No True Pair

Title: Subdivisions
Fandom: Star Trek TNG, Battlestar Galactica
Pair: Bill Adama/ Beverly Crusher
Content Warning: divorce
Prompt: with the title "Subdivisions"


Subdivision: An act or instance of dividing into portions or parts
This is not a story about identical houses and manicured lawns.

"I want you to take this one," Bill said, holding out the book.

Beverly didn't even look up. She was busy trying to seal the overstuffed box on the table in front of her. "No, the books are yours, we decided."

"Not this one," Bill insisted. "I gave you this one… and I never lend books." It's a statement that would have made her smile, once — one of his little quirks she used to find endearing.

"Well now I'm giving it to you," she insisted, still not looking at him.

Bill looked down at the book, his fingers tracing the embossed title along the spine. "How to Advance Your Career Through Marriage". Beverly had laughed and rolled her eyes when she unwrapped it and when she had turned around, Bill was on one knee holding a ring. There were tears that night, tears of joy and laughter as she joined him on the floor and kissed him, accepting his proposal.

The tears that came later were different: tears of anger, frustration, loneliness, despair. He hadn't been there for her in the ways he had promised. Somehow his work always managed to come first. He had hurt her — always unintentionally but it hurt all the same. He never stopped loving her, but it was because he loved her so much that he eventually had to let her go.

"I'm sorry," he said, for the millionth time.

"I know," she sighed. She'd heard the words so often they stopped meaning anything long ago. But for some reason, he kept insisting on saying them. She took the book, still in his hands, and pressed it against his chest."It doesn't matter any more. I just - just take the book, OK?" she pled.

"There were good times, weren't there? I want you to be able to remember them. Please-"

Beverly cut him off with her fingers on his lips. It was the most intimately she had touched him in ages and it broke his heart just a little bit more to know that it was probably the last time.

"Oh Bill," she sighed, sadness and longing weighing heavily on her delicate features, "I don't need the book to remember them."

She surprised them both, then, by moving her hand to stroke his cheek and pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. The old spark was still there, weak and undernourished as it was, but Bill didn't have any illusions that this was a new beginning.

With one last lingering look, Beverly turned and picked up the last of her boxes. She paused with her hand on the doorknob and without turning, she said softly, "I will always love you, you know. Goodbye, Bill."

Then she was gone, leaving Bill holding the book but taking a piece of his heart with her.