a tiny shred of proof. Stuck in a time years before the Fall, she clung to the memories of the life she'd lived.

"Yes! Absolutely! That is the only sane thing to do here—exactly that, run." Laura let the tears come. "We leave this solar system and never look back."

"It was real," Laura said, remembering everything. "I will exercise the authority of this office until I am unable to do so, so if you want to stage a coup, you're gonna have to come over here and arrest me." He'd actually thrown her in the brig!

"All of it," she said, sniffling as her tears started to dry. "Bill," she whispered. "You didn't think you were gonna take off without me, Admiral, did you?"

As the memories ebbed and flowed away, she noticed something as her fingers moved across the cover of the book. She looked down at a large gold band on her finger. She'd never worn a gold band. The only time she'd ever seen one adorn her finger was in her visions with Elosha on the Basestar; Bill had placed his wedding band on her hand when she died. Her heart knew that Bill had placed this band on her finger when she died over Earth.

"Earth is a dream. One we've been chasing for a long time. We've earned it. This is Earth…"

It was sixteen years before the Fall. She wasn't dead. She'd experienced the future. She repeated those facts like a mantra even as she began to ask the critical questions. Did anyone else remember? What could she do? Could she change the future? Where was Bill at this point in time? Would the attacks still happen?

How was she supposed to pick up the threads of her old life?

...

"You'd be so proud of our people," he said to the grave as the anniversary of her death passed. He leaned back against the cabin wall. He couldn't quite remember how long ago it had been built. The rising sun illuminated the land, a view of scattered trees and wilderness in mismatched yet stunning greens. Bill always welcomed the sunrise with its red clouds and iris of fire that reminded him of another, better heavenly sight. This time, it seemed to blur together. He closed his eyes. Everything hurt. "Miss you."

He drifted off, slipping into the timeless half-world between reality and dreams. It might have been like floating out into the ocean. He saw things, but every time he reached out to grab ahold of a shadow, he just missed it. Every second felt like a lifetime, and a lifetime felt like a second.

And then he saw Laura, far away and silhouetted in the confusion.

"Laura!" he tried to scream. But no sound came, and as he watched, Laura vanished into the darkness, into the ocean, into the huge storm clouds gathering.

"LAURA!" he shouted again. He must be dreaming, or possibly dead...

Bill's eyes snapped open, and he looked all around him, trying to get his bearings. He immediately recognized the ship on which he found himself standing. It had been several decades since the last time he'd found himself on the First Hybrid's ship.

It wasn't real, and Bill could tell. The quality of it all lacked the same harsh, sharpness reality did. He supposed that he must be dreaming, or something like it.

His eyes examined the chrome metal surfaces. His body shuddered at the sight of the examination tables where Cylons had experimented on humans. Bits of dried blood clung to more than one surface, and the air smelled putrid and foul. His last mission of the First Cylon War ended with Bill here, and he had no desire to be here again.

"All this has happened before, and all this will happen again," the otherworldly voice reverberated around the room. It sounded like it had the first time.

Bill edged toward the basin in the center of the room from where it sounded like the voice came from. The humidity was oppressive, and sweat gathered along his brow. Instinctively, his hand moved toward his hip, and he grabbed the gun from its holster. He thanked his luck that whatever this vision-dream was, it allowed him to be armed. The sidearm invoked a sense of security in him, feeling cool and familiar in his grasp.

He stood over the basin, but this time it wasn't empty. Holding his gun tighter, he saw the old Hybrid resting in the murky liquid. He'd been long gone by the time Bill had arrived during his mission at the end of the First Cylon War.

The Hybrid opened his eyes and looked up at Bill with a curious expression.

"You've returned, William Adama," he said in a deep and mysterious voice. Bill didn't jump; he was too well-trained to allow a display of emotion in front of an enemy. He considered this man an enemy. He pointed the barrel of his gun straight at his opponent's forehead. Keep the tactical advantage; his training didn't abandon him in the dream-like states.

"Is this a dream?"

"Yes." The Hybrid's piercing gaze bore into Bill's now frosty blue eyes. "And, no,"

"That's not an answer."

The Hybrid chuckled softly at this enigma. Nothing bothered him, not the gun pointed at him, Bill's evident anger, or this in-between plane of existence. Exuding a grandfatherly serenity, he tilted his head to the side with an infinite amount of patience and spoke with Bill.

"Do you remember what I told you the last time you were here?"

"You weren't here," Bill pointed out. The Hybrid chuckled again and continued speaking to him like a sage from a story.

"I still spoke to you, and you heard me," the Hybrid said without further explanation. "All of this has happened before—"

"—and all of this will happen again," Bill finished, remembering. He steadied himself, rolling his broad shoulders while trying to make sense of what was happening.

"And so it has happened again, and again. So many times. So much death. So much life," the First Hybrid said.

The Hybrid kept talking, unphased. "Back in the stream that feeds the ocean that feeds the stream. I've seen the jealous god roll back the wheel of time. I've seen the Prophet guide her people to Earth. I've seen the strong-willed protector by her side."

"Don't you dare talk about her," Bill snarled.

"Did you make the most of loving her?" The Hybrid asked. His heart constricted in his chest when he thought about the question.

"No." Bill wondered if he'd ever had a more confusing experience.

"There are always things left unsaid and undone," the Hybrid said. "Even so, in your time, humanity earned their survival, and that will be honored. Laura, the Prophet who never lost her soul, proved their worth."

"I'm not interested in riddles," Bill snapped. He turned to walk away.

"Then I shall speak plainly for you, my child. In the end, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol were still lost. Your culture was abandoned. Your names were forgotten. Your story was lost. History laid no blame at your feet but learned no lesson. On Earth, Colonial and Cylon alike died. Starvation, exposure, disease—"

"That's enough!" Rage coursed through his veins. He couldn't even contemplate the potential that they'd failed in the end. A split-second decision later, and he found himself pulling the trigger. Nothing happened.

"If you think this is a dream, what makes you think you can kill me?" The older man's voice didn't contain any anger at the attempt against his life. His voice was calm and gentle, perhaps even a little amused.

"If this is a dream, then leave me alone."

"It's a dream, a memory, and a warning," the Hybrid spoke. "This has all happened before, and now… now it must happen again. You must go back."

"I'm not interested in any of this." Bill shook his head. "And, I'm not interested in reliving the past." Even as he said it, he wondered if that was the truth. Laura.

"What if you saw her again?" The Hybrid locked gazes with Adama again. Bill opened his mouth to snap out a response, but the words didn't come. The pain in his chest from his aching heart consumed him. He'd give anything to see her again.

"The jealous god will rewind time. But you have another chance." The Hybrid closed his eyes, and the room began to fade around them. "Remember and learn because this will be the end of the line."

...

Bill groaned, and his head throbbed. What had this godsdamned universe done to him now? The vision of the First Hybrid echoed in his mind as he opened his eyes, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights. The sounds of other people waking up around him filled the air.

"Reveille, reveille, morning stations aboard Battlestar Universal, all hands report to your stations."

...

Author's note: I just got around to watching Battlestar Galactica. Yep, I'm late to the party. BSG became an instant favorite. This will be a long work, but I'm also using it to practice my creative writing skills that desperately need some dusting off after not being used for years.

Thank you for reading! DIMTMOLY is my first fanfic, so comment, critique, encourage and say hello anytime. I just wanna tell a good story. :)