Fic: Tauron Tales
Title: Tauron Tales
Rating: T
Word count: 3400
Summary: The twins are turning seven, and Tsattie brings the party--in addition to schooling the family in their history.
A/N: Part of the 'babytattoofic' Tauron Cherry AU 'verse.Thanks to fragrantwoods for the inspiration for this installation.
Previous fic: Tauron Surprise.
fic art by scifishipper
The knock was light, like a cat that wanted to be fed; thump thump thump thump. And nearly as insistent.
But it wasn’t the cat. “Mama?” whined a soft voice through a slowly widening crack between door and jamb.
Maybe it’s a dream, Laura thought hopefully. As she came closer to consciousness, she remembered that there was already a small child nestled in the middle of the wide king bed. What’s one more, as long as Cy doesn’t wake her up?
“Come on in, sweetie,” she whispered back, trying not to wake Isabelle and Bill.
Cyrus padded softly across the bedroom floor to Laura’s bedside. “I can’t sleep,” he said seriously. “Tsattie snores louder than Daddy.”
Laura bit back her laugh; if that was true, poor Cy must have been having a tough time of it indeed. She hadn’t known what she was subjecting him to.
“Climb on up,” she offered, pulling back the coverlet. She could see his small white teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he grinned and tucked himself between Laura and Isabelle.
“Thanks, Mommy,” Cyrus said. “I think I’ll sleep now.”
“Me too,” she whispered, giving him a squeeze as Bill and Isabelle slept on.
It couldn’t have been more than three hours later when the same tell-tale knock occurred, albeit a much more forceful one. Dual giggling confirmed Laura’s suspicion. Unlike Cyrus, Sephie didn’t wait for Laura to tell her to come in.
“We wanna get in bed, too,” Sephie demanded.
“Shh, quiet, Seph,” Phin warned. “You’ll wake Isabelle.”
It was Bill who woke first, as Sephie climbed on top of him. “Ow! What the--”
“Sorry, Dad,” Sephie said unapologetically. “Belly, move over.”
“There’s not room,” Phin said.
“Try this side, Phin,” Laura offered.
“Hang on,” Bill said. He blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes, and carefully lifted two-year-old Isabelle onto his chest. Sephie fell into the empty spot immediately and flung her arm across Cyrus, smacking him in the face with her arm.
“Ow!” Cyrus cried. “What?!”
“We play now?” said a suddenly alert Isabelle, trying to push herself up into a sitting position.
“No, Belly, we sleep,” Laura said.
Phin climbed up from the foot of the bed and slipped between Cyrus and Sephie. “Warm.”
Bill tried to coax Isabelle into laying down again, rubbing her back. “Shhh. Quiet down, everyone.”
“It’s still sleepy-time,” Laura added.
“It’s almost light out,” Sephie countered.
“Then go back to your room, sweetheart,” Laura said. “This bed is for sleeping only.”
Bill smirked at Laura from across the sea of children. Isabelle yawned, put her head back down against Bill’s chest, then farted loudly.
“Stinky, Belly,” Cyrus commented.
Sephie grimaced and pulled the sheet up over her and Phin’s heads.
“I can’t breathe!” Phin squealed.
Isabelle began to bawl.
“Better than near Belly stinky-butt,” came Sephie’s voice from beneath the covers.
“Persephone Jane,” Laura said. “Calm down, quiet down, or leave.”
“Night-night,” Cyrus said, looking perfectly content using Laura’s upper arm in lieu of a pillow.
Laura leaned over and kissed his forehead, then reached across Cy to pull the sheet back from over Phineus’s face. “Better?” she asked, smoothing his dark hair back from his eyes.
He nodded and shifted closer to Cyrus and Laura. Sephie turned as well, taking on the role of the big spoon to Phin’s small one.
“Get off me, Sephie,” he mumbled halfheartedly.
“Fine,” she said, dramatically turning over and burrowing against Bill.
Bill was trying to soothe Isabelle. “Ever seen a little light before the dawn of the light. Got me a Belly by a stream...gonna tell her all my dreams…”
“Daddy, your singing’s so bad,” Sephie interrupted him.
“I wike stream song,” Isabelle said sleepily.
“Me too, Belle,” Laura said, turning her head to smile at Bill. That song always transported her back to a time, early in their courtship; a late-evening picnic on the outskirts of Qualai, snuggling on a blanket beneath the stars. Bill had pointed out his ship, docked just beyond the Caprican atmosphere for the length of his four-day shore leave. They hadn’t made love that night, but laying there with her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart, she’d known to a certainty that they would.
“Why, Mom?” Sephie said. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
Laura directed her smile to their daughter. “Someday I’ll tell you.”
Bill blindly reached his hand toward Sephie and tousled her unruly red curls. “I’ll stop singing if you go back to sleep, Seph.”
She sighed loudly, but closed her eyes compliantly and eventually joined her siblings in a light sleep.
At the next knock, the room was beginning to fill with light and the children were considerably more sprawled than how they had started out. Laura strained to lift her head and realized that there were some wonderful home-cooked smells filling the room along with the day’s first rays.
“Morning, Ruth,” Laura said, nudging Cyrus’s arm off her stomach. “I take it you’ve found everything okay?”
“Everything except my roommate,” Tsattie replied. “I figured he must have come in here, but I didn’t expect to find all six of you.”
The twins had woken up during the exchange. “Tsattie!” Phin exclaimed, scampering down and off the bed to give her a hug.
“Ow,” Cyrus said. “Phin, you hurt my leg.”
“I wanted to see if I could find some helpers to make breakfast with me,” Tsattie said.
“Sure!” Sephie loved to please her grandmother, and she scrambled out of bed as well.
Sensing the commotion, Isabelle began to stir. She began patting Bill’s face. “Dada!”
“Hmmmm?” Bill shook his head, trying to avoid the small hand. “I’m up, I’m up.”
“You don’t have to be,” Tsattie said. “I’ll take the children downstairs and give them breakfast. You two sleep a bit more.”
“Ruth, you’re a gift from the gods,” Laura said. “Cyrus, will you help Tsattie with Isabelle?”
“Yes, mama. I’ll put on the Muffit video.”
“Good boy.” With a groan, she lifted him over her body and placed him on his feet at the side of the bed.
“Come on!” Sephie was already halfway down the stairs, a flash of red curls and pink pajamas.
“I’ll have some breakfast ready for you in about an hour,” Tsattie said as she lifted Isabelle up from Bill’s chest. Isabelle eyed her warily, but stayed quiet.
“Thanks, Tsattie.” Bill sat up and gave his grandmother a kiss on the cheek.
“Just like old times,” she said with a knowing wink.
Laura blushed and pulled the blankets over her head, finally able to curl up against her husband. She waited until she heard the door close to throw them back off.
“Sleep well?” Bill asked rhetorically.
“Well enough,” Laura responded, turning her body in his arms so that her back was pressed to his front.
He began lazily stroking her arm, bare but for her tattoos. "We've got a lot of things that need to get done before the party tomorrow," Bill said, his voice low and breath hot against her ear. "Maybe we should just get up."
Moving fluidly, Laura twisted to face him and threw one leg over his body, pinning him in place. "Are you kidding?" She leaned down to lightly nip at his earlobe. "Not a chance."
"Yes, sir," Bill said, grinning before he kissed her.
* * *
"Tell me another story, Tsattie," Sephie begged.
"Please," added Phin.
Laura had banished them both from the kitchen, where she was setting up the food for the twins' birthday party. Between their asking when the uncles would arrive and provoking Cy and Isabelle, who were placidly coloring at the small plastic table in the corner, she'd given up on getting them to help and told them to go find their grandmother.
“About Ha’la’tha,” Laura heard Sephie say.
Laura sighed; Sam and Larry must have been telling Sephie more than Laura knew.
“Well,” Ruth began. “You see this tattoo, here?” She pulled the collar of her knit shirt down so that the kids could inspect the dark lines beneath the fleshy skin of her neck.
“It’s an arrow?” Phin guessed.
“Not quite,” Tsattie said. “It’s a dagger.”
“Cool!” Sephie was impressed.
“I got the tattoo when I first established myself within the Ha’la’tha,” Ruth said. “Each line that got added to it represents another job I got done.”
Don’t ask her, Laura silently urged, what her job was.
“What was your job, Tsattie?” Phin asked.
“I had several,” she replied. “I operated a safe house for a while. Then I moved on to offsite work.”
“Where, Tsattie?” Sephie was rapt.
“Here on Tauron, then later, on Caprica.”
“That’s where we used to live!”
“That’s right,” Ruth said. “So when I started out in the organization, I was just cooking, and cleaning, and sometimes doing some driving.”
“Who were you driving?” Phin asked.
“Uh...other freedom fighters,” she said. “But sometimes, bad people would be out in the city, and I would have to practice my self-defense.”
Twin gazes blinked at their grandmother, not understanding.
“I got good at fighting,” she explained further. “First with my feet and fists. Then, I got my first set of daggers.”
“Daggers? Awesome,” Sephie said.
“Much more elegant than a gun,” Tsattie said, “and easier on the hands than a garotte.”
“You stab people, Tsattie?” Phin asked, his eyes huge.
“Not for a long time, darling,” she said in reply, draping her arm over his shoulders and pulling him close in a comforting hug. “Things were different, then.”
Lords, I hope so, Laura thought as she began washing a sink full of dishes left over from food preparations.
“How many people?” Sephie wanted to know.
“Well,” Tsattie replied, “each line over the dagger represents a different job.”
Phin leaned in and started counting. “One...two…”
“Shut up, Phinny,” Sephie demanded. “I wanna hear more story.”
“Forty-two,” Tsattie supplied.
“Wow!” Sephie bounced up and down on the loveseat.
“Who gave you the daggers?” Phin asked.
Laura wanted to know the answer to that question as much as her inquisitive son. Leaving the remaining dishes for after the party, she took a look around the kitchen and deemed it passable for entertaining. She could keep an eye on Cy and Isabelle from the living room if she sat on the couch, and sat down quietly, not wanting to interrupt the tale.
“Well,” Tsattie began, “his name was Aron.”
* * *
“You don’t have to do this, Ruth,” Aron said, sweeping her hair away from her face so he could look tenderly into her eyes. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, anchoring her in place. “You’re already made. You’ve got nothing to prove to anyone.”
“It’s not about that,” she huffed, annoyed that he would even suggest that her decision might be selfishly motivated. “It’s about retribution. That frakking Leonese cell is responsible for Sarai’s death. I need to be there.”
It had been nearly six months since her younger sister was killed in a cafe bombing, and the pain still felt as raw in her gut as it had been when it first settled there when Aron came into Connie’s, looking more sorrowful than she’d ever seen him. And they’d seen their share of sorrows.
Sarai wasn’t even involved in the resistance. She’d been collateral damage, the wrong place at the wrong time; a university student, and the only family Ruth had left. Ruth hadn’t gone to university herself, and she’d been so proud of Sarai for continuing her education. She’d thought that her little sister might even have a shot at making it off-world someday. But between the Virgonese, the Leonese, and finally the Hercs, there was always a group wanting to step in and run Tauron, to suppress the fierce independence of the Tauron people and exploit the planet’s vast mineral resources.
She and Aron had known each other since they were children playing pick-up pyramid games in the old neighborhood. But very little about that time was idyllic. They’d both experienced loss early on. They’d found their way into the Ha’la’tha separately, but for similar reasons, and had quickly teamed up to support one another. He was her best friend.
“I’m going to be there,” she insisted. He knew her better than anyone; she couldn’t understand why he seemed to think that she shouldn’t take part in the raid. Some heads would roll, to be sure, but hers wouldn’t be one of them.
“I just worry about you,” he admitted.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp. She worried about him, too--he was always volunteering for the riskiest jobs, and she was more likely to find out about it from the clientele at Connie’s than from him--but she wasn’t telling him not to go.
“Can’t help it,” he said, and suddenly his hand was at her waist, and his lips were getting closer--
“Ruthie! We gonna get some more coffee anytime soon?” bellowed a low voice from the other side of the swinging doors.
“I have to get that,” she said breathlessly, her eyes searching his. “I’ll see you tonight.”
When she got back to her station after refilling drinks and serving up bowls of spicy stew, he was gone, but there was a box with her name written on it.
She briefly considered waiting until her shift ended to see what was inside, but her curiosity couldn’t be suppressed. The small box had a surprising heft to it as she lifted it.
* * *
The front door opened, and Sam and Larry filed in, followed by Bill, who was carrying a large sheet cake.
“Hey, Tsattie,” Sam said, leaning down to give his surrogate grandmother a kiss. “About time you made it out here.”
“Samuel. And Larry! It has been too long,” she said. “I was just telling the little ones a story about the old days.”
Larry raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You sure that’s appropriate?”
“Perfectly,” she said with a withering glance in his direction.
“We are seven today, Uncle Larry,” Phin informed him. “That’s pretty old, you know.”
Tsattie rolled her eyes at Phin’s pronouncement.
“I know, bud. Happy birthday, and happy birthday,” Larry said to each of the twins.
“What are you telling them, Tsattie?” Bill came in from the kitchen with Isabelle on his hip and Cyrus’s hand in his own. Bill sat down next to Laura with the baby on his lap, and Cy crawled up into Laura’s. Sam and Larry found chairs, as well; Tsattie had everyone’s attention.
“Oh, just some ancient history,” she said vaguely.
“We were just getting to the good part,” Sephie said. “You were about to open the box.”
“Ah, yes,” Tsattie said.
“Box?” Bill asked. “What box?”
“I think it had daggers in it,” Phin guessed.
“I was working as a waitress at Connie’s,” Tsattie filled in the newcomers. “It was the inspiration for Goldie’s, back in Little Tauron--you remember Goldie’s, of course, Bill. And there was going to be a big raid; the plan was to take out some high-ups in the Leonese occupying force while they were carousing.” The distaste on her face was evident even now, some seventy years later.
“Tsattie had a boyfriend,” Sephie added.
“Not quite. Not yet, ” Tsattie said. “But we cared about one another very much.”
* * *
“Oh, Aron,” Ruth said when she lifted the top from the box and pulled back the tissue.
Inside the box was a set of twin daggers, each one about six inches long. Long enough to inflict mortal damage, while still easily concealable in a sleeve or from a belt. It looked like he intended for her to wear them in the former fashion, as there were adjustable leather sheaths in the box as well.
She removed one of the daggers and inspected it under the light of the bread warmer. There was intricate etched scrollwork all along the handle, while the blade itself was gleaming pristine steel. A single blood-red ruby adorned each hilt.
There was a note, too. Mars be with you, it said. Love, Aron.
Later, it was his face she saw in her mind’s eye as she carried out her work in the name of her sister. And it was his arms that wrapped around and held her close after the team returned to the safe house and the adrenaline ebbed, leaving her twitchy and unsettled.
* * *
“Ah, I remember those days well,” Sam commented.
“Me too,” said Larry. He stroked Sam’s arm soothingly.
“Have to say, I don’t miss it,” Sam said.
“So did you end up with Aron?” Sephie wanted to know.
“Of course,” Tsattie said. “We moved in together a few weeks later. And a year after that, our daughter Shannon was born.”
“You had a baby?” Cyrus asked, looking from Tsattie to Isabelle.
“Did you keep working as an assassin, Tsattie?” Sephie asked.
“I did have a baby. My daughter grew up and married Joseph Adama, and that’s why we--” she gestured around the room “--are family,” she said. “And yes, Sephie. I kept working until long after she and I moved to Caprica when she was young.”
“Just the two of you?” Phin asked. “What about Aron?”
“He returned to the soil,” she said, her voice slightly strained with emotion. “Toward the end of the Third Occupation. I left Tauron not long after.”
Phin snuggled closer to his grandmother, and Sephie patted her hand in what Laura thought was a surprising show of empathy from her daughter.
“I never knew that’s what prompted your move to Caprica, Ruth,” Sam remarked.
“It’s what’s kept me away, all these years,” she said. “Too many memories, best tucked away.” Her gaze rested on Bill and Laura across the room and grew wistful. “You know, if you were to have another boy, Aron would be a good name.”
Laura started to explain that it was out of the question, but Bill’s squeeze to her knee interrupted her nascent protestations.
“And Ruth would be a good one for a girl,” he said.
* * *
“Tsattie, I don’t want you to go!” Sephie cried. She wrapped her arms around Ruth’s leg, and Phin moved to do the same on the other side.
“Ah-ah,” Laura said, catching him by the back of his collar. “You’ll take Tsattie out. Be gentle.”
“Take out?” Sephie said, stepping back and looking up at her grandmother with a grin. “That’s what Tsattie said I should do!”
“Oh?” Laura said.
“I’ll be back for good in a few weeks,” Ruth said smoothly. “I just need to take care of some things back home.”
“Yeah, like get our daggers,” Phin said.
”Oh?” Laura said again.
“Tsattie’s giving us the daggers that Aron gave her,” Sephie said, and dropped the register of her voice in an attempt to mimic Ruth. “If a young man tries to get fresh--”
“Take that motherfrakker out!” the twins finished together.
“I must have missed this part of the story,” Laura said.
“Don’t worry, Laura,” Tsattie said. “I told them they could have my daggers, but that you would hold onto them for them.”
“We’ll be happy to have you and your daggers back here with us soon, Ruth,” she said.
The twins beamed, probably relishing the fact that Laura hadn’t said no. She really had come a long way, she realized.
“‘Scuse me, pardon me, coming through,” Bill said, making his way down the stairs with Tsattie’s bags past Cy and Isabelle, who were sitting on the bottom step, trying to read a book to the cat. “All ready?”
“Ready,” Ruth said, giving each of the children a kiss before turning to Laura. “Thank you, dear. For bringing me back out here at last. It’s been so wonderful...I was a fool to stay away.”
Laura hugged Ruth tightly. “No, thank you,” she said. “None of this would have happened-- none of the kids would have even been born-- if you hadn’t shared that recipe with me all those years ago.”
Ruth laughed. “I don’t know about that, but maybe it moved things along a bit. And for that, I’m glad.”
“Me too,” Bill said, ruffling Phin’s hair, “but we’ve got to get going if Tsattie’s going to make her transport.”
Laura picked up Isabelle and ushered the kids to the front stoop so they could wave goodbye as Bill walked Tsattie down the walkway to the waiting car.
“Bye Tsattie!” Cyrus called. “Next time bring me a present, too? And more stories!”
“You got it, buddy,” she called back. “See you soon!”
Rating: T
Word count: 3400
Summary: The twins are turning seven, and Tsattie brings the party--in addition to schooling the family in their history.
A/N: Part of the 'babytattoofic' Tauron Cherry AU 'verse.Thanks to fragrantwoods for the inspiration for this installation.
Previous fic: Tauron Surprise.
fic art by scifishipper
The knock was light, like a cat that wanted to be fed; thump thump thump thump. And nearly as insistent.
But it wasn’t the cat. “Mama?” whined a soft voice through a slowly widening crack between door and jamb.
Maybe it’s a dream, Laura thought hopefully. As she came closer to consciousness, she remembered that there was already a small child nestled in the middle of the wide king bed. What’s one more, as long as Cy doesn’t wake her up?
“Come on in, sweetie,” she whispered back, trying not to wake Isabelle and Bill.
Cyrus padded softly across the bedroom floor to Laura’s bedside. “I can’t sleep,” he said seriously. “Tsattie snores louder than Daddy.”
Laura bit back her laugh; if that was true, poor Cy must have been having a tough time of it indeed. She hadn’t known what she was subjecting him to.
“Climb on up,” she offered, pulling back the coverlet. She could see his small white teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he grinned and tucked himself between Laura and Isabelle.
“Thanks, Mommy,” Cyrus said. “I think I’ll sleep now.”
“Me too,” she whispered, giving him a squeeze as Bill and Isabelle slept on.
It couldn’t have been more than three hours later when the same tell-tale knock occurred, albeit a much more forceful one. Dual giggling confirmed Laura’s suspicion. Unlike Cyrus, Sephie didn’t wait for Laura to tell her to come in.
“We wanna get in bed, too,” Sephie demanded.
“Shh, quiet, Seph,” Phin warned. “You’ll wake Isabelle.”
It was Bill who woke first, as Sephie climbed on top of him. “Ow! What the--”
“Sorry, Dad,” Sephie said unapologetically. “Belly, move over.”
“There’s not room,” Phin said.
“Try this side, Phin,” Laura offered.
“Hang on,” Bill said. He blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes, and carefully lifted two-year-old Isabelle onto his chest. Sephie fell into the empty spot immediately and flung her arm across Cyrus, smacking him in the face with her arm.
“Ow!” Cyrus cried. “What?!”
“We play now?” said a suddenly alert Isabelle, trying to push herself up into a sitting position.
“No, Belly, we sleep,” Laura said.
Phin climbed up from the foot of the bed and slipped between Cyrus and Sephie. “Warm.”
Bill tried to coax Isabelle into laying down again, rubbing her back. “Shhh. Quiet down, everyone.”
“It’s still sleepy-time,” Laura added.
“It’s almost light out,” Sephie countered.
“Then go back to your room, sweetheart,” Laura said. “This bed is for sleeping only.”
Bill smirked at Laura from across the sea of children. Isabelle yawned, put her head back down against Bill’s chest, then farted loudly.
“Stinky, Belly,” Cyrus commented.
Sephie grimaced and pulled the sheet up over her and Phin’s heads.
“I can’t breathe!” Phin squealed.
Isabelle began to bawl.
“Better than near Belly stinky-butt,” came Sephie’s voice from beneath the covers.
“Persephone Jane,” Laura said. “Calm down, quiet down, or leave.”
“Night-night,” Cyrus said, looking perfectly content using Laura’s upper arm in lieu of a pillow.
Laura leaned over and kissed his forehead, then reached across Cy to pull the sheet back from over Phineus’s face. “Better?” she asked, smoothing his dark hair back from his eyes.
He nodded and shifted closer to Cyrus and Laura. Sephie turned as well, taking on the role of the big spoon to Phin’s small one.
“Get off me, Sephie,” he mumbled halfheartedly.
“Fine,” she said, dramatically turning over and burrowing against Bill.
Bill was trying to soothe Isabelle. “Ever seen a little light before the dawn of the light. Got me a Belly by a stream...gonna tell her all my dreams…”
“Daddy, your singing’s so bad,” Sephie interrupted him.
“I wike stream song,” Isabelle said sleepily.
“Me too, Belle,” Laura said, turning her head to smile at Bill. That song always transported her back to a time, early in their courtship; a late-evening picnic on the outskirts of Qualai, snuggling on a blanket beneath the stars. Bill had pointed out his ship, docked just beyond the Caprican atmosphere for the length of his four-day shore leave. They hadn’t made love that night, but laying there with her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart, she’d known to a certainty that they would.
“Why, Mom?” Sephie said. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
Laura directed her smile to their daughter. “Someday I’ll tell you.”
Bill blindly reached his hand toward Sephie and tousled her unruly red curls. “I’ll stop singing if you go back to sleep, Seph.”
She sighed loudly, but closed her eyes compliantly and eventually joined her siblings in a light sleep.
At the next knock, the room was beginning to fill with light and the children were considerably more sprawled than how they had started out. Laura strained to lift her head and realized that there were some wonderful home-cooked smells filling the room along with the day’s first rays.
“Morning, Ruth,” Laura said, nudging Cyrus’s arm off her stomach. “I take it you’ve found everything okay?”
“Everything except my roommate,” Tsattie replied. “I figured he must have come in here, but I didn’t expect to find all six of you.”
The twins had woken up during the exchange. “Tsattie!” Phin exclaimed, scampering down and off the bed to give her a hug.
“Ow,” Cyrus said. “Phin, you hurt my leg.”
“I wanted to see if I could find some helpers to make breakfast with me,” Tsattie said.
“Sure!” Sephie loved to please her grandmother, and she scrambled out of bed as well.
Sensing the commotion, Isabelle began to stir. She began patting Bill’s face. “Dada!”
“Hmmmm?” Bill shook his head, trying to avoid the small hand. “I’m up, I’m up.”
“You don’t have to be,” Tsattie said. “I’ll take the children downstairs and give them breakfast. You two sleep a bit more.”
“Ruth, you’re a gift from the gods,” Laura said. “Cyrus, will you help Tsattie with Isabelle?”
“Yes, mama. I’ll put on the Muffit video.”
“Good boy.” With a groan, she lifted him over her body and placed him on his feet at the side of the bed.
“Come on!” Sephie was already halfway down the stairs, a flash of red curls and pink pajamas.
“I’ll have some breakfast ready for you in about an hour,” Tsattie said as she lifted Isabelle up from Bill’s chest. Isabelle eyed her warily, but stayed quiet.
“Thanks, Tsattie.” Bill sat up and gave his grandmother a kiss on the cheek.
“Just like old times,” she said with a knowing wink.
Laura blushed and pulled the blankets over her head, finally able to curl up against her husband. She waited until she heard the door close to throw them back off.
“Sleep well?” Bill asked rhetorically.
“Well enough,” Laura responded, turning her body in his arms so that her back was pressed to his front.
He began lazily stroking her arm, bare but for her tattoos. "We've got a lot of things that need to get done before the party tomorrow," Bill said, his voice low and breath hot against her ear. "Maybe we should just get up."
Moving fluidly, Laura twisted to face him and threw one leg over his body, pinning him in place. "Are you kidding?" She leaned down to lightly nip at his earlobe. "Not a chance."
"Yes, sir," Bill said, grinning before he kissed her.
* * *
"Tell me another story, Tsattie," Sephie begged.
"Please," added Phin.
Laura had banished them both from the kitchen, where she was setting up the food for the twins' birthday party. Between their asking when the uncles would arrive and provoking Cy and Isabelle, who were placidly coloring at the small plastic table in the corner, she'd given up on getting them to help and told them to go find their grandmother.
“About Ha’la’tha,” Laura heard Sephie say.
Laura sighed; Sam and Larry must have been telling Sephie more than Laura knew.
“Well,” Ruth began. “You see this tattoo, here?” She pulled the collar of her knit shirt down so that the kids could inspect the dark lines beneath the fleshy skin of her neck.
“It’s an arrow?” Phin guessed.
“Not quite,” Tsattie said. “It’s a dagger.”
“Cool!” Sephie was impressed.
“I got the tattoo when I first established myself within the Ha’la’tha,” Ruth said. “Each line that got added to it represents another job I got done.”
Don’t ask her, Laura silently urged, what her job was.
“What was your job, Tsattie?” Phin asked.
“I had several,” she replied. “I operated a safe house for a while. Then I moved on to offsite work.”
“Where, Tsattie?” Sephie was rapt.
“Here on Tauron, then later, on Caprica.”
“That’s where we used to live!”
“That’s right,” Ruth said. “So when I started out in the organization, I was just cooking, and cleaning, and sometimes doing some driving.”
“Who were you driving?” Phin asked.
“Uh...other freedom fighters,” she said. “But sometimes, bad people would be out in the city, and I would have to practice my self-defense.”
Twin gazes blinked at their grandmother, not understanding.
“I got good at fighting,” she explained further. “First with my feet and fists. Then, I got my first set of daggers.”
“Daggers? Awesome,” Sephie said.
“Much more elegant than a gun,” Tsattie said, “and easier on the hands than a garotte.”
“You stab people, Tsattie?” Phin asked, his eyes huge.
“Not for a long time, darling,” she said in reply, draping her arm over his shoulders and pulling him close in a comforting hug. “Things were different, then.”
Lords, I hope so, Laura thought as she began washing a sink full of dishes left over from food preparations.
“How many people?” Sephie wanted to know.
“Well,” Tsattie replied, “each line over the dagger represents a different job.”
Phin leaned in and started counting. “One...two…”
“Shut up, Phinny,” Sephie demanded. “I wanna hear more story.”
“Forty-two,” Tsattie supplied.
“Wow!” Sephie bounced up and down on the loveseat.
“Who gave you the daggers?” Phin asked.
Laura wanted to know the answer to that question as much as her inquisitive son. Leaving the remaining dishes for after the party, she took a look around the kitchen and deemed it passable for entertaining. She could keep an eye on Cy and Isabelle from the living room if she sat on the couch, and sat down quietly, not wanting to interrupt the tale.
“Well,” Tsattie began, “his name was Aron.”
* * *
“You don’t have to do this, Ruth,” Aron said, sweeping her hair away from her face so he could look tenderly into her eyes. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, anchoring her in place. “You’re already made. You’ve got nothing to prove to anyone.”
“It’s not about that,” she huffed, annoyed that he would even suggest that her decision might be selfishly motivated. “It’s about retribution. That frakking Leonese cell is responsible for Sarai’s death. I need to be there.”
It had been nearly six months since her younger sister was killed in a cafe bombing, and the pain still felt as raw in her gut as it had been when it first settled there when Aron came into Connie’s, looking more sorrowful than she’d ever seen him. And they’d seen their share of sorrows.
Sarai wasn’t even involved in the resistance. She’d been collateral damage, the wrong place at the wrong time; a university student, and the only family Ruth had left. Ruth hadn’t gone to university herself, and she’d been so proud of Sarai for continuing her education. She’d thought that her little sister might even have a shot at making it off-world someday. But between the Virgonese, the Leonese, and finally the Hercs, there was always a group wanting to step in and run Tauron, to suppress the fierce independence of the Tauron people and exploit the planet’s vast mineral resources.
She and Aron had known each other since they were children playing pick-up pyramid games in the old neighborhood. But very little about that time was idyllic. They’d both experienced loss early on. They’d found their way into the Ha’la’tha separately, but for similar reasons, and had quickly teamed up to support one another. He was her best friend.
“I’m going to be there,” she insisted. He knew her better than anyone; she couldn’t understand why he seemed to think that she shouldn’t take part in the raid. Some heads would roll, to be sure, but hers wouldn’t be one of them.
“I just worry about you,” he admitted.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp. She worried about him, too--he was always volunteering for the riskiest jobs, and she was more likely to find out about it from the clientele at Connie’s than from him--but she wasn’t telling him not to go.
“Can’t help it,” he said, and suddenly his hand was at her waist, and his lips were getting closer--
“Ruthie! We gonna get some more coffee anytime soon?” bellowed a low voice from the other side of the swinging doors.
“I have to get that,” she said breathlessly, her eyes searching his. “I’ll see you tonight.”
When she got back to her station after refilling drinks and serving up bowls of spicy stew, he was gone, but there was a box with her name written on it.
She briefly considered waiting until her shift ended to see what was inside, but her curiosity couldn’t be suppressed. The small box had a surprising heft to it as she lifted it.
* * *
The front door opened, and Sam and Larry filed in, followed by Bill, who was carrying a large sheet cake.
“Hey, Tsattie,” Sam said, leaning down to give his surrogate grandmother a kiss. “About time you made it out here.”
“Samuel. And Larry! It has been too long,” she said. “I was just telling the little ones a story about the old days.”
Larry raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You sure that’s appropriate?”
“Perfectly,” she said with a withering glance in his direction.
“We are seven today, Uncle Larry,” Phin informed him. “That’s pretty old, you know.”
Tsattie rolled her eyes at Phin’s pronouncement.
“I know, bud. Happy birthday, and happy birthday,” Larry said to each of the twins.
“What are you telling them, Tsattie?” Bill came in from the kitchen with Isabelle on his hip and Cyrus’s hand in his own. Bill sat down next to Laura with the baby on his lap, and Cy crawled up into Laura’s. Sam and Larry found chairs, as well; Tsattie had everyone’s attention.
“Oh, just some ancient history,” she said vaguely.
“We were just getting to the good part,” Sephie said. “You were about to open the box.”
“Ah, yes,” Tsattie said.
“Box?” Bill asked. “What box?”
“I think it had daggers in it,” Phin guessed.
“I was working as a waitress at Connie’s,” Tsattie filled in the newcomers. “It was the inspiration for Goldie’s, back in Little Tauron--you remember Goldie’s, of course, Bill. And there was going to be a big raid; the plan was to take out some high-ups in the Leonese occupying force while they were carousing.” The distaste on her face was evident even now, some seventy years later.
“Tsattie had a boyfriend,” Sephie added.
“Not quite. Not yet, ” Tsattie said. “But we cared about one another very much.”
* * *
“Oh, Aron,” Ruth said when she lifted the top from the box and pulled back the tissue.
Inside the box was a set of twin daggers, each one about six inches long. Long enough to inflict mortal damage, while still easily concealable in a sleeve or from a belt. It looked like he intended for her to wear them in the former fashion, as there were adjustable leather sheaths in the box as well.
She removed one of the daggers and inspected it under the light of the bread warmer. There was intricate etched scrollwork all along the handle, while the blade itself was gleaming pristine steel. A single blood-red ruby adorned each hilt.
There was a note, too. Mars be with you, it said. Love, Aron.
Later, it was his face she saw in her mind’s eye as she carried out her work in the name of her sister. And it was his arms that wrapped around and held her close after the team returned to the safe house and the adrenaline ebbed, leaving her twitchy and unsettled.
* * *
“Ah, I remember those days well,” Sam commented.
“Me too,” said Larry. He stroked Sam’s arm soothingly.
“Have to say, I don’t miss it,” Sam said.
“So did you end up with Aron?” Sephie wanted to know.
“Of course,” Tsattie said. “We moved in together a few weeks later. And a year after that, our daughter Shannon was born.”
“You had a baby?” Cyrus asked, looking from Tsattie to Isabelle.
“Did you keep working as an assassin, Tsattie?” Sephie asked.
“I did have a baby. My daughter grew up and married Joseph Adama, and that’s why we--” she gestured around the room “--are family,” she said. “And yes, Sephie. I kept working until long after she and I moved to Caprica when she was young.”
“Just the two of you?” Phin asked. “What about Aron?”
“He returned to the soil,” she said, her voice slightly strained with emotion. “Toward the end of the Third Occupation. I left Tauron not long after.”
Phin snuggled closer to his grandmother, and Sephie patted her hand in what Laura thought was a surprising show of empathy from her daughter.
“I never knew that’s what prompted your move to Caprica, Ruth,” Sam remarked.
“It’s what’s kept me away, all these years,” she said. “Too many memories, best tucked away.” Her gaze rested on Bill and Laura across the room and grew wistful. “You know, if you were to have another boy, Aron would be a good name.”
Laura started to explain that it was out of the question, but Bill’s squeeze to her knee interrupted her nascent protestations.
“And Ruth would be a good one for a girl,” he said.
* * *
“Tsattie, I don’t want you to go!” Sephie cried. She wrapped her arms around Ruth’s leg, and Phin moved to do the same on the other side.
“Ah-ah,” Laura said, catching him by the back of his collar. “You’ll take Tsattie out. Be gentle.”
“Take out?” Sephie said, stepping back and looking up at her grandmother with a grin. “That’s what Tsattie said I should do!”
“Oh?” Laura said.
“I’ll be back for good in a few weeks,” Ruth said smoothly. “I just need to take care of some things back home.”
“Yeah, like get our daggers,” Phin said.
”Oh?” Laura said again.
“Tsattie’s giving us the daggers that Aron gave her,” Sephie said, and dropped the register of her voice in an attempt to mimic Ruth. “If a young man tries to get fresh--”
“Take that motherfrakker out!” the twins finished together.
“I must have missed this part of the story,” Laura said.
“Don’t worry, Laura,” Tsattie said. “I told them they could have my daggers, but that you would hold onto them for them.”
“We’ll be happy to have you and your daggers back here with us soon, Ruth,” she said.
The twins beamed, probably relishing the fact that Laura hadn’t said no. She really had come a long way, she realized.
“‘Scuse me, pardon me, coming through,” Bill said, making his way down the stairs with Tsattie’s bags past Cy and Isabelle, who were sitting on the bottom step, trying to read a book to the cat. “All ready?”
“Ready,” Ruth said, giving each of the children a kiss before turning to Laura. “Thank you, dear. For bringing me back out here at last. It’s been so wonderful...I was a fool to stay away.”
Laura hugged Ruth tightly. “No, thank you,” she said. “None of this would have happened-- none of the kids would have even been born-- if you hadn’t shared that recipe with me all those years ago.”
Ruth laughed. “I don’t know about that, but maybe it moved things along a bit. And for that, I’m glad.”
“Me too,” Bill said, ruffling Phin’s hair, “but we’ve got to get going if Tsattie’s going to make her transport.”
Laura picked up Isabelle and ushered the kids to the front stoop so they could wave goodbye as Bill walked Tsattie down the walkway to the waiting car.
“Bye Tsattie!” Cyrus called. “Next time bring me a present, too? And more stories!”
“You got it, buddy,” she called back. “See you soon!”