#*yes i know they hardly knew anything abt each other after like eight years and their circumstances were never going to allow them to really

[redding]

thinking abt doomed friendships*.........pearlrick i care you

[lolcat76]

Folie A Deux, part 8

If you need a refresher, here’s part 7: http://lolcat76.tumblr.com/post/158990942790/folie-a-deux-pt-7 When last we left our intrepid heroes, Laura had just invited Bill over for dinner. A continuation for the prompt from @okaynextcrisis that will never die. 

Grace had dropped her bowl in the sink and decamped for her room long before Bill showed up. Whether she was trying to give them privacy, or just didn’t want Bill to know that she dared to eat a meal, Laura wasn’t sure, but it left the two of them sitting across from each other at her mother’s scarred kitchen table.

It should have been strange, having Bill sitting in her house, eating out of the bowls she and her sisters fought over when they were children, but it was...nice. Natural, even. He was just rough enough around the edges, even after years of classical training and kissing donor ass, to fit perfectly in her shabby old house.

If she were in the mood to overthink things, that would keep her up tonight, but she was in the mood to eat. She picked through her bowl of soup, pushing tomatoes aside to dig out the chunks of avocado.

“You still do that,” he said.

Her hand froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth. “Do what?”

“Pick out the parts you like best to eat first.”

Did she do that? “I don’t do that.”

He grinned at her, then slurped a mouthful of black beans. She looked down into her own bowl at the tomato chunks shoved to the side. Oh lord, she did do that.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to save the best for last?” he asked mildly, not bothering to meet her eyes as he took another swig of beer.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was rude to comment on a lady’s eating habits?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then grinned at her. “Yep. You did. Several times.”

She snorted. “As I recall, it wasn’t my eating habits you commented on. It was my cooking.”

His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. “Well, I’m happy to see that your skills have improved.”

She rolled her eyes. Bill had the palette of a five-year-old, so a compliment on her improving cooking skills was hardly worth registering. “Grace couldn’t fend for herself if I burned dinner. You could. I guess you could say I had incentive to improve.”

“Funny how fast kids change everything.”

Just like that, she remembered why she’d invited him for dinner in the first place. She flushed a little bit, feeling like a heel that she’d completely forgotten about Zak and Lee going home today and leaving Bill alone in his apartment. “And what about you, Dad? Do you cut the crusts off sandwiches?”

“I’ll have you know that my grilled cheese sandwiches are perfect equilateral triangles.”

Laura laughed at the mental picture of Bill, protractor in hand, carefully slicing through toasted bread and melted cheese. “In that case, next time, you’re making dinner.”

“Next time,” he agreed. “Any time.”

She pushed the tomatoes in her bowl around with her spoon, caught off-guard at the idea of next time. Or any time. What was she doing? Playing with fire. He was comfortable in her kitchen. He was the person she called when she was frustrated with work. He was the voice of reason when it came to Grace refusing to eat bread.

He was the person she relied on. Again. And she’d fallen into it so easily that she hadn’t even realized how much she’d started to depend on his steady presence in her life and his calm voice in her ear.

She didn’t want to need him. She didn’t want to need anyone, not ever again, but here he was in her kitchen, watching her and waiting for a response.

“You done?” she asked, reaching for his empty bowl. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move from his seat, just watched her as she dropped the bowls in the sink and rinsed them before throwing them into the dishwasher. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head as she dug through the cabinet for dish soap.

Starting the dishwasher and wiping down the countertops would only buy her so much time, and she knew when she was done setting the kitchen to rights, he’d still be in that chair watching her. Dammit, Laura, what were you thinking?

“I should go,” he said, when he finally realized that she could easily spend the rest of the night picking crumbs off the countertop rather than turning around and talking to him. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Any time,” she responded automatically.

“I think that’s my line,” he said with a chuckle.

“It’s getting late. You have company class tomorrow, and I have a beginning yoga class at 10. And I have to check Grace’s homework before she goes to bed.” And wash my hair and paint my toenails and take out the trash and scrub the grout, and anything else that will get you out of my house and out of my head.

“Right, company class. You know, you’re welcome in company class. Might be good for you.”

“I have my day job,” she reminded him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yoga.”

“Yes, yoga. Yoga pays the bills. Yoga pays for Grace’s tuition to that very expensive ballet school. Yoga pays for the food you just ate. Yoga kept us in this house when I had absolutely nothing to my name after eight years at ABT. I’m sorry if it’s not classy enough for you, Bill, but it’s kept us alive and afloat, so maybe shove it with the judgment a little bit?”

He threw up his hands and backed away from the table. “Fair enough. Thanks for dinner.”

Before she could apologize for her temper, he was gone.

If her mother were here, she’d be horrified. A lady doesn’t chase away a guest for daring to enjoy himself at her table. It was probably for the best that Grace has been in her room for the better part of an hour; Laura certainly hoped that her niece didn’t take her cues on how to deal with the opposite sex from her pathetic aunt.

She shook her head and resumed scrubbing at a scorch mark on the counter that had been burned into the formica since she was six years old. She could get rid of it, finally, if she just tried hard enough. She could erase all her mistakes if she just scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and ignored the tears dripping onto the sponge.

***

Tory was in a mood, that was easy to see. Then again, Tory was always in a mood these days. She hadn’t been the most pleasant person to deal with when Laura had one job; now that she was trying to balance the yoga studio and her rehearsal schedule at the ballet, Tory was downright surly.

“You’re late,” she said, not bothering to look up as she keyed in credit card numbers. “Class is starting.”

Laura was late, but she wasn’t going to apologize - again - for not being able to sleep the night before. Tory would just have to suck it up, or find a new job.

She wouldn’t cry too many tears if Tory did just that. For someone as bossy and demanding as she was, Laura was shocked that Tory condescended to working for hourly pay that was just above minimum wage. Tory should be running a corporation or a political campaign, not wasting her talents on a second-rate yoga studio in a third-rate city.

She smiled and handed Tory a cup of coffee and a muffin, the best bribe she could offer. Tory’s talents may be wasted, but she made sure Laura was where she needed to be when she needed to be there, and that made her worth her weight in gold.

“Blueberry,” Tory muttered with a grimace and shoved the muffin to the edge of the reception desk. Well, she was better than nothing. Laura ignored the muffin that was perched precariously above the trash can and swept into the studio with her yoga mat and her bottle of lavendar essential oils.

“Good morning, class,” she said. She laid out her yoga mat and dimmed the lights. Morning weekday classes were usually light on attendance, mostly retirees and homemakers. She seated herself at the edge of her mat and surveyed the class, smiling at the familiar faces who smiled back at her.

Familiar faces and Bill Adama, front and center on one of the studio’s borrowed mats, grinning like the proverbial cat with a mouthful of canary.

Bill fucking Adama, invading her space, yet again. He was supposed to be teaching company class; why the hell was he here?

She took in a few deep breaths and let out several long exhales. He was here, like it or not, but she had a class to teach. “Sit at the edge of your mats,” she said, “and take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouths. Let your exhales echo through your body.”

Most of the class kept their eyes closed as they practiced their breathing, but Bill stared at Laura as he let go of his exhale, reminding her of just how well she knew the sound of his breath leaving him. Damn him.

“Mountain pose,” she said, digging her toes into the edge of her mat. “We’ll start with sun salutations.”

He followed along as best as he could, and she had to bite the soft tissue of her cheeks to keep from laughing at him as she nudged his feet out of turnout. Maybe it was unfair, but she used him as an example to her class of the proper way to center their core over their standing legs. “Toes, balls and heels anchored to the floor.”

He laughed as she helped him shift his hips into parallel position. “Balls?” he asked softly.

“Shut up or get out,” she muttered.

He didn’t say another word after that, and she was more than a little gratified to watch him struggle to find the right body position through the rest of the class. This must have been what little Billy Adama was like in his first ballet classes, trying so hard to follow along, molding his sturdy frame and slightly bow-legged knees into fifth position. His brow was knit in concentration as he followed along with her instruction, forcing a body that had spent 30 years in ballet class to unlearn everything he’d ever known.

“Savasana,” she said. “Corpse pose. Close  your eyes and breathe deep, and let the energy flow through you and depart.” She edged her way across the room, spritzing a little bit of lavendar oil over each of her students. Yoga taught mindfulness, yet she moved automatically until she found herself at Bill’s mat. She touched his shoulders briefly, just as she had done with the rest of her students, but he surprised her by reaching up to tangle his fingers in hers.

“Corpse pose,” she hissed at him. His eyes opened, and he grinned at her.

“Not dead yet.”

If her Yelp reviews ever got wind of the fact that she sprayed lavendar essential oil directly in the face of one of her new students, she’d be sunk.

***

He was waiting for her when she came out of the back office, eyes a little bit red, but looking none the worse for wear.

“So that’s what you do all day.”

Laura hummed in agreement. “That’s what I do all day.”

He handed the beat-up mat to Tory. “I always knew you were a good teacher.”

Of course he did. “I never needed you to tell me I was a good teacher. And you need to work on your breathing.”

Oh good lord, did she just say that out loud?

“Tell you what, I’ll work on my breathing if you’ll work on your port des bras. Your shoulders are a little weak. Come to my class, and I’ll come to yours.”

Her shoulders were just fine, thank you, after years of downward dog. “And what’s in it for me?”

He looked at her, truly looked at her, with her rapidly fraying yoga pants and her hair tossed messily into a ponytail. “You get to make me look like an ass in front of your yoga class. And I get to make you look like a dancer in front of mine.”

“I’m not a dancer, Bill,” she reminded him.

“You’re not a liar either, Laura. Try to remember that.” He picked up his bag and hefted it over his shoulder. “Next time, bring your pointe shoes.”

Pointe shoes. Her calluses were gone, and her pedicure couldn’t survive a class en pointe. “I’m not a dancer, Bill,” she called after him.

“You’ve been a dancer since the day you were born.” He stopped to thank Tory, and damn her if she didn’t smile at him. “You owe me. Tomorrow at nine am.”

Tomorrow at nine am she should be getting ready to teach another beginning class, but if Tory’s smile was anything to go by, now was the time to ask for a favor.

Pointe shoes. Bad enough to ask Tory to cover for her, but to ask Tory to teach a class so that she could rip the skin on her feet open over and over again?

She flexed her toes, almost feeling the gel padding shielding her feet from the paste and canvas and hard wings of her shoes.

If he could suffer through her class, she could soldier through his. “Tory,” she said, “what are you doing tomorrow morning?”

***

It was just like riding a bike, if riding a bike meant ripping of the skin of her toes and watching as her feet bled through the pale peach satin of the last pair of pointe shoes she’d owned. Frankly, she’d rather crash into a tree head-first than try another pirouette at this pointe, but Bill was watching her, and she’d be damned if she went down without a fight.

Skin would heal, and toenails would grow back, but Sharon Agathon would never stop smirking at her f she didn’t do the fouette combination.

Who was she kidding? Sharon wouldn’t wipe that smug look off her face regardless, but Laura had her pride, even if she didn’t have the top layers of skin on her toes. How did she ever think this was fun?

She positioned herself for the combination and dropped into a low fourth, ready to start her turn combination. Easy physics, centrifugal force and a mathematical equation. Whip the leg around, tuck in the arms, pray for death and hope for the best. She was far too old for this.

And yet, she was still turning, still refusing to back down, when the music stopped. She dropped into a clean ending pose, despite the fact that her quads were burning and she could no longer feel her feet. God, she was going to have to soak her feet in ice just to lead the Chocolate rehearsal, but her neck was long and her hips were in perfect alignment.

“Grande allegro,” Bill called.

Really? No praise? Nopat on the back? No acknowledgement that at 35, she could still do four eight-counts of fouette turns?

He walked through the grande allegro combination and she pantomimed the steps with her arms, trying to look engaged in the class but wishing desperately she had her spray bottle of lavendar oil.

He was trying to get the best of her. Maybe she should have been kinder to his sons (how much kinder could she be?) Maybe she shouldn’t have mocked his yoga skills. Maybe she shouldn’t have invited him over for dinner in the first place.

Maybe she should throw her bag over her shoulder and sneak out of the studio. Maybe she should admit defeat while she could still walk.

Maybe she could make him eat his words. She leaned into the combination, tombe, pas de bourree, glissade, pas de chat and contretemps. Back and forth, until she was dancing almost against the mirror. She took another couple of steps out of the way and leaned against the barre, her chest heaving.

Damn him, she did miss this. Yoga was great for mindfulness, but nothing could compare to a grande allegro, to those precious few minutes when she felt like she was flying with each jump. Even as she struggled to catch her breath, she couldn’t deny that she felt...good. Strong. Alive.

Her toes cramped in her pointe shoe, and she struggled to walk it off. Alive, yes, and in pain. Whoever made the point about suffering for art wasn’t kidding. She shook her foot, trying to ignore the joints seizing up, and took her place for reverence.

“Good work, class. Rehearsals start in 20,” Bill said, bowing to the company. She lowered herself into the deepest curtsey her aching quads would allow and nodded to the teacher. When she looked up, he was watching her, waiting for her to acknowledge him. And that bastard winked at her. “Good work,” he repeated.

She was slowly peeling the tape off of her bleeding toes when he sat next to her in the hallway. Bill held up a familiar small brown bottle. “Nu-skin? Oh, hell no,” she muttered.

He tugged at her feet, dropping them into his lap before unscrewing the cap. “If you’d used it before class, you wouldn’t be bleeding all over my floors now.” He brushed the thick liquid on her oozing feet, and she braced herself for the sharp sting of antiseptic.

“Dammit, Bill! That hurts!”

“You didn’t used to be such a wimp, Roslin.” He waved his hand over her feet to help the liquid bandage dry. When she finally relaxed enough for him to guess that the initial sting had mellowed, he dug his fingers into the balls of her feet, working out her earlier cramp.

“Did you guilt me into coming to class just so you could watch me suffer?” she asked, but her words lacked bite. Hard to be mad at a man who was rubbing her aching feet.

“No, I guilted you into coming to class because I like to look at your legs in tights. The suffering was just a bonus.”

“You’re funny,” she muttered.

Bill shrugged. “I am funny. But you’ve still got the best legs I’ve ever seen.”

There it was again, the compliment. She tugged her feet out of his lap and tucked them beneath her. “Bill, what am I doing here?”

“Bleeding all over my carpet. I thought we established that?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I mean, besides that. Taking class, leading rehearsals. What’s the point?”

A shadow crossed his face. “Don’t you like it? I thought you were enjoying it.”

That was the problem. She was enjoying it, far more than she had any right to, given her abrupt retirement years ago. She was enjoying it so much that it was making her doubt every decision she’d made eight years ago, and she had no room in her life right now for that kind of second-guessing. “I am enjoying it. But where is it going? I can take class, but I’m never going to be on stage again, so I guess I’m just wondering...what’s the point?”

The hallways were filling up again, dancers skirting past each other to make it to their rehearsal studios. Karl leaned down to whisper a quick “Good job today” in Laura’s ear before Sharon could tug him away. She watched them make their way down the hall, envying their youth and strength while she dug the heel of her hands into her aching muscles.

“You should be spending your time on them,” she said, nodding to the couple as they disappeared into the main studio. “Not wasting it on me.”

“Laura, I never considered time spent with you wasted.”

She ignored the heavy meaning in his words. She was exhausted, and she could feel a bruise starting to throb under her big toenail. She wasn’t up for yet another discussion about their relationship, past or present. “Come on, I’m old and washed up. You have a job here, to guide the next generation of dancers. You should be doing that.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You think I can’t do both?”

“I think I don’t know why you want to.”

Bill shifted until he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Laura, his back braced against the wall. “You know, I didn’t want to retire. I thought I was still in my prime, but the roles I used to dance kept going to other people. Instead of Prince Albrecht in Giselle, I was cast as the king.” He shook his head. “You know what the king does? He stands upstage and waves his arms a lot. And I guess I couldn’t complain, because it happened to Baryshnikov. It happened to Stiefel. It happens to all of us. We get old and we’re put out to pasture.” He picked up her hand, toying with her fingers while he thought out his next words. “But I wasn’t done yet. I knew I wasn’t done. I might never be done, because this is all I’ve ever known, and I don’t want to walk away from it. So I’m not onstage anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t still love to dance. It just means I have to do it a different way now.”

“Bill,” she said softly. “That’s your story, not mine.”

He stopped tugging at her fingers and laced them through his. “Isn’t it? You left before you were ready to quit. I just thought you might like a second chance. Even if it isn’t dancing Giselle at the Met, you can still dance. You can still have this in your life. You can still have me in your life, if you want it. It doesn’t have to be the way it was, but it can still be good.”

He leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. Just enough to remind her how good it was when he was in her life. He pulled back and got to his feet. “Dreams change, Laura. I know that now. But you shouldn’t give up dreaming them.” He stole a quick glance at his watch. “I have to be in rehearsal. Dinner tonight? Bring Grace. I’ll even cut the crusts off your sandwiches.”

She nodded without thinking and watched as he strode down the hallway.

Dreams changed, she knew that better than anyone. Laura Roslin eight years ago dreamed of dancing Giselle. This Laura Roslin, soaked in sweat and worrying about making it to her studio in time to teach a 1pm restorative yoga class, dreamed of nothing so grand as applause and roses. Right now, she was dreaming about a tube of Icy Hot, a quick nap after her 1pm, and grilled cheese with Grace and Bill Adama.

Maybe her dreams were smaller now, but maybe they were still worth dreaming.