Fic: Tauron Transitions
Title: Tauron Transitions
Rating: K+
Word count: 4800
Summary: The Roslin-Adamas adjust to life on Tauron.
A/N: A multitude of thanks to nixmom for the beta and the inspiration.
Previous story: Farewell Freeze
Next story: Tauron Surprise
Banner by sci-fi-shipper, click on it for the index to this series.
"Ready for your last day of school, Superintendent?” Bill leaned over Laura’s shoulder and grinned at her in the mirror before sweeping her hair aside and kissing her neck.
“Mmmm.” She leaned into him, closing her eyes for a moment. She turned her head to meet his mouth with her own for a brief kiss, then returned to applying her makeup. “I’ll be so glad to have this first year finally under my belt and not feel like such a novice.” A swipe of lipstick passed over her lips, which she pursed thoughtfully. “A few of the real old-timers are retiring from the administration. It should make things easier, next year.” Although she’d be making an appearance at the district retirement party later that day, she felt nothing but relief that the old guard who had balked at accepting a Caprican as their boss were finally moving on.
“You’ve done great, Laura.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and gave her a squeeze. “Not just at your job, but with everything--I know it hasn’t been easy.”
She dusted some translucent powder across her cheeks, forehead, and chin. “I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we left Caprica,” she admitted, putting the powder away in the drawer. “So many changes...but the kids seem to be happy, at least.”
As if on cue, Sephie dragged Phin into the bathroom, with Cyrus toddling far behind them, trying and failing to keep up. Sephie was wearing underpants and nothing else, while the boys were both fully dressed. “Mama! I need!”
Bill and Laura exchanged a glance, and by tacit agreement, Bill took the lead. “You need what, muffin?”
“Phin took my shirt! I wanted to wear it to Lar-Lar’s.”
“Did not,” muttered Phin, plucking at his yellow t-shirt. “Dis is my shirt.”
“I think you both have that one,” Laura said, crouching down to inspect Phineus’s shirt, emblazoned with the logo of the Tauron Bulls. “We got these when we went to the match against Hades Vice, right?”
Bill nodded. “I should have written their initials on the tag.”
Sephie’s tantrums had prompted what might be deemed an excess of labeling, but it helped keep the peace. Laura reached beneath Phin’s dark shoulder-length curls--a trip to the barber was probably in order--and inspected the tag. It had in fact been marked with an indelible P. “Sephie, this shirt is Phin’s. Let’s go pick out something else to wear, okay?”
Sephie pouted, her lower lip sticking out comically. “I want Bulls shirt!”
“Persephone Jane.” Laura leaned down and picked up her daughter. It was getting harder and harder to do; at least Cyrus was still small enough to carry around easily. “Come on, honey.” Laura rolled her eyes at Bill, who chuckled and followed the girls out of the bathroom, leading the boys into the kitchen. He could hear Sephie’s whining from down the hall.
Bill sat each of the boys at the child-sized table in the corner of the kitchen and poured them each some juice before going about making them toast. As the toast was browning, he poured coffee for himself and Laura. “Laura,” he called, looking at the clock on the microwave. “You’re going to be late.”
Laura finally emerged from the kids’ room with a beaming Sephie in tow. The girl was wearing a bright red shirt that clashed loudly with her strawberry-blond mop, her little denim skirt held up by the rainbow suspenders she loved so much. Bright yellow jelly sandals completed the ensemble. “It’s the last day,” Laura said, plunking Sephie at the table between Phin and Cyrus. “I can be late if I want.”
“Save that attitude for when school’s not in session, Doc,” Bill said.
Laura smiled at the thought. “Can’t wait to have more time to spend with you guys.” She sipped her coffee, the hot liquid burning a caffeinated trail down her throat. “What are you all up to today? The twins have Pyramid tonight, right?” Calling it “pyramid” was a stretch, as the three-year-olds tended to run around and into each other more than anything, and frequently demanded that they each have their own ball on the court, negating much of the purpose of the game.
“I love practice!” Phin said to Sephie. She wrinkled her nose and accepted the toast Bill handed her on a napkin.
“They do,” Bill said, “at five, so if you want to come there after work--”
Laura’s face showed her disappointment. “I’d love to, but I have the stupid retirement party.”
“Stupid re-ty-ment,” echoed Sephie.
Bill shrugged. “Go to the party, remind them that you never let ‘em see you sweat.”
“I’ll come to the next one,” she said. “Okay, Phinny?”
Phin nodded vigorously, while Cy babbled next to him. Laura noticed that his little fists were glistening with a mixture of butter and toast crumbs. “Oh, Cyrus.” She wet a cloth and leaned down to clean him up. “Toast is for eating, not for smashing.”
“Smash, then eat,” Sephie suggested, then demonstrated by placing two buttered halves of bread facing each other and pounding it violently against the table with her palm. Phin gave his toast a far more timid press.
“This is why you guys don’t get jelly,” Bill said.
“I really am late,” Laura said, throwing the cloth into the sink. She rinsed off her hands, took one last slug of coffee, then leaned over to give Bill a quick kiss. “Don’t let them get into too much trouble at Larry and Sam’s today.”
Bill looked at her in feigned innocence. “What, you think we teach them how to play Triad or something?”
“Full colors!” shouted Sephie. “I win!” She threw her smashed toast into the air in celebration, then grabbed Cyrus’s discarded crust from in front of him and stuffed it in her mouth.
Laura exhaled slowly, her stern visage finally slipping into a giggle. “Right. Be good, kids.” She bent down and gave them each a quick kiss, intercepting the twins’ grubby hands before they could wipe them down on her pressed trousers. Cyrus got picked up and given a squeeze and a pat to his padded bottom before she handed him off to Bill. “He needs a change, dear. Full colors.”
“Love you,” Bill told her. “We’ll see you tonight.”
“No Triad!” she called over her shoulder as she walked out the door.
Phin looked up at Bill, his green eyes wide. “We’ll play Go Fish, Daddy,” he offered.
* * *
Laura swirled the white wine in her glass, trying not to let her boredom show too much as Birdie Poulis droned on about her garden. “Nothing too decorative or flowering,” she was saying, “that wouldn’t do at all, but my herbs and vegetables are doing just great--the garden gets bigger every year, and now that I’m retired, I can stay on top of picking so I can share with the neighbors, they just love having fresh cucumbers--”
Laura nodded politely and let her gaze drift over the room. The wood-paneled bar and restaurant was modest; she really hadn’t minded signing off on the funding for the party. Attending it, however, was another matter. She resisted the urge to pull out her phone to check the time and for messages from Bill, who would occasionally text her photos of the kids as they played.
“Come on Birdie, Dr. Roslin is Caprican. She doesn’t have any interest in hearing about your garden,” David Simos said with a sneer as he sidled up to the women. “Don’t think they even allow gardens in Caprica City, just steel and glass oppressing the natural landscape.”
“It’s true I’ve never kept one myself, ” Laura admitted, “but yours sounds lovely, Birdie.” Except for the whole no-flowers part. What the frak was the Taurons’ problem with flowers and pretty things? Lords knew this brown, arid planet could use a little color and beauty. “Though admittedly, Mr. Simos, there is a difference in general aesthetics between most of the Colonies, wouldn’t you agree?” She shot him a smile she hoped didn’t completely convey the frak you see was feeling. “Now if you would excuse me, I have yet to give my regards to our guests of honor.”
She let her grin fall into a frustrated smirk as she tried to remind herself that he wasn’t set to retire for a few more years yet. Maintaining the peace with the bitter long-term Assistant Superintendent was in her best interest, she repeated to herself until her ire receded. She looked around for a friendly face, but unfortunately, Birdie’s had been the most kindly of the lot.
The past year had gone by quickly, but she still found herself questioning whether they’d made the right choice in moving here. Despite her years of research, training, and responsibility for implementing progressive educational ideals across the Colonies, she found the practice on the ground here much more difficult than she’d expected. The tough Tauron people had always seemed so benign, back home: Bill’s no-nonsense but accepting extended family, the tattoo parlor owner in Little Tauron who’d gotten to know them so well over the years. But the people here were suspicious, untrusting-- not only of her own Caprican roots, but of her husband’s family’s alleged, now aged, Ha’la’tha connections. She supposed two civil wars in thirty years and an eight-hundred-year legacy of unwanted foreign intervention could do that to a planet.
“Glad to have made it through another school year, Dr. Roslin?” intoned a voice behind her. Laura spun around, flustered. Randolph Krell was the principal of one of the high schools in the district, and presented the opposite problem as so much of the other faculty in that he was almost too friendly. Laura cringed inwardly at the memory of his repeated efforts to take her out for dinner or coffee when she’d first started, to “bring her up to speed,” his efforts not ceasing even after she’d point-blank told him she had a husband and young kids at home. Some men...
“Hello, Randolph,” she said with a strained smile. “Congratulations are in order, I believe.”
His posture indicated surprise, but his face remained impassive. “What for?”
“Your school’s graduation rate. Highest in the district for the fourth year in a row, leading the way for the entire district to have graduated a higher percentage of those who matriculated as freshmen than in any year in its history.”
He smirked and smoothed the front of his blazer in a self-congratulatory gesture. “Well -- the district’s policies this year were very effective.” An obsequious nod confirmed Laura’s suspicion: he was brown-nosing. He looked down at her nearly empty glass and began to ask, “Can I get you a--”
Laura’s phone buzzed in her blazer pocket, saving her from the awkward encounter when she looked down at the display and saw that it was from their neighbor Deirdre, whose son was on the twins’ pyramid team and a frequent victim of Sephie’s exuberant style of play. “Pardon me, please, I really have to take this.”
Randolph shrugged, turning his attention to some young primary school teachers huddled around the punch bowl. Laura headed for a quiet corner and answered the phone. “Hi Deirdre, what’s up?”
“Hi, Laura.” The sounds of children playing could be heard in the background. “Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Not at all,” she said truthfully as she left the room for a quieter corridor. “Is everything okay? Is someone hurt?”
“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Deirdre began, and Laura’s initial fear that one of her own children might be injured was replaced by a suspicion that perhaps Sephie had injured one of the other kids...again. “It’s just--”
“I can come out there right away, just tell me what’s going on.”
“Um, Laura, did you see the shirt Sephie’s wearing today?”
Laura tried to remember, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the contentious yellow Tauron Bulls t-shirt that had sparked the brief bathroom battle all those hours ago. “I helped her dress this morning. It might have been a red shirt. Why?”
“I take it you don’t read Old Tauron?”
The back of Laura’s neck prickled, unsure at what Deirdre was implying with the question and hating that not knowing almost as much as having to concede that she didn’t, in fact, know Old Tauron. “No, I don’t.”
“Does Bill?”
“Not much, I think. Why?”
“It’s Sephie’s shirt...it says ‘Gautrau in Training’ on it. In Old Tauron.”
Laura tried again to envision the offensive t-shirt before responding. All she could see now were those ridiculous rainbow suspenders that Laura had long since wanted to hide to keep Sephie from wearing them with everything.
“Is Bill there?”
Deirdre hesitated. “Yeah...I just thought I’d better call you. I kind of figured that Bill knew what it said and maybe you didn’t.”
She’d assumed that Bill condoned it. Interesting. “I appreciate it, Deirdre. If you don’t mind, please feel free to enlighten Bill. And maybe try to get Sephie to turn her shirt inside out, if you can convince her.”
The other woman laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s making Sephie do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
Laura sighed. Her most strong-willed child was both a joy and a trial, sometimes. “Thanks again. I’ll see you at Thursday’s practice?”
“Of course. Bye.”
Laura disconnected and looked dumbly at the phone in her hand. She considered calling Bill, but ultimately placed the phone back in her pocket and returned to the party to give the retirees her best so that she could head out.
She needed to have a talk with Sam Adama. Theios Sam-Sam had some explaining to do.
* * *
Sam answered the door, shirtless as was his wont. He must have been working out; a sheen of sweat glistened on his tanned and tattooed chest.
It was a bit much to see her children’s great-uncle this way, but she supposed it boded well for Bill’s appearance later in life.
“Hey, Laura,” he greeted her. “You here to pick up Cy?” He moved aside to let her in.
“No, I actually didn’t even know that Bill had left him here,” she said. Sure enough, Larry sat on the deep leather couch, bouncing the toddler on his lap. Both wore happy smiles of mutual amusement.
“Hi there,” Larry said, looking up at Laura. “Look who’s here, Cy.”
Cyrus’ four-toothed smile widened and he reached toward Laura.
“Larry didn’t want to give up his buddy when Bill took the twins to pyramid,” Sam said before taking a long drink of water from a tall glass. “I said we’d be happy to hang onto this guy for a little while longer.”
Laura leaned over to let Cyrus grasp his fist around two of her fingers. “Hi, buddy,” she said, giving his forehead a kiss. “If you don’t mind entertaining him a little bit longer, Larry, I’d like to speak to Sam for a few minutes.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Larry replied. “Won’t it, Cy?”
“Lar-Lar,” Cyrus agreed, locking his knees and standing tall on Larry’s lap.
“Sam-- do you mind?” Laura asked, gesturing toward the glass doors leading out to the patio.
He gave her an easy smile. “Of course not. Let me just go put my shirt back on.”
“Show-off,” Larry called after him. He turned on the couch to face Laura. “How are you doing? Today was the last day of school, right?”
“It was, thank the gods,” Laura said. “Larry, you don’t by chance speak Old Tauron, do you?”
“I learned a couple of food words at the restaurants we used to go to in Little Tauron,” he said, “but nah, I don’t speak or read it.”
“Ah.” Laura pulled out her phone; the twins’ practice should have ended by now. “Me either.” She patted Cyrus’ chubby cheek and went outside to wait for Sam.
The small outdoor space was ringed by red-leafed trees and shorter green ferns. Laura took a moment to savor the quiet, breathing deeply and reminding herself that the shirt wasn’t that big of a deal. She was annoyed, but Sam and Larry were family-- pretty much the only family they had on this planet. Sending Sephie to pyramid practice in an obnoxiously pro-Ha’la’tha shirt reflected badly on her, but she would at least hear Sam out.
The movement of the sliding door alerted her to his presence. He’d donned a white v-neck t-shirt that set off the deep blue of his many tattoos.
Sam sat down across from her. “Having the kids around has been such a joy to us,” he remarked. “Larry always wanted for us to have children, but I got out of the game too late for that.”
She smiled at the thought of a younger Sam and Larry toting around their own dark-haired children. “Well, they adore both of you.”
He leaned back in the wrought-iron chair and looked at her with his familiar piercing blue gaze. “So what brings you here, Laura?”
“I got a call from a concerned parent this afternoon,” she said, templing her fingers. “She thought I might be interested to know that Sephie was wearing a rather provocative t-shirt for a three-year-old.”
His face remained inscrutable, so she continued. “Gautrau in Training? Really, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? That’s it?” Laura leaned forward. “Sam, do you know how it looks for me-- a Caprican still trying to be accepted by my colleagues-- to be sending my kid to pyramid practice in a shirt that makes a political statement?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Sam.” Was he being deliberately obtuse, exercising an old man’s prerogative? “I’m sure that you are well aware of where my sympathies lie where recent history is concerned. But I don’t think you appreciate how tough it is to encourage a conciliatory, though accurate, curriculum in the schools.”
“Laura. We won. After all those years Joe and I spent living on Caprica, the Ha’la’tha our only family, sending back everything I earned to the Resistance? Both of us risking everything to send those godsdamned robots to Tauron?” He absently rubbed the small Tauron mark of manhood just below his right wrist. “And now to finally be back home, after years in exile? With a new generation of my blood living here, too? I want to celebrate that.” His gaze turned distant, toward the horizon. “I only wish Yusef were here with us.”
“I understand. But you should have given us a heads up about the shirt, instead of just sending it home with Sephie to be translated by a concerned neighbor.” She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t made any other additions to the twins’ wardrobes, have you? Just that one shirt?”
“Just the one,” he said, raising his hands defensively. She noticed how he still bent his left hand to be less conspicuous, even after all these years. “Just for Sephie.”
“They’re starting to pick up on things like that, you know,” she said. “Why just her?”
He shook his head thoughtfully. “From the time she was a baby...I can’t quite explain it. I just knew.”
Laura suspected she knew what he was getting at, but she asked anyway. “Knew what.”
He smiled, proud but wary. “Girl’s got stones. She reminds me of someone I used to know...”
“And?”
“Well, she became Guatrau.”
Laura closed her eyes against the onslaught of implications, most of them violent, that comparison elicited. Though the image of Sephie in a Tauron-style gangster hat nearly brought her to giggles. “Lovely.”
“Look, Laura. I’m not saying Sephie’s going to become a hitwoman--even if she does have it in her blood...”
“Sam.” Laura reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “She is three.”
“And always faithful to the soil. Doesn’t matter that she’s three.”
“My gods, this family.”
“You chose it.”
“Yes, I did. And I love it. I just don’t think we should be using the kids to broadcast that history. Sephie doesn’t know anything about the Ha’la’tha. And I know that she will--” (Sam and Tsattie would see to that, Laura had no doubt, and maybe she was being overly optimistic about the content of the stories they’d already told her) “--but for now, I think we don’t need to be inviting controversy.” The Adamas’ side may have won the last uprising, but there were plenty of people on Tauron who had been among the losers-- paramilitary groups like the Heraclitus and the groups that had emerged from it--who resented that the current elected government had origins in decades of trans-world organized crime.
Sam silently considered her request, then nodded curtly. “You’re the expert.”
Laura smiled. “I am. But I’m also her mother. And she’s hard enough to rein in without you filling her head with ideas of being some gun-slinging, dagger-wielding assassin.”
The door slid open again before Sam could respond, and Bill stepped over the threshold, holding Sephie on his hip with Phin at his side. Larry and Cyrus weren’t far behind. Bill was obviously pleased to see her. “Hey, hey, look who’s here!”
“Mama!” Phin ran up to Laura and she pushed her chair back so that he could scramble up into her lap.
“Hi, sweetheart. How was practice?”
Phineus grinned. “Good! I ran fast.”
“Phin scored goals,” Sephie said, adding, “I ran over Aidan.”
Well, at least it hadn’t been Deirdre’s son Demetrius again.
Bill set her down on her feet, and she walked over to Sam, her little heels dragging with fatigue. Sam offered his right fist to Sephie in congratulations. She formed a fist of her own and smacked her knuckles against Sam’s before they both withdrew their hands, fingers extended to emulate an explosion.
“What brings you here?” Bill asked Laura, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“Sephie’s shirt,” she said.
Bill looked at the red t-shirt with white lettering. “What about it?”
So Deirdre hadn’t told him. Laura looked at Sam. “Care to translate?”
He coughed. “Uh, it was a gift from me. It says ‘Gautrau in Training.’”
“In Old Tauron,” Laura added helpfully. “Too bad neither of us can read it. Deirdre called me from practice to let me know.”
Bill frowned at his uncle. “That’s kind of a loaded thing to put on a kid’s t-shirt.”
Laura cut in. “And that’s why the shirt will stay here. Bill, do you have extra clothes for the kids?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll go grab something for her. I just did some laundry this afternoon,” Larry said before handing Cyrus over to Bill and disappearing back into the house.
“So we get to keep it?” Sam asked.
Laura looked to Bill and nodded. “At least now we know not to send her to Pyramid in it. Or, gods forbid, school.” The twins would be starting preschool in the fall. Not for the first time, it occurred to her how glad she’d be to have the twins spending slightly less time under the influence of their uncles.
“I don’t wan’ go to schooool,” Sephie whined into Sam’s leg.
He grinned and looked at Bill, then Laura. “Now she’s reminding me of someone else.” A shadow of loss passed between uncle and nephew.
Larry returned to the patio, holding a tank top. “Sephie, girlfriend, let’s take off that dirty shirt and put this pretty purple one on.”
Sephie looked from Larry to Sam, and when the latter nodded encouragingly, she accepted the suggestion and began tugging the red shirt over her head. “Okay!”
“Would you all like to stay for dinner?” Larry asked Laura and Bill. “I’ve got some chicken I was going to grill.”
Bill looked to Laura for direction, then spoke for them both. “Thanks so much, Lar, but we’ve got to get these guys home.” Cyrus had his head against Bill’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering closed as he struggled against sleep.
Sam took the red shirt from Larry and waved it at Laura in defeat. “Thanks for letting us keep this here, mom.”
“Don’t make me regret it, Sam,” she said, her tone cool but her eyes warm. She caught Bill’s curious look and mouthed, later.
* * *
Back home, the kids ate a quick dinner of noodles before being subjected to their bath-and-bed routine. The twins were exhausted from pyramid, and went to sleep with minimal resistance under Bill’s supervision while Laura rocked Cyrus with a bottle of milk. It was only two-thirds gone when his mouth went slack and he began to snore softly.
Laura traced his hairline, the barely-there brows smattered across ridged bone. He looked more distinctly like Bill than either Sephie or Phin; his cheeks were fuller, his nose a little wider, his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled. She set the bottle on the side table and kissed both of those soft cheeks before gathering him close to transfer him to his crib.
He stretched out once he hit the mattress and babbled briefly while Laura held her breath, then he curled up on his stomach. Laura could see the even-measured rise and fall of his back, his pink bow mouth open and his cheek squished up against the mattress. Tiptoeing to the door, Laura listened for a few more moments before flipping the switch and finding Bill waiting just outside in the hallway.
“He’s so easy,” Laura whispered, pulling the door not quite closed behind her. It still astounded her how much easier-going Cyrus was about pretty much everything, compared to the twins. Particularly bedtime.
“Hmm.” Bill wrapped an arm around her waist, leading her to the comfy couch in the living room. “We caught a break with him, for sure.”
Laura eased down into the plush leather, while Bill picked up a couple handfuls of toys and put them in the chest before joining her. He held out an arm, and she leaned against his side so that he could drape it over her shoulders. “S’nice.”
“Want to tell me about your conversation with my uncle?”
“Ehh.” She did, but at the same time, she didn’t want to think about some of the things he’d said. So she deflected. “What’s up with him always being shirtless?”
Bill chuckled, his laughter vibrating against her cheek where it was nestled to his chest. “Force of habit, I guess.”
“Anyway. I figured out pretty quickly that he must have given Sephie the shirt at some point, so I went over there to explain to him why that put me in an awkward position.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t catch it when he first sent it home, honey.”
“Why would you? You don’t read Old Tauron any better than I do. Sam, on the other hand - “
“How did he try to justify it?”
Laura frowned. “Basically he thinks Sephie takes after him. And your grandmother.”
He considered that for a moment. “He’s probably right. Good thing there’s not much demand for enforcers these days.”
“For now,” she said. “But Bill, she’s only three. Who knows if the peace will last? Maybe the current government will be ousted and we’ll find ourselves back in the middle of a resistance movement. Maybe the Cylons come back, and protection comes at a price. And maybe she decides to follow in her uncle’s footsteps instead of her father’s.” She didn’t say her next thought aloud, but she looked into Bill’s eyes, and knew he could see the question in hers: Did we do the right thing by moving here?
He kissed her brow and rubbed her arm soothingly. “That’s a lot of if’s, sweetheart. And we will deal with them, and my uncle if need be when the time comes. But for now, I love that our kids are growing up with the culture and understanding of their roots that I never had,” he said. “They will know who they are and where they come from.”
“And they won’t be discriminated against for being Tauron like they would have been on Caprica.”
“As for how long the peace will last...” He leaned back and pulled her more against his chest, then moved her hand to his bad knee. “Bad things happen all across the Colonies, Laura. We just have to keep them safe as long as we can, raise them to take care of themselves.”
She hummed, thinking of Joseph and Sam and how despite all of the odds stacked against them, one of them had yet to return to the soil. “And each other.”
Next story: Tauron Surprise
Rating: K+
Word count: 4800
Summary: The Roslin-Adamas adjust to life on Tauron.
A/N: A multitude of thanks to nixmom for the beta and the inspiration.
Previous story: Farewell Freeze
Next story: Tauron Surprise
Banner by sci-fi-shipper, click on it for the index to this series.
"Ready for your last day of school, Superintendent?” Bill leaned over Laura’s shoulder and grinned at her in the mirror before sweeping her hair aside and kissing her neck.
“Mmmm.” She leaned into him, closing her eyes for a moment. She turned her head to meet his mouth with her own for a brief kiss, then returned to applying her makeup. “I’ll be so glad to have this first year finally under my belt and not feel like such a novice.” A swipe of lipstick passed over her lips, which she pursed thoughtfully. “A few of the real old-timers are retiring from the administration. It should make things easier, next year.” Although she’d be making an appearance at the district retirement party later that day, she felt nothing but relief that the old guard who had balked at accepting a Caprican as their boss were finally moving on.
“You’ve done great, Laura.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and gave her a squeeze. “Not just at your job, but with everything--I know it hasn’t been easy.”
She dusted some translucent powder across her cheeks, forehead, and chin. “I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we left Caprica,” she admitted, putting the powder away in the drawer. “So many changes...but the kids seem to be happy, at least.”
As if on cue, Sephie dragged Phin into the bathroom, with Cyrus toddling far behind them, trying and failing to keep up. Sephie was wearing underpants and nothing else, while the boys were both fully dressed. “Mama! I need!”
Bill and Laura exchanged a glance, and by tacit agreement, Bill took the lead. “You need what, muffin?”
“Phin took my shirt! I wanted to wear it to Lar-Lar’s.”
“Did not,” muttered Phin, plucking at his yellow t-shirt. “Dis is my shirt.”
“I think you both have that one,” Laura said, crouching down to inspect Phineus’s shirt, emblazoned with the logo of the Tauron Bulls. “We got these when we went to the match against Hades Vice, right?”
Bill nodded. “I should have written their initials on the tag.”
Sephie’s tantrums had prompted what might be deemed an excess of labeling, but it helped keep the peace. Laura reached beneath Phin’s dark shoulder-length curls--a trip to the barber was probably in order--and inspected the tag. It had in fact been marked with an indelible P. “Sephie, this shirt is Phin’s. Let’s go pick out something else to wear, okay?”
Sephie pouted, her lower lip sticking out comically. “I want Bulls shirt!”
“Persephone Jane.” Laura leaned down and picked up her daughter. It was getting harder and harder to do; at least Cyrus was still small enough to carry around easily. “Come on, honey.” Laura rolled her eyes at Bill, who chuckled and followed the girls out of the bathroom, leading the boys into the kitchen. He could hear Sephie’s whining from down the hall.
Bill sat each of the boys at the child-sized table in the corner of the kitchen and poured them each some juice before going about making them toast. As the toast was browning, he poured coffee for himself and Laura. “Laura,” he called, looking at the clock on the microwave. “You’re going to be late.”
Laura finally emerged from the kids’ room with a beaming Sephie in tow. The girl was wearing a bright red shirt that clashed loudly with her strawberry-blond mop, her little denim skirt held up by the rainbow suspenders she loved so much. Bright yellow jelly sandals completed the ensemble. “It’s the last day,” Laura said, plunking Sephie at the table between Phin and Cyrus. “I can be late if I want.”
“Save that attitude for when school’s not in session, Doc,” Bill said.
Laura smiled at the thought. “Can’t wait to have more time to spend with you guys.” She sipped her coffee, the hot liquid burning a caffeinated trail down her throat. “What are you all up to today? The twins have Pyramid tonight, right?” Calling it “pyramid” was a stretch, as the three-year-olds tended to run around and into each other more than anything, and frequently demanded that they each have their own ball on the court, negating much of the purpose of the game.
“I love practice!” Phin said to Sephie. She wrinkled her nose and accepted the toast Bill handed her on a napkin.
“They do,” Bill said, “at five, so if you want to come there after work--”
Laura’s face showed her disappointment. “I’d love to, but I have the stupid retirement party.”
“Stupid re-ty-ment,” echoed Sephie.
Bill shrugged. “Go to the party, remind them that you never let ‘em see you sweat.”
“I’ll come to the next one,” she said. “Okay, Phinny?”
Phin nodded vigorously, while Cy babbled next to him. Laura noticed that his little fists were glistening with a mixture of butter and toast crumbs. “Oh, Cyrus.” She wet a cloth and leaned down to clean him up. “Toast is for eating, not for smashing.”
“Smash, then eat,” Sephie suggested, then demonstrated by placing two buttered halves of bread facing each other and pounding it violently against the table with her palm. Phin gave his toast a far more timid press.
“This is why you guys don’t get jelly,” Bill said.
“I really am late,” Laura said, throwing the cloth into the sink. She rinsed off her hands, took one last slug of coffee, then leaned over to give Bill a quick kiss. “Don’t let them get into too much trouble at Larry and Sam’s today.”
Bill looked at her in feigned innocence. “What, you think we teach them how to play Triad or something?”
“Full colors!” shouted Sephie. “I win!” She threw her smashed toast into the air in celebration, then grabbed Cyrus’s discarded crust from in front of him and stuffed it in her mouth.
Laura exhaled slowly, her stern visage finally slipping into a giggle. “Right. Be good, kids.” She bent down and gave them each a quick kiss, intercepting the twins’ grubby hands before they could wipe them down on her pressed trousers. Cyrus got picked up and given a squeeze and a pat to his padded bottom before she handed him off to Bill. “He needs a change, dear. Full colors.”
“Love you,” Bill told her. “We’ll see you tonight.”
“No Triad!” she called over her shoulder as she walked out the door.
Phin looked up at Bill, his green eyes wide. “We’ll play Go Fish, Daddy,” he offered.
* * *
Laura swirled the white wine in her glass, trying not to let her boredom show too much as Birdie Poulis droned on about her garden. “Nothing too decorative or flowering,” she was saying, “that wouldn’t do at all, but my herbs and vegetables are doing just great--the garden gets bigger every year, and now that I’m retired, I can stay on top of picking so I can share with the neighbors, they just love having fresh cucumbers--”
Laura nodded politely and let her gaze drift over the room. The wood-paneled bar and restaurant was modest; she really hadn’t minded signing off on the funding for the party. Attending it, however, was another matter. She resisted the urge to pull out her phone to check the time and for messages from Bill, who would occasionally text her photos of the kids as they played.
“Come on Birdie, Dr. Roslin is Caprican. She doesn’t have any interest in hearing about your garden,” David Simos said with a sneer as he sidled up to the women. “Don’t think they even allow gardens in Caprica City, just steel and glass oppressing the natural landscape.”
“It’s true I’ve never kept one myself, ” Laura admitted, “but yours sounds lovely, Birdie.” Except for the whole no-flowers part. What the frak was the Taurons’ problem with flowers and pretty things? Lords knew this brown, arid planet could use a little color and beauty. “Though admittedly, Mr. Simos, there is a difference in general aesthetics between most of the Colonies, wouldn’t you agree?” She shot him a smile she hoped didn’t completely convey the frak you see was feeling. “Now if you would excuse me, I have yet to give my regards to our guests of honor.”
She let her grin fall into a frustrated smirk as she tried to remind herself that he wasn’t set to retire for a few more years yet. Maintaining the peace with the bitter long-term Assistant Superintendent was in her best interest, she repeated to herself until her ire receded. She looked around for a friendly face, but unfortunately, Birdie’s had been the most kindly of the lot.
The past year had gone by quickly, but she still found herself questioning whether they’d made the right choice in moving here. Despite her years of research, training, and responsibility for implementing progressive educational ideals across the Colonies, she found the practice on the ground here much more difficult than she’d expected. The tough Tauron people had always seemed so benign, back home: Bill’s no-nonsense but accepting extended family, the tattoo parlor owner in Little Tauron who’d gotten to know them so well over the years. But the people here were suspicious, untrusting-- not only of her own Caprican roots, but of her husband’s family’s alleged, now aged, Ha’la’tha connections. She supposed two civil wars in thirty years and an eight-hundred-year legacy of unwanted foreign intervention could do that to a planet.
“Glad to have made it through another school year, Dr. Roslin?” intoned a voice behind her. Laura spun around, flustered. Randolph Krell was the principal of one of the high schools in the district, and presented the opposite problem as so much of the other faculty in that he was almost too friendly. Laura cringed inwardly at the memory of his repeated efforts to take her out for dinner or coffee when she’d first started, to “bring her up to speed,” his efforts not ceasing even after she’d point-blank told him she had a husband and young kids at home. Some men...
“Hello, Randolph,” she said with a strained smile. “Congratulations are in order, I believe.”
His posture indicated surprise, but his face remained impassive. “What for?”
“Your school’s graduation rate. Highest in the district for the fourth year in a row, leading the way for the entire district to have graduated a higher percentage of those who matriculated as freshmen than in any year in its history.”
He smirked and smoothed the front of his blazer in a self-congratulatory gesture. “Well -- the district’s policies this year were very effective.” An obsequious nod confirmed Laura’s suspicion: he was brown-nosing. He looked down at her nearly empty glass and began to ask, “Can I get you a--”
Laura’s phone buzzed in her blazer pocket, saving her from the awkward encounter when she looked down at the display and saw that it was from their neighbor Deirdre, whose son was on the twins’ pyramid team and a frequent victim of Sephie’s exuberant style of play. “Pardon me, please, I really have to take this.”
Randolph shrugged, turning his attention to some young primary school teachers huddled around the punch bowl. Laura headed for a quiet corner and answered the phone. “Hi Deirdre, what’s up?”
“Hi, Laura.” The sounds of children playing could be heard in the background. “Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Not at all,” she said truthfully as she left the room for a quieter corridor. “Is everything okay? Is someone hurt?”
“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Deirdre began, and Laura’s initial fear that one of her own children might be injured was replaced by a suspicion that perhaps Sephie had injured one of the other kids...again. “It’s just--”
“I can come out there right away, just tell me what’s going on.”
“Um, Laura, did you see the shirt Sephie’s wearing today?”
Laura tried to remember, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was the contentious yellow Tauron Bulls t-shirt that had sparked the brief bathroom battle all those hours ago. “I helped her dress this morning. It might have been a red shirt. Why?”
“I take it you don’t read Old Tauron?”
The back of Laura’s neck prickled, unsure at what Deirdre was implying with the question and hating that not knowing almost as much as having to concede that she didn’t, in fact, know Old Tauron. “No, I don’t.”
“Does Bill?”
“Not much, I think. Why?”
“It’s Sephie’s shirt...it says ‘Gautrau in Training’ on it. In Old Tauron.”
Laura tried again to envision the offensive t-shirt before responding. All she could see now were those ridiculous rainbow suspenders that Laura had long since wanted to hide to keep Sephie from wearing them with everything.
“Is Bill there?”
Deirdre hesitated. “Yeah...I just thought I’d better call you. I kind of figured that Bill knew what it said and maybe you didn’t.”
She’d assumed that Bill condoned it. Interesting. “I appreciate it, Deirdre. If you don’t mind, please feel free to enlighten Bill. And maybe try to get Sephie to turn her shirt inside out, if you can convince her.”
The other woman laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s making Sephie do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
Laura sighed. Her most strong-willed child was both a joy and a trial, sometimes. “Thanks again. I’ll see you at Thursday’s practice?”
“Of course. Bye.”
Laura disconnected and looked dumbly at the phone in her hand. She considered calling Bill, but ultimately placed the phone back in her pocket and returned to the party to give the retirees her best so that she could head out.
She needed to have a talk with Sam Adama. Theios Sam-Sam had some explaining to do.
* * *
Sam answered the door, shirtless as was his wont. He must have been working out; a sheen of sweat glistened on his tanned and tattooed chest.
It was a bit much to see her children’s great-uncle this way, but she supposed it boded well for Bill’s appearance later in life.
“Hey, Laura,” he greeted her. “You here to pick up Cy?” He moved aside to let her in.
“No, I actually didn’t even know that Bill had left him here,” she said. Sure enough, Larry sat on the deep leather couch, bouncing the toddler on his lap. Both wore happy smiles of mutual amusement.
“Hi there,” Larry said, looking up at Laura. “Look who’s here, Cy.”
Cyrus’ four-toothed smile widened and he reached toward Laura.
“Larry didn’t want to give up his buddy when Bill took the twins to pyramid,” Sam said before taking a long drink of water from a tall glass. “I said we’d be happy to hang onto this guy for a little while longer.”
Laura leaned over to let Cyrus grasp his fist around two of her fingers. “Hi, buddy,” she said, giving his forehead a kiss. “If you don’t mind entertaining him a little bit longer, Larry, I’d like to speak to Sam for a few minutes.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Larry replied. “Won’t it, Cy?”
“Lar-Lar,” Cyrus agreed, locking his knees and standing tall on Larry’s lap.
“Sam-- do you mind?” Laura asked, gesturing toward the glass doors leading out to the patio.
He gave her an easy smile. “Of course not. Let me just go put my shirt back on.”
“Show-off,” Larry called after him. He turned on the couch to face Laura. “How are you doing? Today was the last day of school, right?”
“It was, thank the gods,” Laura said. “Larry, you don’t by chance speak Old Tauron, do you?”
“I learned a couple of food words at the restaurants we used to go to in Little Tauron,” he said, “but nah, I don’t speak or read it.”
“Ah.” Laura pulled out her phone; the twins’ practice should have ended by now. “Me either.” She patted Cyrus’ chubby cheek and went outside to wait for Sam.
The small outdoor space was ringed by red-leafed trees and shorter green ferns. Laura took a moment to savor the quiet, breathing deeply and reminding herself that the shirt wasn’t that big of a deal. She was annoyed, but Sam and Larry were family-- pretty much the only family they had on this planet. Sending Sephie to pyramid practice in an obnoxiously pro-Ha’la’tha shirt reflected badly on her, but she would at least hear Sam out.
The movement of the sliding door alerted her to his presence. He’d donned a white v-neck t-shirt that set off the deep blue of his many tattoos.
Sam sat down across from her. “Having the kids around has been such a joy to us,” he remarked. “Larry always wanted for us to have children, but I got out of the game too late for that.”
She smiled at the thought of a younger Sam and Larry toting around their own dark-haired children. “Well, they adore both of you.”
He leaned back in the wrought-iron chair and looked at her with his familiar piercing blue gaze. “So what brings you here, Laura?”
“I got a call from a concerned parent this afternoon,” she said, templing her fingers. “She thought I might be interested to know that Sephie was wearing a rather provocative t-shirt for a three-year-old.”
His face remained inscrutable, so she continued. “Gautrau in Training? Really, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? That’s it?” Laura leaned forward. “Sam, do you know how it looks for me-- a Caprican still trying to be accepted by my colleagues-- to be sending my kid to pyramid practice in a shirt that makes a political statement?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Sam.” Was he being deliberately obtuse, exercising an old man’s prerogative? “I’m sure that you are well aware of where my sympathies lie where recent history is concerned. But I don’t think you appreciate how tough it is to encourage a conciliatory, though accurate, curriculum in the schools.”
“Laura. We won. After all those years Joe and I spent living on Caprica, the Ha’la’tha our only family, sending back everything I earned to the Resistance? Both of us risking everything to send those godsdamned robots to Tauron?” He absently rubbed the small Tauron mark of manhood just below his right wrist. “And now to finally be back home, after years in exile? With a new generation of my blood living here, too? I want to celebrate that.” His gaze turned distant, toward the horizon. “I only wish Yusef were here with us.”
“I understand. But you should have given us a heads up about the shirt, instead of just sending it home with Sephie to be translated by a concerned neighbor.” She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t made any other additions to the twins’ wardrobes, have you? Just that one shirt?”
“Just the one,” he said, raising his hands defensively. She noticed how he still bent his left hand to be less conspicuous, even after all these years. “Just for Sephie.”
“They’re starting to pick up on things like that, you know,” she said. “Why just her?”
He shook his head thoughtfully. “From the time she was a baby...I can’t quite explain it. I just knew.”
Laura suspected she knew what he was getting at, but she asked anyway. “Knew what.”
He smiled, proud but wary. “Girl’s got stones. She reminds me of someone I used to know...”
“And?”
“Well, she became Guatrau.”
Laura closed her eyes against the onslaught of implications, most of them violent, that comparison elicited. Though the image of Sephie in a Tauron-style gangster hat nearly brought her to giggles. “Lovely.”
“Look, Laura. I’m not saying Sephie’s going to become a hitwoman--even if she does have it in her blood...”
“Sam.” Laura reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “She is three.”
“And always faithful to the soil. Doesn’t matter that she’s three.”
“My gods, this family.”
“You chose it.”
“Yes, I did. And I love it. I just don’t think we should be using the kids to broadcast that history. Sephie doesn’t know anything about the Ha’la’tha. And I know that she will--” (Sam and Tsattie would see to that, Laura had no doubt, and maybe she was being overly optimistic about the content of the stories they’d already told her) “--but for now, I think we don’t need to be inviting controversy.” The Adamas’ side may have won the last uprising, but there were plenty of people on Tauron who had been among the losers-- paramilitary groups like the Heraclitus and the groups that had emerged from it--who resented that the current elected government had origins in decades of trans-world organized crime.
Sam silently considered her request, then nodded curtly. “You’re the expert.”
Laura smiled. “I am. But I’m also her mother. And she’s hard enough to rein in without you filling her head with ideas of being some gun-slinging, dagger-wielding assassin.”
The door slid open again before Sam could respond, and Bill stepped over the threshold, holding Sephie on his hip with Phin at his side. Larry and Cyrus weren’t far behind. Bill was obviously pleased to see her. “Hey, hey, look who’s here!”
“Mama!” Phin ran up to Laura and she pushed her chair back so that he could scramble up into her lap.
“Hi, sweetheart. How was practice?”
Phineus grinned. “Good! I ran fast.”
“Phin scored goals,” Sephie said, adding, “I ran over Aidan.”
Well, at least it hadn’t been Deirdre’s son Demetrius again.
Bill set her down on her feet, and she walked over to Sam, her little heels dragging with fatigue. Sam offered his right fist to Sephie in congratulations. She formed a fist of her own and smacked her knuckles against Sam’s before they both withdrew their hands, fingers extended to emulate an explosion.
“What brings you here?” Bill asked Laura, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“Sephie’s shirt,” she said.
Bill looked at the red t-shirt with white lettering. “What about it?”
So Deirdre hadn’t told him. Laura looked at Sam. “Care to translate?”
He coughed. “Uh, it was a gift from me. It says ‘Gautrau in Training.’”
“In Old Tauron,” Laura added helpfully. “Too bad neither of us can read it. Deirdre called me from practice to let me know.”
Bill frowned at his uncle. “That’s kind of a loaded thing to put on a kid’s t-shirt.”
Laura cut in. “And that’s why the shirt will stay here. Bill, do you have extra clothes for the kids?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll go grab something for her. I just did some laundry this afternoon,” Larry said before handing Cyrus over to Bill and disappearing back into the house.
“So we get to keep it?” Sam asked.
Laura looked to Bill and nodded. “At least now we know not to send her to Pyramid in it. Or, gods forbid, school.” The twins would be starting preschool in the fall. Not for the first time, it occurred to her how glad she’d be to have the twins spending slightly less time under the influence of their uncles.
“I don’t wan’ go to schooool,” Sephie whined into Sam’s leg.
He grinned and looked at Bill, then Laura. “Now she’s reminding me of someone else.” A shadow of loss passed between uncle and nephew.
Larry returned to the patio, holding a tank top. “Sephie, girlfriend, let’s take off that dirty shirt and put this pretty purple one on.”
Sephie looked from Larry to Sam, and when the latter nodded encouragingly, she accepted the suggestion and began tugging the red shirt over her head. “Okay!”
“Would you all like to stay for dinner?” Larry asked Laura and Bill. “I’ve got some chicken I was going to grill.”
Bill looked to Laura for direction, then spoke for them both. “Thanks so much, Lar, but we’ve got to get these guys home.” Cyrus had his head against Bill’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering closed as he struggled against sleep.
Sam took the red shirt from Larry and waved it at Laura in defeat. “Thanks for letting us keep this here, mom.”
“Don’t make me regret it, Sam,” she said, her tone cool but her eyes warm. She caught Bill’s curious look and mouthed, later.
* * *
Back home, the kids ate a quick dinner of noodles before being subjected to their bath-and-bed routine. The twins were exhausted from pyramid, and went to sleep with minimal resistance under Bill’s supervision while Laura rocked Cyrus with a bottle of milk. It was only two-thirds gone when his mouth went slack and he began to snore softly.
Laura traced his hairline, the barely-there brows smattered across ridged bone. He looked more distinctly like Bill than either Sephie or Phin; his cheeks were fuller, his nose a little wider, his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled. She set the bottle on the side table and kissed both of those soft cheeks before gathering him close to transfer him to his crib.
He stretched out once he hit the mattress and babbled briefly while Laura held her breath, then he curled up on his stomach. Laura could see the even-measured rise and fall of his back, his pink bow mouth open and his cheek squished up against the mattress. Tiptoeing to the door, Laura listened for a few more moments before flipping the switch and finding Bill waiting just outside in the hallway.
“He’s so easy,” Laura whispered, pulling the door not quite closed behind her. It still astounded her how much easier-going Cyrus was about pretty much everything, compared to the twins. Particularly bedtime.
“Hmm.” Bill wrapped an arm around her waist, leading her to the comfy couch in the living room. “We caught a break with him, for sure.”
Laura eased down into the plush leather, while Bill picked up a couple handfuls of toys and put them in the chest before joining her. He held out an arm, and she leaned against his side so that he could drape it over her shoulders. “S’nice.”
“Want to tell me about your conversation with my uncle?”
“Ehh.” She did, but at the same time, she didn’t want to think about some of the things he’d said. So she deflected. “What’s up with him always being shirtless?”
Bill chuckled, his laughter vibrating against her cheek where it was nestled to his chest. “Force of habit, I guess.”
“Anyway. I figured out pretty quickly that he must have given Sephie the shirt at some point, so I went over there to explain to him why that put me in an awkward position.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t catch it when he first sent it home, honey.”
“Why would you? You don’t read Old Tauron any better than I do. Sam, on the other hand - “
“How did he try to justify it?”
Laura frowned. “Basically he thinks Sephie takes after him. And your grandmother.”
He considered that for a moment. “He’s probably right. Good thing there’s not much demand for enforcers these days.”
“For now,” she said. “But Bill, she’s only three. Who knows if the peace will last? Maybe the current government will be ousted and we’ll find ourselves back in the middle of a resistance movement. Maybe the Cylons come back, and protection comes at a price. And maybe she decides to follow in her uncle’s footsteps instead of her father’s.” She didn’t say her next thought aloud, but she looked into Bill’s eyes, and knew he could see the question in hers: Did we do the right thing by moving here?
He kissed her brow and rubbed her arm soothingly. “That’s a lot of if’s, sweetheart. And we will deal with them, and my uncle if need be when the time comes. But for now, I love that our kids are growing up with the culture and understanding of their roots that I never had,” he said. “They will know who they are and where they come from.”
“And they won’t be discriminated against for being Tauron like they would have been on Caprica.”
“As for how long the peace will last...” He leaned back and pulled her more against his chest, then moved her hand to his bad knee. “Bad things happen all across the Colonies, Laura. We just have to keep them safe as long as we can, raise them to take care of themselves.”
She hummed, thinking of Joseph and Sam and how despite all of the odds stacked against them, one of them had yet to return to the soil. “And each other.”
Next story: Tauron Surprise