Gone But Never Forgotten (Battlestar Galactica, The Closer; Bill Adama, Brenda Leigh Johnson)

[divinemissem13]

Title: Gone But Never Forgotten
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica, The Closer
Pairing/Characters: Bill Adama/ Brenda Leigh Johnson
Content Notes: Canon character deaths
Prompt:  September 2: distant memory

They both dream of someone else, someone long gone. Neither one likes to talk about her, that one true love that they'll never see again. Instead, Brenda and Bill hold each other closer in a bed that still feels empty sometimes, even though they share it.

Brenda dreams of a woman with lush auburn hair and piercing green eyes. A woman who commands any room she walks into, with her Armani suits and click-clacking high heels. A woman who uses her glasses as a shield to keep others from getting too close. But Brenda knows what she looks like without them. She knows how compassionate and loving those emerald eyes can be … could be … were.

She dreams of the first time they met, as adversaries in the middle of the night in a hospital break room; she in a dark navy trench coat, Brenda in a bright pink one. Brunette and blonde, green eyes and brown, stilettos and kitten heels; on the surface they couldn't have been more different. In her dreams, the night does not end with them going to their separate corners though. In her dreams, they arrive much more quickly at the destination that took them years to reach in life: Brenda's lips on hers, Brenda's hands inside the neatly pressed button down shirt, her fingers clawing at Brenda's hips and pulling them closer, whispered confessions of love…

Sometimes, Brenda wakes up from the dreams with her cheeks soaked with tears. Sometimes, it's other parts of her that are soaked. Sometimes it's both. Either way, she finds Bill in the dark and holds on for dear life, because she doesn't think she could handle losing anyone else she loves.

Bill dreams of a thin woman wearing a stiff dark brown wig, her green eyes pale and tired. He doesn't know why, whenever he dreams of her, it's near the end, but it always is. A woman with quiet inner strength and boundless optimism, even though she had been dying the whole time he had known her.

He wishes he would dream about her from before the cancer really took hold… but she wasn't his then, not until her beautiful auburn hair had all fallen out, not until she stopped hiding behind her presidential facade and admitted that even dying leaders deserve a little happiness.

Sometimes, he dreams of the very end, when they sat in green grass, basking in the sun while he read to her. He dreams of his own ring — too big for her even before she began to waste away — hanging loosely from her finger. He buried that ring with her. He doesn't have another to give to Brenda, not that she would ever ask. Not that he would ever offer.

But they are happy, mostly. They make each other smile.

Brenda laughs when Bill's mustache tickles her skin. She insists she likes it though and won't let him shave it off. She's never been with anyone with a mustache before and it helps her to stay in the present, away from painful memories and loss.

Bill smiles lovingly and strokes his hand through her thick blonde curls when she falls asleep with her head in his lap, which she does every time he reads to her. He finds it endearing that she tries to listen, and enjoys the fact that his voice can lull her into an easy, dreamless sleep. She doesn't get nearly enough sleep and that worries him. Sleep is important, and he doesn't think he can bear to watch someone else he loves waste away in front of his eyes.

Sometimes, in bed, when neither of them is sleeping, Bill calls out for Laura. Brenda doesn't hold it against him because, as strange as it may seem, sometimes she cries out Sharon's name too. To anyone else, this might feel like a betrayal. But for two people who truly understand loss, they can recognize it for what it is: a declaration of love. And on these nights, when they drift off to sleep in each other's arms, their bed feels a little less empty. 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[senmut]

EXCELLENT.