Picture Perfect (Part 2 of 4)
Picture Perfect, Part 2 of 4
RETURN TO PART 1
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
It should have been a happy day, but both Louis and Felix woke up in foul moods. Instead of his normal grumbling at the long-dead prosthetics manufacturer, Felix cursed every medical worker who had ever had anything to do with his recovery as he struggled to adjust the stump cap. Louis snapped at an ensign for using up all the hot water when he knew his icy shower was more likely the result of him going to the head a little later than usual and everyone before him cheating by taking an extra fifteen or thirty seconds.
He wasn’t sure what Felix’s problem was. Louis knew his own irritability stemmed from not sleeping well. No, that was a half-lie, Louis chastised himself. He hadn’t slept well because he’d dreamt of the Scylla last night.
The Scylla hadn’t haunted his dreams for a long time, but Louis supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that it would resurface now. He’d never seen the passenger manifests himself, but Shaw had told him more than he’d ever wanted to know about it later, her eyes glassy and unfocused from something he guessed wasn’t merely alcohol.
“There were families traveling together on that ship,” she had said.
Not just couples. Families.
Felix swore under his breath as he walked beside Louis. Cottle had recommended Felix go back to using his canes, just for today, since they would be moving around so much, but Felix had been adamantly opposed to that idea. They had finally compromised on him using one regular cane, an “old man cane,” as Felix called it. Even so, Louis could tell Felix wasn’t at all happy showing even that much frailty.
Louis sighed. It was going to be a long day anyway; both of them going into it this worked up would make it feel like an eternity. He almost couldn’t believe he was saying it, but it was worth a try. “Okay. Let’s think of five things we’re grateful for.”
Felix groaned. “That has got to be the corniest thing you’ve ever suggested.”
Louis silently agreed, but he pressed on anyway. “But it works. Fine, I’ll start. I’m grateful that Nissin found that crate of sweetener packets, because they do make the algae almost edible. Now it’s your turn.”
“Life sucks.”
Louis threw his hands up in frustration.
“Okay, okay,” Felix said, then thought for a moment. “I’m grateful that Saroyan finally has a good enough handle on tactical that I can take a day off work without fearing that we’re dead meat if Cavil’s forces show up. Well, not fearing it any more than usual, anyway.”
“See? Was that so hard?”
“Yes.” Then Felix’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “I’ve got another one.” He waited until a group of deckhands passed them, then leaned close to Louis’s ear and muttered, “I am really, really grateful that I’m finally healed enough to top again.”
Louis laughed at that, and he grinned at the memory of two nights ago. “You and me both, baby.”
Felix said, “We need two more.”
“No, just one more.”
“But that was only three.”
“That last one was good enough to be worth two points,” Louis said.
Felix looked quite smug. They walked in much more companionable silence. Just as they reached the hangar deck, Felix said, “Obviously, number five is our trip to the Adrastria today. Right?”
“Right,” Louis said, not as brightly as he’d intended.
Felix shifted his cane to his other hand so he could take hold of Louis’s elbow. “Louis, I meant what I said. I want this, but if you’re not ready, I can wait. Gods know you’ve waited for me for a lot of things.”
“I’m ready,” Louis replied. “Maybe a little nervous, but ready.”
“Good morning!”
Louis was relieved when Racetrack interrupted them, yelling at them and waving from half-way across the hangar deck. She strode over to meet them.
“Good morning, Ensign,” Louis said. “You ready for us?”
“Almost. Just loading the last of the ration bags. We’ll get out of here on time if you’d be willing to give me a hand, Captain.”
“Sure,” Louis said, already moving to help when both of them realized at the same time how lost and awkward Felix was looking as the deck bustled around him.
Racetrack spoke up first. “Hey, Lieutenant Gaeta. Would you be my co-pilot today?”
Felix turned his head. “What?”
“Co-pilot. You’ve got wings, after all.”
Felix knew that co-piloting a routine ship-to-ship shuttle was mostly a mere gesture, but Louis could tell he appreciated it. “Sounds great. And Racetrack? This morning, it’s Felix, not Lieutenant Gaeta.”
Racetrack smiled at the returned kindness. They both helped Felix into the Raptor, then threw the last few fifty-pound ration bags in. Racetrack maneuvered over the bags and into the pilot’s seat with an ease that betrayed how much practice she’d had doing this, and Louis clambered over them with considerably less grace and sat in the ECO’s chair.
As they strapped themselves in, Racetrack said over the comm, “LSO, this is Racetrack. Raptor 713 is ready for its 0930 shuttle run.
“Racetrack, this is the LSO.” Louis recognized Lieutenant Alonzo’s voice over the wireless. It seemed like only yesterday he was bawling the kid out for not scrambling his call to the baseship correctly. In fact, that was yesterday, he realized. The new cross-training regime was a good idea, but it was always a surprise what positions people ended up in each day. “Confirm your flight plan.”
“Copy that. We’re taking rations to the Adrastria, Cassandra, Boreas, and Gemenon Traveler.”
“‘We?’” Alonzo asked.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got company today. For the Adrastria part of my run, my co-pilot is-”
“Lieutenant Gaeta,” Felix interrupted.
Racetrack pretended to be irritated, but she could barely suppress her smile. “Felix, protocol is we use your callsign.”
“No,” Felix stated resolutely. “Louis and Alonzo don’t know what it is, and I intend to keep it that way.”
Louis leaned around in his seat so he could see Felix’s face. “Oh come on, what is it?”
Felix spoke into the comm. “Lieutenant Gaeta co-piloting and Captain Hoshi at ECO.” He swiveled around to face Louis. “No.”
“Now you’ve got my curiosity piqued, too,” Alonzo said over the comm. “You’re third in the queue right now. If you get it out of him before I get back to you, promise you’ll tell me, Captain?”
Felix clicked off the wireless before Louis could answer. He was adorable when he was flustered, Louis thought.
Felix pointed at Racetrack before she could open her mouth. “I have dirt on you all the way back to your nugget days, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Racetrack laughed and patted his shoulder. “Aw, I wasn’t going to tell, Felix. I’m just glad to have you guys along. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anybody to joke around with me on duty.” Her smile faltered, and she turned back to the controls.
Even after all this time, it was odd to see Racetrack without Skulls. With pilot ranks thinned as much as they were, the Colonel still would have had Racetrack make her shuttle runs without an ECO if he was alive. But after years of seeing Racetrack always followed by her six-foot-five, gawky, grinning shadow, she seemed even more alone than most.
Racetrack and Felix continued their pre-flight check. When they’d waited much longer than usual, Racetrack called up to the LSO again. “Did the guy ahead of us fall asleep or something?”
Alonzo sighed. “No. Starbuck’s the one right ahead of you. I think she’s still tuning herself to her magical Earth music or something.”
Louis couldn’t see it, but he knew Felix was rolling his eyes.
“Frak,” Racetrack muttered. “Adama peeks out from his hidey hole to do one thing, and it’s to give her back her flight status.”
“Frakking crazy,” Felix added.
“Hey, back off, both of you,” Louis said sternly. “Whatever else she is, she’s a good pilot. And she hasn’t exactly had it easy as of late.”
Louis peered around and saw that Felix looked chastened. He thought he could sense guilt radiating from Racetrack, too, though she schooled her expressions better than Felix did.
“If you ever need more pilots for the habitable planet canvassing missions, I do have a history of finding things.” Racetrack smiled weakly, like she already knew the answer she was going to get, but she had to know she’d tried.
Louis smiled back just as wanly. “It would be different if it was up to me, but it’s not. Sorry.”
Racetrack nodded and focused on something on the dash.
Despite the way she was talking that morning, Louis knew Racetrack was aware of how lucky she was to be flying at all. Most of the mutineers who weren’t dead or locked away forever on the Astral Queen had been busted down to lower than nothing, permanent KP or sewage duty or tylium-shoveling. Racetrack had sworn she hadn’t known what was going on, though no one really believed her, and she knew it.
Everyone knew why Adama had treated her differently than so many of the others. She had tried to help Starbuck drag Lee Adama to the infirmary. Even though they hadn’t gotten him there in time, the fact that she’d tried to save his son had made the Old Man grateful enough to save Racetrack from the firing squad in turn. But Colonel Tigh had said as much as that as long as Adama lived, Racetrack was never going to make her way back to where she’d been before everything went to hell.
Finally, Alonzo cleared them for takeoff. All three of them got a good look at Galactica as they sailed out into the Fleet. She was more than just battle-scarred. There were more gaping holes in her armor plating than protected areas left. All but one of her main batteries had been maimed beyond repair. And knowing that she was riddled with the invisible webs of stress fractures that one of the knuckledraggers had first noticed, that the Cylons had tried to heal but couldn’t...Louis had never developed the kind of emotional attachment to Galactica that her original crew had, but it made even him sad to look at the damage.
“Uh, hear any interesting news?” Felix said, casting about for something to take their minds off the view.
Racetrack shrugged, already falling back into the comfortable apathy of pilots. “Not much. Caprica Six is testifying in Boomer’s trial today. Sounds like Boomer’s still swearing up and down that she knows where the Colony is and that she’ll take us there if the Cylons give her a reprieve.”
“I’m surprised the Cylons are still here,” Felix said flatly, staring out into the black. “It’s not like they have much left to tie them to us. Tory and Caprica Six are with them now, and there’s no way Colonel Tigh will leave Galactica at this point. Which means there’s no way Mrs. Tigh will leave, either. With Tyrol dead, and Anders as good as, why are they waiting around for us? Their ship is in better shape than any of ours.”
“I don’t know, procreation, they keep saying?” Racetrack said. “Maybe they’re hoping the Agathons will jump ship eventually, since no human but Baltar or Helo would voluntarily frak a Cylon.”
That was dangerous territory. Louis said the first thing that came to his mind to get Felix out of that conversation. “What if Boomer’s telling the truth? It’d be worth it, using Galactica’s last jump to take out Cavil once and for all.”
Louis felt more than saw their cold stares. “And how do you propose we do that?” Felix asked.
“Simple. Jump Galactica into the heart of the Colony, with all her nukes set to go off automatically. Hang on just long enough for the skeleton crew to get to Raptors, set the timer, and jump them out of there.”
“Use our home as a battering ram?” Racetrack said through gritted teeth.
“That’s what happened to mine,” Louis answered.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes.
Racetrack broke it. “Aw, frak. This was supposed to be fun for a change. I think your ideas about Galactica are crap,” she looked over her shoulder at Louis, “but what you guys are doing, it’s really sweet. Brave, in a way, too.”
“Thank you,” Louis said, glad for an opportunity to smooth things over. “Maybe it would make more sense to wait until we found a planet, but we just felt it was the right time.”
“No, I think you’re doing it the right way,” Racetrack answered. “Being a kid in this Fleet sucks, and it sucks even worse if you don’t have somebody looking out for you. Not that the kids at the crèche you’re going to don’t have somebody looking out for them-Amanda’s an amazing woman.”
“You’ve been there before?” Felix asked.
“Yeah, quite a bit on my supply runs. It’s a pretty nice place, considering.”
Almost before they knew it, they were at the Adrastria, and Felix and Racetrack concentrated on docking procedures. A few minutes more, and Louis and Racetrack were struggling to help Felix over the piles of ration sacks and out of the Raptor.
A short, solid woman with wrinkles around her eyes and beautiful red hair met them. She greeted Racetrack with a warm hug.
“Amanda, these are my friends I was telling you about.” Racetrack introduced them. Amanda was polite, but Louis could still feel her cool towards them a few notches. His palms started to sweat as his mind raced through dozens of reasons why that might be. He always came back to the same one.
“It would be a big help if you could cart the crèche’s rations down to them,” Racetrack said to Louis. He and Racetrack climbed back into the Raptor and hauled the ration bags onto a dolly, Amanda keeping count as they did.
When they were finished, Amanda asked Louis, “Do you have a sidearm with you?”
“No,” Louis said. “Of course not. Around kids, I’d never-”
Oddly, Amanda looked disappointed. “That’s fine. We don’t normally run into any trouble, mind, but it is nice to have that added insurance when you’re walking around with something so precious.” She patted the ration bags. “I’m sure your uniforms would be enough to scare any bad people off anyway.”
Racetrack had to make deliveries to other places on the ship and then continue on her run, so she wished Louis and Felix luck. She hugged Amanda again, and Amanda whispered something in her ear and patted her back. When Racetrack drew away, Louis thought he might have seen tears in her eyes.
Louis pushed the dolly, and both he and Amanda adjusted their pace to Felix’s.
“So, how long have you been married?” Amanda asked after they’d walked in silence just long enough for it to be uncomfortable.
“Almost a year and a half,” Felix answered, smiling.
“That’s nice,” Amanda said. “Still a little bit of the honeymoon phase left then, is there?”
Felix blushed. “As much as can be expected, in an environment like this.”
Amanda’s expression darkened. “Isn’t that the truth. Have either of you ever been to one of the Fleet’s crèches before? No? Well, we do have some day students with one or both parents alive, and others who go home with those children in the evenings-you know, a parent decides to take their son or daughter’s little friend in, that sort of thing. We don’t have any babies, since they almost always get placed with wet nurses right away. So, no little ones younger than two, and of course no one over fourteen.”
“Why none over fourteen?” Felix asked. “Are they in high school somewhere else?”
That chill permeated the air again. Amanda almost snorted. “High school? I believe there might have been a small one on the Chrion, but I also believe the elderly woman who ran it either died or retired some months ago.”
“Where do the older children go?” Louis asked warily.
Amanda held up her hands and shrugged. “Wherever they can survive. We used to keep them until they were sixteen, but the government simply doesn’t provide us with enough resources. The number of orphans grows, but the amount of rations doesn’t. We do our best to place as many as we can in apprenticeships, but there aren’t enough to go around.”
She paused for a moment and gnawed on her lip, as if she were deciding whether or not to say something. “Why not?” she muttered. Then, louder, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because you boys seem very nice, and I’m sure you know I think the world of Margaret. But the military is one of the largest and best employers in this Fleet, and yet it stubbornly refuses to take on anyone under seventeen.”
Felix said, “But children working on a battlestar-it’s so dangerous.”
“And the Prometheus is so safe? Or the Faru Sadin?” Amanda challenged. “I know it’s not ideal, but compared to their other options.... So many are too small to defend themselves, so gangs are an obvious choice, and the syndicates know it. And though one of the benefits of a population of only thirty-five thousand is that there aren’t many pedophiles left in existence, it’s so easy for a fifteen year old to lie and say she’s seventeen, and a lot of men can delude themselves into believing her.”
Felix’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open. They’d both suspected that life on Galactica was sheltered, but neither of them had envisioned the rest of the Fleet to be quite like this.
“I will speak to the Colonel as soon as we’re back on Galactica,” Louis said solemnly.
Amanda warmed to them considerably after that, though they didn’t have much more time to talk. A security guard greeted them at the hatch to the crèche, patted them down, then moved to unlock the door.
Felix was breathing heavily beside Louis. He was tired from the walk, but not that exhausted.
He mumbled, “Louis, this morning, I was in a bad mood because I was worried. The leg....” He looked up at Louis, suddenly so vulnerable. “What if they’re afraid of me?”
“It’ll be okay,” Louis reassured him.
Felix nodded, then grabbed Louis’s hand when the hatch swung open. Louis instinctively wanted to pull away, but he forced himself to give Felix’s fingers a comforting squeeze.
The crèche was all in one very large room divided into different areas. Chairs and books and school supplies were up front, a play area with an assortment of motley toys in the middle, an eating area behind that on one side of the room, and rows of sleeping pallets across from it. Louis guessed that the curtained-off spaces at the back were the showers and toilets. It was basically what Racetrack had said: a nice place, under the circumstances, but not somewhere you’d choose to spend your childhood.
They’d obviously showed up during mid-morning recess. A few curious eyes glanced up at them, but most returned immediately to their games. Most of the younger children were playing some sort of game with a patched parachute, led by a man about twenty-five years old and with Amanda’s dark red hair. A woman was playing a card game with a circle of older children in another corner, but many others were off playing on their own or in little clusters of friends.
“What do we do now?” Felix whispered. “Suddenly, it feels like I’m shopping for a child, and that feels really, really strange.”
Louis shrugged and was just about to recommend joining in the parachute game when something small and determined barreled into his legs, almost knocking him over.
“Sorry.”
A little girl about five years old looked up at them. The lower half of her face was different, but the shape of her eyes and their hazel irises.... From the nose up, it was like looking at one of the childhood photos Dee had kept in her locker.
He could tell the resemblance had left Felix dumbstruck, too.
The little girl stared at Felix seriously. “Lily won’t finish our game. You play for her?”
“Uh, sure,” Felix said. Honestly, it was hard to tell if she had asked a question or given an order, but she accepted his answer with a resolute nod. “What are we playing?”
“Pretty Queens of Kobol,” she said, already marching towards the back of the room. “It’s a board game. It’s real fun. You’ll like it.”
Felix gave Louis a harried but hopeful smile and followed her, Louis trailing behind him. The girl plopped down on a sleeping pallet near the very back of the room, with a board game set up between it and the next pallet and two stuffed animals sitting on the other two sides of the board, clearly the other two players.
“Come on,” the girl said, waving them over. “Lily was yellow. I’m pink, Snuffles is purple, and Mr. Digger is green.”
Felix froze when he saw she expected him to sit on the floor.
“It’s okay. We can do it,” Louis whispered in his ear.
It was a trial, and Amanda or one of the other teachers was probably going to have to help get him back up, but Louis managed to lower Felix down onto the pallet without hurting him. He stuck his prosthesis out behind Mr. Digger and bent his other leg in front of him.
“Whoa, what’s that?” the girl asked, pointing to the glinting metal of the prosthesis, her already big eyes growing even wider.
“Nothing,” Felix muttered, trying to tug his pant leg down, but the girl was already scrambling over Mr. Digger to get a better look.
“No. What is it?”
Felix only panicked for a moment. “It’s my leg. My real one got hurt, so a doctor had to give me a new one.”
“Huh.” Her head shot up. “Did a Cylon do it?”
“Uh, actually, yes.”
She grinned. “He hurt yours, so you took his leg?”
Felix was happily befuddled. “Well, no. It wasn’t that kind of Cylon.”
It was too late. She was already exuberantly acting out her version of the story, which involved a lot of rolling around on the pallet and growling and tugging at her shoelaces. But after not too long, she sat up and got down to business. “Okay. It’s my turn, so you watch close so you know what to do when it’s your turn.”
Louis watched for a little while. He remembered this game from when Amelia was that age. The goal was to roll the dice to find out how many spaces you could move, then work your way to different spots on the game board where you collected plastic jewelry to wear. The player who got a necklace, bracelet, earrings, and tiara first won.
The way the little girl played it, the object of the game was for her to wear everyone’s jewelry, and change the rules whenever necessary to accomplish that goal. Louis smiled; it hadn’t changed much from Amelia’s Pretty Queens of Kobol days.
Once he saw that Felix was doing fine, if a little overwhelmed, Louis took a better look around. The sleeping pallet was more of a nest than a bed. There were a few toys tucked around it, and a couple books leaning against the wall that were far too advanced for the girl playing with Felix. A photo of a man and a woman with a girl about her age, but not her, was taped to the wall above the pillow.
Louis turned his attention to the game again and nearly doubled over laughing. Felix was listening to the girl’s instructions intently, trying to balance the yellow crown on his head and trying not to grimace when she gave him “earrings” to put on. One of them had apparently gotten lost and had been replaced with a clothespin. Luckily, she won moments later, so Felix could take it off his ear before it cut off his circulation.
“Let’s play again,” she said as she started to remove the jewelry on the stuffed bear and dog.
Felix looked up. “Can Louis and...is that your sister, play this time?”
Louis turned around and saw a girl about twelve years old standing behind him. She had the same hazel color to her eyes, but not the other features that made the resemblance to Dee so striking.
The little girl looked at her sister hesitantly. “No. Snuffles and Mr. Digger still want to play.”
“Nina doesn’t want me to play because she knows I know she cheats.”
“I do not cheat, Tabby!” Nina squeaked.
The older girl rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Nina glowered at her sister, then turned Felix’s attention back to the new game.
Louis and the girl watched the two of them play for a while. He could tell she was gauging him and Felix. “She really does cheat,” she finally said.
Louis smiled. “I’ve noticed. It worries me a little, how in five minutes she’s already got him wrapped around her little finger.”
“She’s good at that.” She stared at Louis’s uniform. “You’re not new teachers, are you?”
“No, I’m Louis,” he said. He would’ve extended his hand, but the girl looked too wary. He didn’t want to scare her. “I work on the Galactica. And that’s Felix. He works there, too.”
She nodded, though she was clearly not satisfied with that answer.
“I’m Tabitha,” she finally said. “Nina calls me Tabby, but I don’t like anybody else to do it.”
“Tabitha. That’s a pretty name. It’s very nice to meet you.” Louis already felt like he was in over his head. Amelia’s friends had been tough to draw out enough to talk to them at this age, and they hadn’t gone through a sliver of the trauma this girl had. “Uh, is that your book there? The Mists of Minoa?”
“Yeah.” She toyed with the end of one of her neatly-braided pigtails. “You read it?”
“About a dozen times.”
“Me, too.”
“Who’s your favorite character?”
She looked around at nothing in particular, stalling for time. “I like Tirian,” she finally said. That was a safe answer. Louis nodded in approval. “But my favorite is Yveria.”
Louis lit up. Now that was an interesting choice, and for a kid her age to admit to a non-standard favorite anything was exciting. “Her battle at Hourglass Pass with the harpies was so amazing.”
Tabitha wasn’t quite smiling, but the tough exterior was cracking. “And when she and Nara team up against the Night Sisters.”
“Oh, or when she goes to the Great Oni for advice on how to get around the prophecy. That’s one of my favorite scenes.”
“I haven’t read Book Two,” Tabitha said. “We don’t have it.”
“You’re kidding me! Book One ended on such a cliffhanger.”
“I read Book Three, so I know how it all turns out,” Tabitha said. “That’s what’s important, anyway.”
“Endings are important, I agree,” Louis said. “But middles shouldn’t be underestimated, either. There are some pretty exciting journeys in middles that make the ending even better when you get there.”
Something he said had unintentionally hit a nerve, because he could see Tabitha draw back into her protective reserve. “Why are you here?”
This was it. Louis swallowed and prayed she wasn’t from Sagittaron. “Felix and I, uh...he’s my husband, and-he really wants to become a daddy.”
Tabitha’s back stiffened. “Nina and I already have parents.”
Louis’s heart sank. He’d assumed the pallet meant they lived here full-time, but now he realized they might merely live on a different ship and have to sleep here some nights when the shuttle schedule didn’t work out.
She kept talking. “Just because they’re with the Gods doesn’t mean we don’t have them anymore. Or that they don’t love us anymore.”
Louis tried not to look relieved, knowing how Tabitha would take that. “I understand completely.”
Tabitha thought for a moment. “What are you doing here, though? You said he wants to become a daddy. What about you?”
He looked over at Felix and Nina, then at the photo of young Tabitha wrapped in her parents’ arms.
“I’m like you in a way, you see. I’m a dad already, the same way you still have your parents, even though they’re not with you here anymore. But yes.” He took a deep breath. “I want to become a dad again, too.”
~~**~~**~~
Five years ago; nine months before the attacks
Louis was unpleasantly surprised when the scraping of metal against metal announced that someone had sat down across the table from him. He’d thought he’d been radiating the “frak off” vibe intensely enough that no one would dare cross his path, even in the mess. Apparently someone had ignored his signals.
When he finally dragged his eyes up to see who the intruder was, it made a lot more sense.
“Okay, Lieutenant,” Gina said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Spill.”
Louis frowned right back at her. “I’m guessing from your expression that you’re not here to offer me condolences upon the demise of my career?”
“Are you still going on about the promotion thing? The Admiral gave you the bad news last week.” When Louis didn’t respond, Gina rolled her eyes. “Drama queen. I’ll listen to you complain about that to your heart’s content, if you answer the question I know you know I’m asking first.”
Louis sighed. Her bluntness had been so entertaining, even enviable, when she had just been gl_inviere@integralsystem.com. It had felt like they’d gotten to know each other quite well, messaging back and forth as they traded information and friendly barbs in preparation for the Pegasus’s big overhaul coming up in several months. But especially with that added awkwardness that came with getting familiar with someone before meeting them face-to-face, now that she was actually here for in-person discussions with the Admiral, Louis found Gina’s candor to be mostly unnerving.
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Louis said, moving his food around the plate with his fork.
“Against Helena’s advice to use her treadmill because the ship’s gym smells like an armpit, I went there today.”
Louis noticed the slip-up with the Admiral’s name; Gina didn’t. He’d had reason to believe the rumors before, but that pretty much confirmed it for him. Not that he cared who Gina or the Admiral frakked.
“Ah. Now I see. Good question,” Louis said sagely. “Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the phenolic compounds that make sweat stink. It’s the bacteria that grow in body-temperature perspiration.”
Gina snorted and stole a grape from Louis’s plate, then popped it in her mouth. Something about the fact that such a beautiful, poised woman actually snorted made Louis relax and almost smile. Bluntness aside, he did sort of like her.
“Nice try, Hoshi. While I was down there, Lieutenant Patterson came in.” Suddenly, Louis’s mashed potatoes were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “He was…a little upset.”
Louis mumbled, “People are allowed to have bad days every now and then.”
Gina leaned forward, elbows on the table. “He broke the punching bag.”
“He-what? How do you even do that?”
Gina shrugged. “Got me, but now it’s just a torn-up pile of vinyl and filling. Anyway, I asked around, and I learned some rather interesting things about your relationship with Lieutenant Patterson.”
“We weren’t breaking any fraternization regs. We didn’t work together, and we’re the same rank.” He grumbled the last part. “Of course, a relationship with that large of an age difference usually would have the problem of different ranks, and if life were fair, there really should have been that problem by now….”
Gina ignored him. “I learned some other interesting things. Like how even though you two have been very much an exclusive couple for months, and even though Simes and Renner caught you two all over each other less than two weeks ago, you broke up with Patterson today, a few days before you’re both going on two months’ shore leave.”
“Best to make a clean, face-to-face break.”
“And I heard how you did the same thing to Lieutenant Griffin four days before another long shore leave. And to Lieutenant Singh a week before you ended a tour of duty.”
Louis could feel his face redden.
He knew Gina noticed. She said, “According to the scuttlebutt, that pattern is usually indicative of someone with a spouse in every port, but nobody believes that of you. So, I’m intrigued as to why you, monogamist extraordinaire and generally nice guy, keep making men fall in love with you and then break their hearts right before it’s time to set foot on a planet.”
He could argue that Ben hadn’t been in love with him, or that he hardly made men fall in love with him. Or he could tell her that he was always up-front about the fact that though they were exclusive, they weren’t going to be long-term. But Louis knew Gina, and he knew her fascination-bordering-on-obsession with knowing why people did the crazy things they did, so he knew there was no way he could skirt the question.
He pulled a picture out of his pocket, slapped it on the table, and slid it toward Gina. “That’s why.”
Gina looked down at the photo of Amelia and Jordan in the hammock, looked up at Louis, brow wrinkled, then looked at the photo again. “All right, those are your kids. That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is. You know I’m Sagittaron.”
Gina shook her head slowly, still confused.
Louis started talking. It was difficult at first, but as soon as he got going, the words poured out of him. He realized he’d never told anyone the full story before, and finally letting it all out felt like a long, deep exhale of relief. He told her about Susannah, how they’d met, why he’d enlisted, how a part of him had known from the start that it wouldn’t work but how hard they’d both tried anyway. He told her about Jude. He told her about how his life had slowly split in two after that, how the man who lusted after and frakked and sometimes even fell in love with male lieutenants on tours of duty lived completely separate from the devoted, neutered, Sagittaron Parenting Monthly poster-boy of a single father he was at home. He told her about Amelia’s pyramid games and Jordan’s recitals, vacations, parent-teacher conferences, birthdays, Saturnalias, Colonial Days, and lazy weekends at home, believing that if she had even a scrap of humanity in her, she would understand.
When he was done, Gina said, “You could fight her.”
You could fight her. He heard Jude’s voice ringing in his head. He nearly got up and left.
Gina continued before he had the chance to pick up his tray. “I’m serious. The Admiral would put in a good word for you. Her word carries a lot of weight.”
“Not on Sagittaron, it doesn’t. I’m beginning to doubt how much weight the Admiral’s word has even in Fleet Command, if she really did recommend me for a promotion.”
“She did,” Gina defended. “You know why you didn’t make senior lieutenant.”
“It’s not fair. I got in because the Fleet needed more Sagittarons. They say they want to promote us, to encourage others to join up, but that’s obviously a load of shit.”
“It isn’t fair, that’s true. I know you’re not going to like hearing this, but it is logical. Helena and I even talked about it. You haven’t had trouble progressing up the ranks until now-” Louis snorted in incredulity, so she amended, “-you haven’t had as much trouble progressing until now because that rank requires leadership abilities. I know from experience that you’re great at your job, but it sounds like you just haven’t proven that you can inspire respect and obedience in your subordinates.”
“Because I’m Sagittaron.”
Gina sighed. “Yes. Because you’re Sagittaron, and because a lot of the enlisted crew still carry some prejudice, it’s harder for you to gain their respect than it would be if you were from Caprica or Gemenon or even Aerilon. It’s not that Sagittarons can’t achieve high ranks, or that command doesn’t want you to. It’s that reality makes it so that it isn’t enough for a Sagittaron to be a good officer to get a promotion. You have to be a great officer.”
It burned hearing that, even though he’d known it was true when the Admiral had said the same thing to him last week, too. Louis was a little shocked that he’d find talking about his problems with Susannah preferable to any other topic, but anything was better than this.
“That’s exactly what I mean about parenting,” he said. “If I was more…conventional in other respects, Susannah and the rest of the world would just expect me to be a good dad. But because of who I am, I have to be the perfect dad to compensate. If that means being celibate, fine. I had very little sex during most of my marriage, and even less of it that I actually enjoyed. It’s not as if it’s a big, new sacrifice.”
Gina stared at him thoughtfully as she gnawed on a carrot stick. She had eaten more of Louis’s dinner than he had by that point. “If you took your case anywhere other than that boondocks of a planet, your ex wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Is she one of those no-medicine fanatics, too?”
“No, she’s not,” Louis said, raising his voice a little. “We belonged to a progressive sect of the Church of Sagittaron. And she faced a lot of shit from the community for me being in the military, but I give her credit for putting up with it. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotypes, though.”
“Considering the percentage of the population that is, it wasn’t an unreasonable question.”
Louis took a deep breath. He hadn’t intended to pick a fight. “All I’m saying is that she’s not doing this out of spite. If she were, it’d be done. Me being military or gay would’ve been pretty good arguments in a Sagittaron court to limit my parental rights. With both of those facts, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. She honestly thinks she’s acting in Amelia’s and Jordan’s best interest, the same way I would be up in arms if she married one of those ‘no-medicine fanatics.’”
“That’s different. You being gay doesn’t affect your children’s health and safety,” Gina answered. Then her expression changed, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. “You’re ashamed.”
“In her mind, it is a threat to her children, and she thinks that way for good reason,” Louis pressed on. “I lied to her about who I was for years, Gina. Why should she trust who I would bring home with me after that?”
“No, you’re ashamed, and that’s bullshit,” Gina continued. “And I have every right to say it’s bullshit. Where I grew up, the highest accomplishment a woman could attain was to have a child. Sex between women was accepted, but exclusively with women? No way. But the way the Colonies are now, there’s so little excuse not to be who you are.”
“I am who I am!” Louis ground out, pounding his fist on the table. He vaguely noticed their ever-loudening conversation had attracted the attention of several people at nearby tables, but he was too caught up in the moment to care. “It’s not a perfect life, but it’s mine. I’m not going to risk losing the most important part of it because you don’t approve of the way I’ve found to make it work.”
He knocked his chair over when he stood up, but he didn’t bother to pick it up, or to take his tray with him. Gina called after him, voice contrite, but he stormed out of the mess.
He had marched half-way across the ship before he realized he’d left the photograph on the table. Frak. Gina would have picked it up by now. She was probably wandering around the ship, trying to track him down to give it back and apologize. He had been hoping he could avoid her until he went on shore leave, even if they would have to work together preparing for the overhaul when he got back.
His aversion to seeing Gina again wasn’t because he was angry at her, though he still was. It was because he knew that when she apologized, he’d feel obligated to make her understand by telling her the one thing he could barely admit to himself.
He and Susannah had belonged to a progressive sect. Jordan and Amelia had both been christened there and had gone to Saturday temple school there. But lately, Amelia had become friends with a couple girls whom she’d met through the Sagittaron civil rights organization she volunteered with. They seemed like nice enough girls, but they belonged to one of the most traditional, strict sects. Amelia had started going to services with them at their temple rather than with her mother and brother, and she’d joined their youth group.
Louis had been able to write it off as youthful experimentation until one evening when he’d brought Amelia supper in her room as she crammed for an exam. When he opened the door, he saw her sitting at her desk, right elbow on the desktop, right hand against her temple, propping her head up as she read. Her shirtsleeve had slid down just far enough that Louis could see a small Sun of Apollo tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
Amelia had worn the sun-and-arrows symbol on a necklace for years, but seeing it burned into her skin like that was different. Only the most ardent believers in the traditional sects still did that. Suddenly, Louis felt disgraced and defenseless, so deeply terrified of what Amelia would say if she saw him, really saw all of him.
Then Amelia had looked up, thanked him for bringing food, and only stared at him oddly when he froze and didn’t put the plate in her outstretched hand. Of course, nothing had changed for her in that moment. But for the first time, Louis realized that Susannah was far from the only reason he had to keep that other part of his life separate and secret.
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
Felix was still catching his breath while Louis turned himself so they both had their heads at the right end of the bed again. He propped his head up with one hand and ran the other down Felix’s side, a smug grin on his lips.
“So,” Louis said, waggling his eyebrows, “is the new bed officially broken in?”
“Good gods yes,” Felix panted, smiling as his eyes rolled back into his head. “For you?”
“Oh yeah,” Louis nearly laughed. “You couldn’t tell from how I had to quit working on you for a while to yell ‘oh, baby, just like that!’ over and over again?”
“I never would’ve guessed you’d be so vocal in private,” Felix said, sliding a hand to the back of Louis’s neck and pulling himself in closer. “It’s really hot.”
Felix kissed him in a way that normally would have equated to foreplay. Since they’d just finished, though, it had a satisfying ease and languor to it, letting them enjoy the pleasure and sensuality of the act itself rather than as a prelude to anything else.
When they finally broke apart, Louis said, “Well, sex is a little different in our own quarters than it is in a bunk with only a curtain separating us from half a dozen roommates.”
“Our own quarters,” Felix repeated happily. “So ridiculously overdue, XO.”
“Acting XO,” Louis corrected.
That was also the answer to Felix’s unspoken question of why the move was so long overdue. Louis essentially being second-in-command should have rated private quarters. But Colonel Tigh hadn’t suggested a move, and Louis hadn’t pressed for one, because they both knew what kind of signal that would send. It would be irrefutable confirmation that the “acting” part of Louis’s title was a sham, that he was permanent XO to a Cylon commander and that the Old Man was never coming back to CIC. While the Admiral occupied his old quarters, and while Louis and Tigh stayed where they had been, people who needed to believe that Adama would pull himself back together after the loss of his son could delude themselves a little longer. Now that Louis and Felix were going to have children, though, they could have the private quarters they already merited without it making a statement.
“Anyway,” Felix continued, grinning lasciviously, “next, I think we should break in the table. Tomorrow morning, before duty. Very, very loudly.”
“Before duty? You’re insatiable,” Louis laughed.
“And you love it.”
He answered Felix with another kiss. It was strange how much this felt like a honeymoon, though they’d been married for well over a year. On further consideration, Louis supposed it wasn’t that strange, since they’d had about two hours’ worth of a honeymoon between when they’d dragged the priest out of bed to marry them and when Felix had boarded the Raptor to go to the Demetrius. Not to mention, Felix was now finally healthy enough to thoroughly enjoy sex again and not be self-conscious. The past couple months, it had seemed that Felix was trying to make up for lost time. Louis didn’t mind.
Louis sat up, then leaned back on his elbows, looking around the room. “It is a nice place. Somehow, it makes everything seem more real, doesn’t it?”
“Makes what feel more real?” Felix asked as he pressed lazy kisses to Louis’s shoulder, chest, neck, anywhere he could easily reach. It appeared that Felix didn’t want to wait until morning to break in the table.
“I don’t know. Living in the racks, sometimes it felt more like we were the house fathers of an extremely geeky fraternity than a married couple.”
Felix muffled a snicker against Louis’s shoulder. “Sigma Iota Sigma, the CIC fraternity. You should tell that one to Meeker. She’d get a kick out of it.”
Then Felix started kissing his neck again, and just when Louis was about to give in and suggest moving their little housewarming party to the table, Felix did something that made Louis freeze. He would have brushed it aside as an accident and kept going, but then Felix traced his fingers along the scar on his shoulder again, even more deliberately.
Louis removed Felix’s hand, turned to face him, and shook his head. Felix looked stricken, but if Louis could respect Felix’s wishes by not touching the scar tissue on his stump, Felix could honor this one boundary, too.
The scar was from a bullet wound-just a graze, but it had hurt like hell at the time. He’d received it when he, Helo, and Colonel Tigh had gotten pinned down in CIC by a band of mutinying civilians. If Seelix and Showboat had planned the mutiny a little better and sent trained marines to take CIC instead, they would’ve been dead in minutes. The bridge crew had done Galactica proud, though, holding off the invaders and keeping the ship running for six hours before reinforcements finally arrived.
Louis never wore his sidearm on duty, so he’d been trying to help Ensign Garcia get the security feeds and sensors back online while Helo covered them. The bullet had done little more than knick Louis’s shoulder, but it caught Garcia square in the throat. She bled out hours before a medic made it to CIC.
Felix paled when it dawned on him what he’d done. “I am so, so sorry, Louis. I wasn’t even thinking.”
Louis kissed Felix’s fingers as apology accepted. “I know.”
Felix relaxed, but that had pretty well killed the mood for both of them. Maybe it was for the best, Louis reasoned. As arousing as Felix was when he got into one of these amorous moods, they’d just finished having sex, and Louis wasn’t exactly a teenager anymore when it came to getting things going a second time.
It was a lousy note to go to sleep on, though. He and Felix both lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling. For a moment, Louis wished they were back in their old rack. The rack had been so narrow that they couldn’t both fit in it without one of them holding the other.
“We should schedule another visit with Tabitha and Nina,” Louis said, trying to cheer himself up as much as Felix. “Getting there around 0930 and staying until after lunch worked well last week, don’t you think?”
Louis turned his head and met Felix’s eyes. Felix nodded and said, “That last visit got me thinking about something. What’s that book you and Tabitha were talking about?”
“Mists of Minoa.”
“Yeah.” Felix smiled, and his eyes looked very distant.
“Have you read the series?”
Felix snapped back to the present. “Me? No. I tried it when I was in high school, but I couldn’t make it past the first fifty pages. Just not my thing. But it was one of my mother’s favorite books.”
Felix had started talking more about his mother and sister a couple months after he’d come home from his stay on the Inchon Velle, about the same time he’d started talking about Dee again. Based on the stories Felix told, Louis liked her immensely.
He continued, “Hearing you and Tabitha talk about it made me remember, not the very last time, but one of the last phone conversations I had with her. She called to tell me my sister was pregnant. Of course she was ecstatic. But then Mom said, ‘Now if I can just live to see you settled down with a nice man, I’ll be satisfied with my life.’”
Felix turned over and reached out to touch Louis’s cheek. “She would’ve liked you. Who am I kidding? She would’ve adored you. You would’ve easily beaten out Libby’s husband for the title of favorite son-in-law.”
Louis didn’t know what to say. He’d become the black sheep of his family when he’d gotten Susannah pregnant out of wedlock, then had been disowned when he’d enlisted. The only contact he’d had with his family for years had been one sister who called whenever there was a birth or a death, and his mother sent Amelia and Jordan Saturnalia cards. The idea of bringing Felix home to meet any of them was so bizarre that he couldn’t even imagine that scenario.
Felix slid over and wrapped an arm around him. “Do you ever think about what it would’ve been like if we’d met each other before the attacks?” Felix asked.
This was the man whom Louis had promised himself to for the rest of their lives, without reservation. And yet, I would have left you, Louis thought. It would have been so hard, but it would have been a simple choice.
“No, I don’t,” Louis snapped.
Felix lifted his head from the pillow. “Okay, I’m confused. I tell you that my mom would’ve loved you, and you act like I’m trying to pick a fight. What’s going on in your head lately, Louis?”
“Sorry,” Louis said, scrubbing his hand down his face. “I don’t know.”
“Is it the adoption? You seem so happy whenever we visit the crèche.”
“No, it’s not that.” Even if Felix, who’d grown up in a world where a mother wishing her son would settle down with a nice man was the rule rather than the exception, could understand, there was no way Louis could put it into words. “I’m fine.”
Felix sighed. “No, you’re not. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He guided Louis’s head to his shoulder and kissed his brow. “All I meant was, I wish you could have known my mom and my sister. And I wish I could’ve known Jordan and Amelia.”
Louis squeezed his eyes shut. “Me, too.”
~~**~~**~~
Seven years ago; three years before the attacks
Louis was grateful that Sagittaron’s shorter days had finally made it so daytime in Antioch was no longer in sync with daytime in Caprica City. The Capricans were usually fairly considerate about not making their calls home too long-certainly better than the Gemenese, who’d talk all evening if you let them-but there were just so many crew members from Caprica City that the line for a call station had usually been ridiculously long.
This time, there was only one other person making a call when Louis stepped into one of the call station booths, sliding the glass door shut behind him. It was Sunday afternoon in Antioch, but it was Monday at three in the morning on the Pegasus. Louis had been up for the past twenty hours straight, and he had duty at 0700. His muscles ached with exhaustion, but he knew there was no way he was going to get any sleep tonight.
He picked up the receiver, gave the number to the ship-to-shore operator, and then sank to the floor of the booth in concession to his protesting leg muscles. The phone rang once, twice, three times.
“Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up,” he chanted under his breath, the note of desperation in his voice ringing louder with each repetition.
The receiver clicked on the other end. “Hello?”
Louis brightened instantly. “Hey! Jordan! How’re you doing, kiddo?”
Jordan’s hesitation went on way too long. “Fine. Amelia’s not here. She’s at Marcy’s house.”
“That’s okay. I’m really glad I caught you.” Another long stretch of silence. Usually, Jordan was bursting with news whenever Louis called. He took a wild guess at what might be wrong. “You had your audition for the County Youth Orchestra this week, right? How’d that go?”
“All right. I got in.”
“Congratulations!” All Louis heard in reply was a noncommittal mumble. “You don’t seem too excited about it. What’s wrong?”
Jordan gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Bruno’s sick.”
Oh, frak. Bruno was an old, old dog. Susannah had had Bruno all the way back when Louis had first met her. That meant Louis had a pretty good idea of where this was going. Another image from earlier that day flashed through his mind, but he pushed it back. “Did your mom take him to the vet?”
“On Thursday.” Jordan’s voice cracked. “He won’t eat, and he’s been acting funny, like he didn’t know where he was. Doc Greene gave him medicine and said if he wasn’t better in a couple days, it was probably a tumor.”
“And he’s not feeling better?”
“No.” Louis could hear Jordan crying, but he could also tell Jordan was trying to hide it.
“Oh, no. Oh, Jordan, I’m so sorry.” Louis wanted nothing more than to be able to hug Jordan, but Antioch had never felt as far away as it did in that moment. The guilt physically hurt, like a hole in his chest. “Are you going with your mom when you…take him back to the vet?”
Jordan sniffed. “Mom has to work. Randall and me are taking him.”
Louis grimaced. Randall was Susannah’s new boyfriend. No, that wasn’t fair, Louis thought. He wasn’t new; Louis had heard the kids mention him on and off for about eight months now. All five of them had had lunch together one time when Louis had a few days’ leave. He was a short, prematurely balding accountant who was probably a nice enough guy, but Louis disliked him if for no other reason than it seemed like he was always available to take Amelia and Jordan wherever they wanted to go.
“I’m glad you don’t have to go through this alone,” Louis said, struggling. “I wish so much that I could be there for you.”
“I know.”
“Bruno’s had a good, long life,” Louis said, knowing that nothing he could say would help. “He’s been really lucky to have you for a friend, especially. I mean, some dogs have pretty nice dog beds, but not many Saint Bernards get to share a bed with their master. I remember one Saturday, I came into your room to wake you up, and I don’t know how, but Bruno had gotten under the sheets and had his head on the pillow next to yours. I couldn’t tell which one of you snored louder.”
Jordan made a noise, something between a laugh and a hiccup. “And he drooled all over the pillow. He slept like that a lot more often than you know, Dad. He’s a good dog. The best.”
“Good dog, nice doggie,” Private Rhimes quietly sing-songed. The dog only bared its teeth even more as it growled, the tangled gray fur on its neck ruffed up. “We’re not gonna hurt ya. We just want in the building. Er, what’s left of the building.”
“Just shoot the damn thing,” Private Stoates said. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the setting sun.
“Hold your fire, for now,” Louis said, scanning the windows of nearby buildings.
Sergeant Hendricks added after a stretch of silence, “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves if we don’t have to. Nobody’s shooting at us now, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s watching.” Then he muttered almost to himself, “Frakkin’ dirt eaters.”
Louis adjusted the bag full of comm gear on his back.
Rhimes said, “C’mon, pup. Work with me. I’m trying to help you here, too.”
“Sorry, bad connection. What was that?” Louis said when he snapped back into the moment at the sound of Jordan’s voice, but not fast enough to process what he said.
“Why does anybody have to die, Dad? If the Gods are so good, why do they do this to us?”
Rhimes hadn’t gotten the dog to completely cooperate, but it did retreat into the building. Louis let Hendricks take point. As an ensign, Louis was the highest-ranking member of the team, and he was a good shot, but even Rhimes had more experience in the field than Louis did. Not to mention, like most run-of-the-mill infantrymen, these guys didn’t trust a comm nerd to keep his head under fire. They didn’t know he was Sagittaron, thank the Gods.
They methodically swept each room, searching for hold-outs. The airstrike hadn’t been quite on target, so this building hadn’t been demolished as planned. Instead, it was hit just hard enough to knock down some rafters and loosen some supports-in other words, just hard enough to be frakking dangerous.
Just when Louis was mentally cursing Commander Cain for the dozenth time for convincing him that the best way to get promoted to CIC was to take on voluntary combat missions, they came to the room the dog was in. It growled and paced, protecting an area where a large chunk of ceiling had crashed to the floor. They didn’t see anything in the room with the initial sweep, but they couldn’t get a good look at that back corner with the dog pacing.
“Cool it, pup. Remember me?” Rhimes said. Stoates rolled her eyes.
Rhimes took his life into his hands and walked very close to the dog, though at least he had enough sense to keep his gun drawn. “Whatcha got there, pup? Oh, shit.”
Rhimes stepped back. The dog was focused on Rhimes, so Louis took a few steps and craned his neck to get a better look at the pile of rubble.
The dog’s master was about Amelia’s age. His eyes were wide and empty, and yet somehow afraid at the same time, too. His legs were sticking out from the other side of the rubble at an angle that didn’t make sense. The only reasonable conclusion was that he’d been cut in two.
“Dad? You there?”
Louis said, “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I’m here. I don’t know why the Gods do that, Jordan. I guess we’ve got to just be grateful for the time that we have with the ones we love.”
“Yeah,” Jordan said. Louis could hear the tears threatening to come back. “I gotta go, Dad.”
Louis had to stop himself from sighing in disappointment. “You do? Okay. It was so good to hear your voice. I miss you guys so much, and I really wish I could be there for you and Bruno.”
“Me, too.”
“I love you. Tell Amelia ‘love you’ for me, too, and I’m sorry I missed her.”
“I will.”
“I love you, kiddo,” Louis repeated.
“Love you too, Dad. You coming home soon?”
The knot in Louis’s chest tightened. “In a couple months.”
“Okay. I’ll tell Amelia. Bye.”
“Good-bye. I love you.”
The receiver clicked, the connection cut. Louis stared at it in his hand for a solid minute before he finally threw it at the wall of the call station booth. Then he rested his forehead against his knees and covered his head with his hands, shoulders shaking as he tried and failed to not let all the day’s failures wash over him again.
CONTINUE TO PART 3
RETURN TO PART 1
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
It should have been a happy day, but both Louis and Felix woke up in foul moods. Instead of his normal grumbling at the long-dead prosthetics manufacturer, Felix cursed every medical worker who had ever had anything to do with his recovery as he struggled to adjust the stump cap. Louis snapped at an ensign for using up all the hot water when he knew his icy shower was more likely the result of him going to the head a little later than usual and everyone before him cheating by taking an extra fifteen or thirty seconds.
He wasn’t sure what Felix’s problem was. Louis knew his own irritability stemmed from not sleeping well. No, that was a half-lie, Louis chastised himself. He hadn’t slept well because he’d dreamt of the Scylla last night.
The Scylla hadn’t haunted his dreams for a long time, but Louis supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that it would resurface now. He’d never seen the passenger manifests himself, but Shaw had told him more than he’d ever wanted to know about it later, her eyes glassy and unfocused from something he guessed wasn’t merely alcohol.
“There were families traveling together on that ship,” she had said.
Not just couples. Families.
Felix swore under his breath as he walked beside Louis. Cottle had recommended Felix go back to using his canes, just for today, since they would be moving around so much, but Felix had been adamantly opposed to that idea. They had finally compromised on him using one regular cane, an “old man cane,” as Felix called it. Even so, Louis could tell Felix wasn’t at all happy showing even that much frailty.
Louis sighed. It was going to be a long day anyway; both of them going into it this worked up would make it feel like an eternity. He almost couldn’t believe he was saying it, but it was worth a try. “Okay. Let’s think of five things we’re grateful for.”
Felix groaned. “That has got to be the corniest thing you’ve ever suggested.”
Louis silently agreed, but he pressed on anyway. “But it works. Fine, I’ll start. I’m grateful that Nissin found that crate of sweetener packets, because they do make the algae almost edible. Now it’s your turn.”
“Life sucks.”
Louis threw his hands up in frustration.
“Okay, okay,” Felix said, then thought for a moment. “I’m grateful that Saroyan finally has a good enough handle on tactical that I can take a day off work without fearing that we’re dead meat if Cavil’s forces show up. Well, not fearing it any more than usual, anyway.”
“See? Was that so hard?”
“Yes.” Then Felix’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “I’ve got another one.” He waited until a group of deckhands passed them, then leaned close to Louis’s ear and muttered, “I am really, really grateful that I’m finally healed enough to top again.”
Louis laughed at that, and he grinned at the memory of two nights ago. “You and me both, baby.”
Felix said, “We need two more.”
“No, just one more.”
“But that was only three.”
“That last one was good enough to be worth two points,” Louis said.
Felix looked quite smug. They walked in much more companionable silence. Just as they reached the hangar deck, Felix said, “Obviously, number five is our trip to the Adrastria today. Right?”
“Right,” Louis said, not as brightly as he’d intended.
Felix shifted his cane to his other hand so he could take hold of Louis’s elbow. “Louis, I meant what I said. I want this, but if you’re not ready, I can wait. Gods know you’ve waited for me for a lot of things.”
“I’m ready,” Louis replied. “Maybe a little nervous, but ready.”
“Good morning!”
Louis was relieved when Racetrack interrupted them, yelling at them and waving from half-way across the hangar deck. She strode over to meet them.
“Good morning, Ensign,” Louis said. “You ready for us?”
“Almost. Just loading the last of the ration bags. We’ll get out of here on time if you’d be willing to give me a hand, Captain.”
“Sure,” Louis said, already moving to help when both of them realized at the same time how lost and awkward Felix was looking as the deck bustled around him.
Racetrack spoke up first. “Hey, Lieutenant Gaeta. Would you be my co-pilot today?”
Felix turned his head. “What?”
“Co-pilot. You’ve got wings, after all.”
Felix knew that co-piloting a routine ship-to-ship shuttle was mostly a mere gesture, but Louis could tell he appreciated it. “Sounds great. And Racetrack? This morning, it’s Felix, not Lieutenant Gaeta.”
Racetrack smiled at the returned kindness. They both helped Felix into the Raptor, then threw the last few fifty-pound ration bags in. Racetrack maneuvered over the bags and into the pilot’s seat with an ease that betrayed how much practice she’d had doing this, and Louis clambered over them with considerably less grace and sat in the ECO’s chair.
As they strapped themselves in, Racetrack said over the comm, “LSO, this is Racetrack. Raptor 713 is ready for its 0930 shuttle run.
“Racetrack, this is the LSO.” Louis recognized Lieutenant Alonzo’s voice over the wireless. It seemed like only yesterday he was bawling the kid out for not scrambling his call to the baseship correctly. In fact, that was yesterday, he realized. The new cross-training regime was a good idea, but it was always a surprise what positions people ended up in each day. “Confirm your flight plan.”
“Copy that. We’re taking rations to the Adrastria, Cassandra, Boreas, and Gemenon Traveler.”
“‘We?’” Alonzo asked.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got company today. For the Adrastria part of my run, my co-pilot is-”
“Lieutenant Gaeta,” Felix interrupted.
Racetrack pretended to be irritated, but she could barely suppress her smile. “Felix, protocol is we use your callsign.”
“No,” Felix stated resolutely. “Louis and Alonzo don’t know what it is, and I intend to keep it that way.”
Louis leaned around in his seat so he could see Felix’s face. “Oh come on, what is it?”
Felix spoke into the comm. “Lieutenant Gaeta co-piloting and Captain Hoshi at ECO.” He swiveled around to face Louis. “No.”
“Now you’ve got my curiosity piqued, too,” Alonzo said over the comm. “You’re third in the queue right now. If you get it out of him before I get back to you, promise you’ll tell me, Captain?”
Felix clicked off the wireless before Louis could answer. He was adorable when he was flustered, Louis thought.
Felix pointed at Racetrack before she could open her mouth. “I have dirt on you all the way back to your nugget days, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Racetrack laughed and patted his shoulder. “Aw, I wasn’t going to tell, Felix. I’m just glad to have you guys along. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anybody to joke around with me on duty.” Her smile faltered, and she turned back to the controls.
Even after all this time, it was odd to see Racetrack without Skulls. With pilot ranks thinned as much as they were, the Colonel still would have had Racetrack make her shuttle runs without an ECO if he was alive. But after years of seeing Racetrack always followed by her six-foot-five, gawky, grinning shadow, she seemed even more alone than most.
Racetrack and Felix continued their pre-flight check. When they’d waited much longer than usual, Racetrack called up to the LSO again. “Did the guy ahead of us fall asleep or something?”
Alonzo sighed. “No. Starbuck’s the one right ahead of you. I think she’s still tuning herself to her magical Earth music or something.”
Louis couldn’t see it, but he knew Felix was rolling his eyes.
“Frak,” Racetrack muttered. “Adama peeks out from his hidey hole to do one thing, and it’s to give her back her flight status.”
“Frakking crazy,” Felix added.
“Hey, back off, both of you,” Louis said sternly. “Whatever else she is, she’s a good pilot. And she hasn’t exactly had it easy as of late.”
Louis peered around and saw that Felix looked chastened. He thought he could sense guilt radiating from Racetrack, too, though she schooled her expressions better than Felix did.
“If you ever need more pilots for the habitable planet canvassing missions, I do have a history of finding things.” Racetrack smiled weakly, like she already knew the answer she was going to get, but she had to know she’d tried.
Louis smiled back just as wanly. “It would be different if it was up to me, but it’s not. Sorry.”
Racetrack nodded and focused on something on the dash.
Despite the way she was talking that morning, Louis knew Racetrack was aware of how lucky she was to be flying at all. Most of the mutineers who weren’t dead or locked away forever on the Astral Queen had been busted down to lower than nothing, permanent KP or sewage duty or tylium-shoveling. Racetrack had sworn she hadn’t known what was going on, though no one really believed her, and she knew it.
Everyone knew why Adama had treated her differently than so many of the others. She had tried to help Starbuck drag Lee Adama to the infirmary. Even though they hadn’t gotten him there in time, the fact that she’d tried to save his son had made the Old Man grateful enough to save Racetrack from the firing squad in turn. But Colonel Tigh had said as much as that as long as Adama lived, Racetrack was never going to make her way back to where she’d been before everything went to hell.
Finally, Alonzo cleared them for takeoff. All three of them got a good look at Galactica as they sailed out into the Fleet. She was more than just battle-scarred. There were more gaping holes in her armor plating than protected areas left. All but one of her main batteries had been maimed beyond repair. And knowing that she was riddled with the invisible webs of stress fractures that one of the knuckledraggers had first noticed, that the Cylons had tried to heal but couldn’t...Louis had never developed the kind of emotional attachment to Galactica that her original crew had, but it made even him sad to look at the damage.
“Uh, hear any interesting news?” Felix said, casting about for something to take their minds off the view.
Racetrack shrugged, already falling back into the comfortable apathy of pilots. “Not much. Caprica Six is testifying in Boomer’s trial today. Sounds like Boomer’s still swearing up and down that she knows where the Colony is and that she’ll take us there if the Cylons give her a reprieve.”
“I’m surprised the Cylons are still here,” Felix said flatly, staring out into the black. “It’s not like they have much left to tie them to us. Tory and Caprica Six are with them now, and there’s no way Colonel Tigh will leave Galactica at this point. Which means there’s no way Mrs. Tigh will leave, either. With Tyrol dead, and Anders as good as, why are they waiting around for us? Their ship is in better shape than any of ours.”
“I don’t know, procreation, they keep saying?” Racetrack said. “Maybe they’re hoping the Agathons will jump ship eventually, since no human but Baltar or Helo would voluntarily frak a Cylon.”
That was dangerous territory. Louis said the first thing that came to his mind to get Felix out of that conversation. “What if Boomer’s telling the truth? It’d be worth it, using Galactica’s last jump to take out Cavil once and for all.”
Louis felt more than saw their cold stares. “And how do you propose we do that?” Felix asked.
“Simple. Jump Galactica into the heart of the Colony, with all her nukes set to go off automatically. Hang on just long enough for the skeleton crew to get to Raptors, set the timer, and jump them out of there.”
“Use our home as a battering ram?” Racetrack said through gritted teeth.
“That’s what happened to mine,” Louis answered.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes.
Racetrack broke it. “Aw, frak. This was supposed to be fun for a change. I think your ideas about Galactica are crap,” she looked over her shoulder at Louis, “but what you guys are doing, it’s really sweet. Brave, in a way, too.”
“Thank you,” Louis said, glad for an opportunity to smooth things over. “Maybe it would make more sense to wait until we found a planet, but we just felt it was the right time.”
“No, I think you’re doing it the right way,” Racetrack answered. “Being a kid in this Fleet sucks, and it sucks even worse if you don’t have somebody looking out for you. Not that the kids at the crèche you’re going to don’t have somebody looking out for them-Amanda’s an amazing woman.”
“You’ve been there before?” Felix asked.
“Yeah, quite a bit on my supply runs. It’s a pretty nice place, considering.”
Almost before they knew it, they were at the Adrastria, and Felix and Racetrack concentrated on docking procedures. A few minutes more, and Louis and Racetrack were struggling to help Felix over the piles of ration sacks and out of the Raptor.
A short, solid woman with wrinkles around her eyes and beautiful red hair met them. She greeted Racetrack with a warm hug.
“Amanda, these are my friends I was telling you about.” Racetrack introduced them. Amanda was polite, but Louis could still feel her cool towards them a few notches. His palms started to sweat as his mind raced through dozens of reasons why that might be. He always came back to the same one.
“It would be a big help if you could cart the crèche’s rations down to them,” Racetrack said to Louis. He and Racetrack climbed back into the Raptor and hauled the ration bags onto a dolly, Amanda keeping count as they did.
When they were finished, Amanda asked Louis, “Do you have a sidearm with you?”
“No,” Louis said. “Of course not. Around kids, I’d never-”
Oddly, Amanda looked disappointed. “That’s fine. We don’t normally run into any trouble, mind, but it is nice to have that added insurance when you’re walking around with something so precious.” She patted the ration bags. “I’m sure your uniforms would be enough to scare any bad people off anyway.”
Racetrack had to make deliveries to other places on the ship and then continue on her run, so she wished Louis and Felix luck. She hugged Amanda again, and Amanda whispered something in her ear and patted her back. When Racetrack drew away, Louis thought he might have seen tears in her eyes.
Louis pushed the dolly, and both he and Amanda adjusted their pace to Felix’s.
“So, how long have you been married?” Amanda asked after they’d walked in silence just long enough for it to be uncomfortable.
“Almost a year and a half,” Felix answered, smiling.
“That’s nice,” Amanda said. “Still a little bit of the honeymoon phase left then, is there?”
Felix blushed. “As much as can be expected, in an environment like this.”
Amanda’s expression darkened. “Isn’t that the truth. Have either of you ever been to one of the Fleet’s crèches before? No? Well, we do have some day students with one or both parents alive, and others who go home with those children in the evenings-you know, a parent decides to take their son or daughter’s little friend in, that sort of thing. We don’t have any babies, since they almost always get placed with wet nurses right away. So, no little ones younger than two, and of course no one over fourteen.”
“Why none over fourteen?” Felix asked. “Are they in high school somewhere else?”
That chill permeated the air again. Amanda almost snorted. “High school? I believe there might have been a small one on the Chrion, but I also believe the elderly woman who ran it either died or retired some months ago.”
“Where do the older children go?” Louis asked warily.
Amanda held up her hands and shrugged. “Wherever they can survive. We used to keep them until they were sixteen, but the government simply doesn’t provide us with enough resources. The number of orphans grows, but the amount of rations doesn’t. We do our best to place as many as we can in apprenticeships, but there aren’t enough to go around.”
She paused for a moment and gnawed on her lip, as if she were deciding whether or not to say something. “Why not?” she muttered. Then, louder, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because you boys seem very nice, and I’m sure you know I think the world of Margaret. But the military is one of the largest and best employers in this Fleet, and yet it stubbornly refuses to take on anyone under seventeen.”
Felix said, “But children working on a battlestar-it’s so dangerous.”
“And the Prometheus is so safe? Or the Faru Sadin?” Amanda challenged. “I know it’s not ideal, but compared to their other options.... So many are too small to defend themselves, so gangs are an obvious choice, and the syndicates know it. And though one of the benefits of a population of only thirty-five thousand is that there aren’t many pedophiles left in existence, it’s so easy for a fifteen year old to lie and say she’s seventeen, and a lot of men can delude themselves into believing her.”
Felix’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open. They’d both suspected that life on Galactica was sheltered, but neither of them had envisioned the rest of the Fleet to be quite like this.
“I will speak to the Colonel as soon as we’re back on Galactica,” Louis said solemnly.
Amanda warmed to them considerably after that, though they didn’t have much more time to talk. A security guard greeted them at the hatch to the crèche, patted them down, then moved to unlock the door.
Felix was breathing heavily beside Louis. He was tired from the walk, but not that exhausted.
He mumbled, “Louis, this morning, I was in a bad mood because I was worried. The leg....” He looked up at Louis, suddenly so vulnerable. “What if they’re afraid of me?”
“It’ll be okay,” Louis reassured him.
Felix nodded, then grabbed Louis’s hand when the hatch swung open. Louis instinctively wanted to pull away, but he forced himself to give Felix’s fingers a comforting squeeze.
The crèche was all in one very large room divided into different areas. Chairs and books and school supplies were up front, a play area with an assortment of motley toys in the middle, an eating area behind that on one side of the room, and rows of sleeping pallets across from it. Louis guessed that the curtained-off spaces at the back were the showers and toilets. It was basically what Racetrack had said: a nice place, under the circumstances, but not somewhere you’d choose to spend your childhood.
They’d obviously showed up during mid-morning recess. A few curious eyes glanced up at them, but most returned immediately to their games. Most of the younger children were playing some sort of game with a patched parachute, led by a man about twenty-five years old and with Amanda’s dark red hair. A woman was playing a card game with a circle of older children in another corner, but many others were off playing on their own or in little clusters of friends.
“What do we do now?” Felix whispered. “Suddenly, it feels like I’m shopping for a child, and that feels really, really strange.”
Louis shrugged and was just about to recommend joining in the parachute game when something small and determined barreled into his legs, almost knocking him over.
“Sorry.”
A little girl about five years old looked up at them. The lower half of her face was different, but the shape of her eyes and their hazel irises.... From the nose up, it was like looking at one of the childhood photos Dee had kept in her locker.
He could tell the resemblance had left Felix dumbstruck, too.
The little girl stared at Felix seriously. “Lily won’t finish our game. You play for her?”
“Uh, sure,” Felix said. Honestly, it was hard to tell if she had asked a question or given an order, but she accepted his answer with a resolute nod. “What are we playing?”
“Pretty Queens of Kobol,” she said, already marching towards the back of the room. “It’s a board game. It’s real fun. You’ll like it.”
Felix gave Louis a harried but hopeful smile and followed her, Louis trailing behind him. The girl plopped down on a sleeping pallet near the very back of the room, with a board game set up between it and the next pallet and two stuffed animals sitting on the other two sides of the board, clearly the other two players.
“Come on,” the girl said, waving them over. “Lily was yellow. I’m pink, Snuffles is purple, and Mr. Digger is green.”
Felix froze when he saw she expected him to sit on the floor.
“It’s okay. We can do it,” Louis whispered in his ear.
It was a trial, and Amanda or one of the other teachers was probably going to have to help get him back up, but Louis managed to lower Felix down onto the pallet without hurting him. He stuck his prosthesis out behind Mr. Digger and bent his other leg in front of him.
“Whoa, what’s that?” the girl asked, pointing to the glinting metal of the prosthesis, her already big eyes growing even wider.
“Nothing,” Felix muttered, trying to tug his pant leg down, but the girl was already scrambling over Mr. Digger to get a better look.
“No. What is it?”
Felix only panicked for a moment. “It’s my leg. My real one got hurt, so a doctor had to give me a new one.”
“Huh.” Her head shot up. “Did a Cylon do it?”
“Uh, actually, yes.”
She grinned. “He hurt yours, so you took his leg?”
Felix was happily befuddled. “Well, no. It wasn’t that kind of Cylon.”
It was too late. She was already exuberantly acting out her version of the story, which involved a lot of rolling around on the pallet and growling and tugging at her shoelaces. But after not too long, she sat up and got down to business. “Okay. It’s my turn, so you watch close so you know what to do when it’s your turn.”
Louis watched for a little while. He remembered this game from when Amelia was that age. The goal was to roll the dice to find out how many spaces you could move, then work your way to different spots on the game board where you collected plastic jewelry to wear. The player who got a necklace, bracelet, earrings, and tiara first won.
The way the little girl played it, the object of the game was for her to wear everyone’s jewelry, and change the rules whenever necessary to accomplish that goal. Louis smiled; it hadn’t changed much from Amelia’s Pretty Queens of Kobol days.
Once he saw that Felix was doing fine, if a little overwhelmed, Louis took a better look around. The sleeping pallet was more of a nest than a bed. There were a few toys tucked around it, and a couple books leaning against the wall that were far too advanced for the girl playing with Felix. A photo of a man and a woman with a girl about her age, but not her, was taped to the wall above the pillow.
Louis turned his attention to the game again and nearly doubled over laughing. Felix was listening to the girl’s instructions intently, trying to balance the yellow crown on his head and trying not to grimace when she gave him “earrings” to put on. One of them had apparently gotten lost and had been replaced with a clothespin. Luckily, she won moments later, so Felix could take it off his ear before it cut off his circulation.
“Let’s play again,” she said as she started to remove the jewelry on the stuffed bear and dog.
Felix looked up. “Can Louis and...is that your sister, play this time?”
Louis turned around and saw a girl about twelve years old standing behind him. She had the same hazel color to her eyes, but not the other features that made the resemblance to Dee so striking.
The little girl looked at her sister hesitantly. “No. Snuffles and Mr. Digger still want to play.”
“Nina doesn’t want me to play because she knows I know she cheats.”
“I do not cheat, Tabby!” Nina squeaked.
The older girl rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Nina glowered at her sister, then turned Felix’s attention back to the new game.
Louis and the girl watched the two of them play for a while. He could tell she was gauging him and Felix. “She really does cheat,” she finally said.
Louis smiled. “I’ve noticed. It worries me a little, how in five minutes she’s already got him wrapped around her little finger.”
“She’s good at that.” She stared at Louis’s uniform. “You’re not new teachers, are you?”
“No, I’m Louis,” he said. He would’ve extended his hand, but the girl looked too wary. He didn’t want to scare her. “I work on the Galactica. And that’s Felix. He works there, too.”
She nodded, though she was clearly not satisfied with that answer.
“I’m Tabitha,” she finally said. “Nina calls me Tabby, but I don’t like anybody else to do it.”
“Tabitha. That’s a pretty name. It’s very nice to meet you.” Louis already felt like he was in over his head. Amelia’s friends had been tough to draw out enough to talk to them at this age, and they hadn’t gone through a sliver of the trauma this girl had. “Uh, is that your book there? The Mists of Minoa?”
“Yeah.” She toyed with the end of one of her neatly-braided pigtails. “You read it?”
“About a dozen times.”
“Me, too.”
“Who’s your favorite character?”
She looked around at nothing in particular, stalling for time. “I like Tirian,” she finally said. That was a safe answer. Louis nodded in approval. “But my favorite is Yveria.”
Louis lit up. Now that was an interesting choice, and for a kid her age to admit to a non-standard favorite anything was exciting. “Her battle at Hourglass Pass with the harpies was so amazing.”
Tabitha wasn’t quite smiling, but the tough exterior was cracking. “And when she and Nara team up against the Night Sisters.”
“Oh, or when she goes to the Great Oni for advice on how to get around the prophecy. That’s one of my favorite scenes.”
“I haven’t read Book Two,” Tabitha said. “We don’t have it.”
“You’re kidding me! Book One ended on such a cliffhanger.”
“I read Book Three, so I know how it all turns out,” Tabitha said. “That’s what’s important, anyway.”
“Endings are important, I agree,” Louis said. “But middles shouldn’t be underestimated, either. There are some pretty exciting journeys in middles that make the ending even better when you get there.”
Something he said had unintentionally hit a nerve, because he could see Tabitha draw back into her protective reserve. “Why are you here?”
This was it. Louis swallowed and prayed she wasn’t from Sagittaron. “Felix and I, uh...he’s my husband, and-he really wants to become a daddy.”
Tabitha’s back stiffened. “Nina and I already have parents.”
Louis’s heart sank. He’d assumed the pallet meant they lived here full-time, but now he realized they might merely live on a different ship and have to sleep here some nights when the shuttle schedule didn’t work out.
She kept talking. “Just because they’re with the Gods doesn’t mean we don’t have them anymore. Or that they don’t love us anymore.”
Louis tried not to look relieved, knowing how Tabitha would take that. “I understand completely.”
Tabitha thought for a moment. “What are you doing here, though? You said he wants to become a daddy. What about you?”
He looked over at Felix and Nina, then at the photo of young Tabitha wrapped in her parents’ arms.
“I’m like you in a way, you see. I’m a dad already, the same way you still have your parents, even though they’re not with you here anymore. But yes.” He took a deep breath. “I want to become a dad again, too.”
~~**~~**~~
Five years ago; nine months before the attacks
Louis was unpleasantly surprised when the scraping of metal against metal announced that someone had sat down across the table from him. He’d thought he’d been radiating the “frak off” vibe intensely enough that no one would dare cross his path, even in the mess. Apparently someone had ignored his signals.
When he finally dragged his eyes up to see who the intruder was, it made a lot more sense.
“Okay, Lieutenant,” Gina said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Spill.”
Louis frowned right back at her. “I’m guessing from your expression that you’re not here to offer me condolences upon the demise of my career?”
“Are you still going on about the promotion thing? The Admiral gave you the bad news last week.” When Louis didn’t respond, Gina rolled her eyes. “Drama queen. I’ll listen to you complain about that to your heart’s content, if you answer the question I know you know I’m asking first.”
Louis sighed. Her bluntness had been so entertaining, even enviable, when she had just been gl_inviere@integralsystem.com. It had felt like they’d gotten to know each other quite well, messaging back and forth as they traded information and friendly barbs in preparation for the Pegasus’s big overhaul coming up in several months. But especially with that added awkwardness that came with getting familiar with someone before meeting them face-to-face, now that she was actually here for in-person discussions with the Admiral, Louis found Gina’s candor to be mostly unnerving.
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Louis said, moving his food around the plate with his fork.
“Against Helena’s advice to use her treadmill because the ship’s gym smells like an armpit, I went there today.”
Louis noticed the slip-up with the Admiral’s name; Gina didn’t. He’d had reason to believe the rumors before, but that pretty much confirmed it for him. Not that he cared who Gina or the Admiral frakked.
“Ah. Now I see. Good question,” Louis said sagely. “Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the phenolic compounds that make sweat stink. It’s the bacteria that grow in body-temperature perspiration.”
Gina snorted and stole a grape from Louis’s plate, then popped it in her mouth. Something about the fact that such a beautiful, poised woman actually snorted made Louis relax and almost smile. Bluntness aside, he did sort of like her.
“Nice try, Hoshi. While I was down there, Lieutenant Patterson came in.” Suddenly, Louis’s mashed potatoes were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “He was…a little upset.”
Louis mumbled, “People are allowed to have bad days every now and then.”
Gina leaned forward, elbows on the table. “He broke the punching bag.”
“He-what? How do you even do that?”
Gina shrugged. “Got me, but now it’s just a torn-up pile of vinyl and filling. Anyway, I asked around, and I learned some rather interesting things about your relationship with Lieutenant Patterson.”
“We weren’t breaking any fraternization regs. We didn’t work together, and we’re the same rank.” He grumbled the last part. “Of course, a relationship with that large of an age difference usually would have the problem of different ranks, and if life were fair, there really should have been that problem by now….”
Gina ignored him. “I learned some other interesting things. Like how even though you two have been very much an exclusive couple for months, and even though Simes and Renner caught you two all over each other less than two weeks ago, you broke up with Patterson today, a few days before you’re both going on two months’ shore leave.”
“Best to make a clean, face-to-face break.”
“And I heard how you did the same thing to Lieutenant Griffin four days before another long shore leave. And to Lieutenant Singh a week before you ended a tour of duty.”
Louis could feel his face redden.
He knew Gina noticed. She said, “According to the scuttlebutt, that pattern is usually indicative of someone with a spouse in every port, but nobody believes that of you. So, I’m intrigued as to why you, monogamist extraordinaire and generally nice guy, keep making men fall in love with you and then break their hearts right before it’s time to set foot on a planet.”
He could argue that Ben hadn’t been in love with him, or that he hardly made men fall in love with him. Or he could tell her that he was always up-front about the fact that though they were exclusive, they weren’t going to be long-term. But Louis knew Gina, and he knew her fascination-bordering-on-obsession with knowing why people did the crazy things they did, so he knew there was no way he could skirt the question.
He pulled a picture out of his pocket, slapped it on the table, and slid it toward Gina. “That’s why.”
Gina looked down at the photo of Amelia and Jordan in the hammock, looked up at Louis, brow wrinkled, then looked at the photo again. “All right, those are your kids. That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is. You know I’m Sagittaron.”
Gina shook her head slowly, still confused.
Louis started talking. It was difficult at first, but as soon as he got going, the words poured out of him. He realized he’d never told anyone the full story before, and finally letting it all out felt like a long, deep exhale of relief. He told her about Susannah, how they’d met, why he’d enlisted, how a part of him had known from the start that it wouldn’t work but how hard they’d both tried anyway. He told her about Jude. He told her about how his life had slowly split in two after that, how the man who lusted after and frakked and sometimes even fell in love with male lieutenants on tours of duty lived completely separate from the devoted, neutered, Sagittaron Parenting Monthly poster-boy of a single father he was at home. He told her about Amelia’s pyramid games and Jordan’s recitals, vacations, parent-teacher conferences, birthdays, Saturnalias, Colonial Days, and lazy weekends at home, believing that if she had even a scrap of humanity in her, she would understand.
When he was done, Gina said, “You could fight her.”
You could fight her. He heard Jude’s voice ringing in his head. He nearly got up and left.
Gina continued before he had the chance to pick up his tray. “I’m serious. The Admiral would put in a good word for you. Her word carries a lot of weight.”
“Not on Sagittaron, it doesn’t. I’m beginning to doubt how much weight the Admiral’s word has even in Fleet Command, if she really did recommend me for a promotion.”
“She did,” Gina defended. “You know why you didn’t make senior lieutenant.”
“It’s not fair. I got in because the Fleet needed more Sagittarons. They say they want to promote us, to encourage others to join up, but that’s obviously a load of shit.”
“It isn’t fair, that’s true. I know you’re not going to like hearing this, but it is logical. Helena and I even talked about it. You haven’t had trouble progressing up the ranks until now-” Louis snorted in incredulity, so she amended, “-you haven’t had as much trouble progressing until now because that rank requires leadership abilities. I know from experience that you’re great at your job, but it sounds like you just haven’t proven that you can inspire respect and obedience in your subordinates.”
“Because I’m Sagittaron.”
Gina sighed. “Yes. Because you’re Sagittaron, and because a lot of the enlisted crew still carry some prejudice, it’s harder for you to gain their respect than it would be if you were from Caprica or Gemenon or even Aerilon. It’s not that Sagittarons can’t achieve high ranks, or that command doesn’t want you to. It’s that reality makes it so that it isn’t enough for a Sagittaron to be a good officer to get a promotion. You have to be a great officer.”
It burned hearing that, even though he’d known it was true when the Admiral had said the same thing to him last week, too. Louis was a little shocked that he’d find talking about his problems with Susannah preferable to any other topic, but anything was better than this.
“That’s exactly what I mean about parenting,” he said. “If I was more…conventional in other respects, Susannah and the rest of the world would just expect me to be a good dad. But because of who I am, I have to be the perfect dad to compensate. If that means being celibate, fine. I had very little sex during most of my marriage, and even less of it that I actually enjoyed. It’s not as if it’s a big, new sacrifice.”
Gina stared at him thoughtfully as she gnawed on a carrot stick. She had eaten more of Louis’s dinner than he had by that point. “If you took your case anywhere other than that boondocks of a planet, your ex wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Is she one of those no-medicine fanatics, too?”
“No, she’s not,” Louis said, raising his voice a little. “We belonged to a progressive sect of the Church of Sagittaron. And she faced a lot of shit from the community for me being in the military, but I give her credit for putting up with it. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotypes, though.”
“Considering the percentage of the population that is, it wasn’t an unreasonable question.”
Louis took a deep breath. He hadn’t intended to pick a fight. “All I’m saying is that she’s not doing this out of spite. If she were, it’d be done. Me being military or gay would’ve been pretty good arguments in a Sagittaron court to limit my parental rights. With both of those facts, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. She honestly thinks she’s acting in Amelia’s and Jordan’s best interest, the same way I would be up in arms if she married one of those ‘no-medicine fanatics.’”
“That’s different. You being gay doesn’t affect your children’s health and safety,” Gina answered. Then her expression changed, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. “You’re ashamed.”
“In her mind, it is a threat to her children, and she thinks that way for good reason,” Louis pressed on. “I lied to her about who I was for years, Gina. Why should she trust who I would bring home with me after that?”
“No, you’re ashamed, and that’s bullshit,” Gina continued. “And I have every right to say it’s bullshit. Where I grew up, the highest accomplishment a woman could attain was to have a child. Sex between women was accepted, but exclusively with women? No way. But the way the Colonies are now, there’s so little excuse not to be who you are.”
“I am who I am!” Louis ground out, pounding his fist on the table. He vaguely noticed their ever-loudening conversation had attracted the attention of several people at nearby tables, but he was too caught up in the moment to care. “It’s not a perfect life, but it’s mine. I’m not going to risk losing the most important part of it because you don’t approve of the way I’ve found to make it work.”
He knocked his chair over when he stood up, but he didn’t bother to pick it up, or to take his tray with him. Gina called after him, voice contrite, but he stormed out of the mess.
He had marched half-way across the ship before he realized he’d left the photograph on the table. Frak. Gina would have picked it up by now. She was probably wandering around the ship, trying to track him down to give it back and apologize. He had been hoping he could avoid her until he went on shore leave, even if they would have to work together preparing for the overhaul when he got back.
His aversion to seeing Gina again wasn’t because he was angry at her, though he still was. It was because he knew that when she apologized, he’d feel obligated to make her understand by telling her the one thing he could barely admit to himself.
He and Susannah had belonged to a progressive sect. Jordan and Amelia had both been christened there and had gone to Saturday temple school there. But lately, Amelia had become friends with a couple girls whom she’d met through the Sagittaron civil rights organization she volunteered with. They seemed like nice enough girls, but they belonged to one of the most traditional, strict sects. Amelia had started going to services with them at their temple rather than with her mother and brother, and she’d joined their youth group.
Louis had been able to write it off as youthful experimentation until one evening when he’d brought Amelia supper in her room as she crammed for an exam. When he opened the door, he saw her sitting at her desk, right elbow on the desktop, right hand against her temple, propping her head up as she read. Her shirtsleeve had slid down just far enough that Louis could see a small Sun of Apollo tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
Amelia had worn the sun-and-arrows symbol on a necklace for years, but seeing it burned into her skin like that was different. Only the most ardent believers in the traditional sects still did that. Suddenly, Louis felt disgraced and defenseless, so deeply terrified of what Amelia would say if she saw him, really saw all of him.
Then Amelia had looked up, thanked him for bringing food, and only stared at him oddly when he froze and didn’t put the plate in her outstretched hand. Of course, nothing had changed for her in that moment. But for the first time, Louis realized that Susannah was far from the only reason he had to keep that other part of his life separate and secret.
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
Felix was still catching his breath while Louis turned himself so they both had their heads at the right end of the bed again. He propped his head up with one hand and ran the other down Felix’s side, a smug grin on his lips.
“So,” Louis said, waggling his eyebrows, “is the new bed officially broken in?”
“Good gods yes,” Felix panted, smiling as his eyes rolled back into his head. “For you?”
“Oh yeah,” Louis nearly laughed. “You couldn’t tell from how I had to quit working on you for a while to yell ‘oh, baby, just like that!’ over and over again?”
“I never would’ve guessed you’d be so vocal in private,” Felix said, sliding a hand to the back of Louis’s neck and pulling himself in closer. “It’s really hot.”
Felix kissed him in a way that normally would have equated to foreplay. Since they’d just finished, though, it had a satisfying ease and languor to it, letting them enjoy the pleasure and sensuality of the act itself rather than as a prelude to anything else.
When they finally broke apart, Louis said, “Well, sex is a little different in our own quarters than it is in a bunk with only a curtain separating us from half a dozen roommates.”
“Our own quarters,” Felix repeated happily. “So ridiculously overdue, XO.”
“Acting XO,” Louis corrected.
That was also the answer to Felix’s unspoken question of why the move was so long overdue. Louis essentially being second-in-command should have rated private quarters. But Colonel Tigh hadn’t suggested a move, and Louis hadn’t pressed for one, because they both knew what kind of signal that would send. It would be irrefutable confirmation that the “acting” part of Louis’s title was a sham, that he was permanent XO to a Cylon commander and that the Old Man was never coming back to CIC. While the Admiral occupied his old quarters, and while Louis and Tigh stayed where they had been, people who needed to believe that Adama would pull himself back together after the loss of his son could delude themselves a little longer. Now that Louis and Felix were going to have children, though, they could have the private quarters they already merited without it making a statement.
“Anyway,” Felix continued, grinning lasciviously, “next, I think we should break in the table. Tomorrow morning, before duty. Very, very loudly.”
“Before duty? You’re insatiable,” Louis laughed.
“And you love it.”
He answered Felix with another kiss. It was strange how much this felt like a honeymoon, though they’d been married for well over a year. On further consideration, Louis supposed it wasn’t that strange, since they’d had about two hours’ worth of a honeymoon between when they’d dragged the priest out of bed to marry them and when Felix had boarded the Raptor to go to the Demetrius. Not to mention, Felix was now finally healthy enough to thoroughly enjoy sex again and not be self-conscious. The past couple months, it had seemed that Felix was trying to make up for lost time. Louis didn’t mind.
Louis sat up, then leaned back on his elbows, looking around the room. “It is a nice place. Somehow, it makes everything seem more real, doesn’t it?”
“Makes what feel more real?” Felix asked as he pressed lazy kisses to Louis’s shoulder, chest, neck, anywhere he could easily reach. It appeared that Felix didn’t want to wait until morning to break in the table.
“I don’t know. Living in the racks, sometimes it felt more like we were the house fathers of an extremely geeky fraternity than a married couple.”
Felix muffled a snicker against Louis’s shoulder. “Sigma Iota Sigma, the CIC fraternity. You should tell that one to Meeker. She’d get a kick out of it.”
Then Felix started kissing his neck again, and just when Louis was about to give in and suggest moving their little housewarming party to the table, Felix did something that made Louis freeze. He would have brushed it aside as an accident and kept going, but then Felix traced his fingers along the scar on his shoulder again, even more deliberately.
Louis removed Felix’s hand, turned to face him, and shook his head. Felix looked stricken, but if Louis could respect Felix’s wishes by not touching the scar tissue on his stump, Felix could honor this one boundary, too.
The scar was from a bullet wound-just a graze, but it had hurt like hell at the time. He’d received it when he, Helo, and Colonel Tigh had gotten pinned down in CIC by a band of mutinying civilians. If Seelix and Showboat had planned the mutiny a little better and sent trained marines to take CIC instead, they would’ve been dead in minutes. The bridge crew had done Galactica proud, though, holding off the invaders and keeping the ship running for six hours before reinforcements finally arrived.
Louis never wore his sidearm on duty, so he’d been trying to help Ensign Garcia get the security feeds and sensors back online while Helo covered them. The bullet had done little more than knick Louis’s shoulder, but it caught Garcia square in the throat. She bled out hours before a medic made it to CIC.
Felix paled when it dawned on him what he’d done. “I am so, so sorry, Louis. I wasn’t even thinking.”
Louis kissed Felix’s fingers as apology accepted. “I know.”
Felix relaxed, but that had pretty well killed the mood for both of them. Maybe it was for the best, Louis reasoned. As arousing as Felix was when he got into one of these amorous moods, they’d just finished having sex, and Louis wasn’t exactly a teenager anymore when it came to getting things going a second time.
It was a lousy note to go to sleep on, though. He and Felix both lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling. For a moment, Louis wished they were back in their old rack. The rack had been so narrow that they couldn’t both fit in it without one of them holding the other.
“We should schedule another visit with Tabitha and Nina,” Louis said, trying to cheer himself up as much as Felix. “Getting there around 0930 and staying until after lunch worked well last week, don’t you think?”
Louis turned his head and met Felix’s eyes. Felix nodded and said, “That last visit got me thinking about something. What’s that book you and Tabitha were talking about?”
“Mists of Minoa.”
“Yeah.” Felix smiled, and his eyes looked very distant.
“Have you read the series?”
Felix snapped back to the present. “Me? No. I tried it when I was in high school, but I couldn’t make it past the first fifty pages. Just not my thing. But it was one of my mother’s favorite books.”
Felix had started talking more about his mother and sister a couple months after he’d come home from his stay on the Inchon Velle, about the same time he’d started talking about Dee again. Based on the stories Felix told, Louis liked her immensely.
He continued, “Hearing you and Tabitha talk about it made me remember, not the very last time, but one of the last phone conversations I had with her. She called to tell me my sister was pregnant. Of course she was ecstatic. But then Mom said, ‘Now if I can just live to see you settled down with a nice man, I’ll be satisfied with my life.’”
Felix turned over and reached out to touch Louis’s cheek. “She would’ve liked you. Who am I kidding? She would’ve adored you. You would’ve easily beaten out Libby’s husband for the title of favorite son-in-law.”
Louis didn’t know what to say. He’d become the black sheep of his family when he’d gotten Susannah pregnant out of wedlock, then had been disowned when he’d enlisted. The only contact he’d had with his family for years had been one sister who called whenever there was a birth or a death, and his mother sent Amelia and Jordan Saturnalia cards. The idea of bringing Felix home to meet any of them was so bizarre that he couldn’t even imagine that scenario.
Felix slid over and wrapped an arm around him. “Do you ever think about what it would’ve been like if we’d met each other before the attacks?” Felix asked.
This was the man whom Louis had promised himself to for the rest of their lives, without reservation. And yet, I would have left you, Louis thought. It would have been so hard, but it would have been a simple choice.
“No, I don’t,” Louis snapped.
Felix lifted his head from the pillow. “Okay, I’m confused. I tell you that my mom would’ve loved you, and you act like I’m trying to pick a fight. What’s going on in your head lately, Louis?”
“Sorry,” Louis said, scrubbing his hand down his face. “I don’t know.”
“Is it the adoption? You seem so happy whenever we visit the crèche.”
“No, it’s not that.” Even if Felix, who’d grown up in a world where a mother wishing her son would settle down with a nice man was the rule rather than the exception, could understand, there was no way Louis could put it into words. “I’m fine.”
Felix sighed. “No, you’re not. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He guided Louis’s head to his shoulder and kissed his brow. “All I meant was, I wish you could have known my mom and my sister. And I wish I could’ve known Jordan and Amelia.”
Louis squeezed his eyes shut. “Me, too.”
~~**~~**~~
Seven years ago; three years before the attacks
Louis was grateful that Sagittaron’s shorter days had finally made it so daytime in Antioch was no longer in sync with daytime in Caprica City. The Capricans were usually fairly considerate about not making their calls home too long-certainly better than the Gemenese, who’d talk all evening if you let them-but there were just so many crew members from Caprica City that the line for a call station had usually been ridiculously long.
This time, there was only one other person making a call when Louis stepped into one of the call station booths, sliding the glass door shut behind him. It was Sunday afternoon in Antioch, but it was Monday at three in the morning on the Pegasus. Louis had been up for the past twenty hours straight, and he had duty at 0700. His muscles ached with exhaustion, but he knew there was no way he was going to get any sleep tonight.
He picked up the receiver, gave the number to the ship-to-shore operator, and then sank to the floor of the booth in concession to his protesting leg muscles. The phone rang once, twice, three times.
“Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up,” he chanted under his breath, the note of desperation in his voice ringing louder with each repetition.
The receiver clicked on the other end. “Hello?”
Louis brightened instantly. “Hey! Jordan! How’re you doing, kiddo?”
Jordan’s hesitation went on way too long. “Fine. Amelia’s not here. She’s at Marcy’s house.”
“That’s okay. I’m really glad I caught you.” Another long stretch of silence. Usually, Jordan was bursting with news whenever Louis called. He took a wild guess at what might be wrong. “You had your audition for the County Youth Orchestra this week, right? How’d that go?”
“All right. I got in.”
“Congratulations!” All Louis heard in reply was a noncommittal mumble. “You don’t seem too excited about it. What’s wrong?”
Jordan gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Bruno’s sick.”
Oh, frak. Bruno was an old, old dog. Susannah had had Bruno all the way back when Louis had first met her. That meant Louis had a pretty good idea of where this was going. Another image from earlier that day flashed through his mind, but he pushed it back. “Did your mom take him to the vet?”
“On Thursday.” Jordan’s voice cracked. “He won’t eat, and he’s been acting funny, like he didn’t know where he was. Doc Greene gave him medicine and said if he wasn’t better in a couple days, it was probably a tumor.”
“And he’s not feeling better?”
“No.” Louis could hear Jordan crying, but he could also tell Jordan was trying to hide it.
“Oh, no. Oh, Jordan, I’m so sorry.” Louis wanted nothing more than to be able to hug Jordan, but Antioch had never felt as far away as it did in that moment. The guilt physically hurt, like a hole in his chest. “Are you going with your mom when you…take him back to the vet?”
Jordan sniffed. “Mom has to work. Randall and me are taking him.”
Louis grimaced. Randall was Susannah’s new boyfriend. No, that wasn’t fair, Louis thought. He wasn’t new; Louis had heard the kids mention him on and off for about eight months now. All five of them had had lunch together one time when Louis had a few days’ leave. He was a short, prematurely balding accountant who was probably a nice enough guy, but Louis disliked him if for no other reason than it seemed like he was always available to take Amelia and Jordan wherever they wanted to go.
“I’m glad you don’t have to go through this alone,” Louis said, struggling. “I wish so much that I could be there for you.”
“I know.”
“Bruno’s had a good, long life,” Louis said, knowing that nothing he could say would help. “He’s been really lucky to have you for a friend, especially. I mean, some dogs have pretty nice dog beds, but not many Saint Bernards get to share a bed with their master. I remember one Saturday, I came into your room to wake you up, and I don’t know how, but Bruno had gotten under the sheets and had his head on the pillow next to yours. I couldn’t tell which one of you snored louder.”
Jordan made a noise, something between a laugh and a hiccup. “And he drooled all over the pillow. He slept like that a lot more often than you know, Dad. He’s a good dog. The best.”
“Good dog, nice doggie,” Private Rhimes quietly sing-songed. The dog only bared its teeth even more as it growled, the tangled gray fur on its neck ruffed up. “We’re not gonna hurt ya. We just want in the building. Er, what’s left of the building.”
“Just shoot the damn thing,” Private Stoates said. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the setting sun.
“Hold your fire, for now,” Louis said, scanning the windows of nearby buildings.
Sergeant Hendricks added after a stretch of silence, “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves if we don’t have to. Nobody’s shooting at us now, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s watching.” Then he muttered almost to himself, “Frakkin’ dirt eaters.”
Louis adjusted the bag full of comm gear on his back.
Rhimes said, “C’mon, pup. Work with me. I’m trying to help you here, too.”
“Sorry, bad connection. What was that?” Louis said when he snapped back into the moment at the sound of Jordan’s voice, but not fast enough to process what he said.
“Why does anybody have to die, Dad? If the Gods are so good, why do they do this to us?”
Rhimes hadn’t gotten the dog to completely cooperate, but it did retreat into the building. Louis let Hendricks take point. As an ensign, Louis was the highest-ranking member of the team, and he was a good shot, but even Rhimes had more experience in the field than Louis did. Not to mention, like most run-of-the-mill infantrymen, these guys didn’t trust a comm nerd to keep his head under fire. They didn’t know he was Sagittaron, thank the Gods.
They methodically swept each room, searching for hold-outs. The airstrike hadn’t been quite on target, so this building hadn’t been demolished as planned. Instead, it was hit just hard enough to knock down some rafters and loosen some supports-in other words, just hard enough to be frakking dangerous.
Just when Louis was mentally cursing Commander Cain for the dozenth time for convincing him that the best way to get promoted to CIC was to take on voluntary combat missions, they came to the room the dog was in. It growled and paced, protecting an area where a large chunk of ceiling had crashed to the floor. They didn’t see anything in the room with the initial sweep, but they couldn’t get a good look at that back corner with the dog pacing.
“Cool it, pup. Remember me?” Rhimes said. Stoates rolled her eyes.
Rhimes took his life into his hands and walked very close to the dog, though at least he had enough sense to keep his gun drawn. “Whatcha got there, pup? Oh, shit.”
Rhimes stepped back. The dog was focused on Rhimes, so Louis took a few steps and craned his neck to get a better look at the pile of rubble.
The dog’s master was about Amelia’s age. His eyes were wide and empty, and yet somehow afraid at the same time, too. His legs were sticking out from the other side of the rubble at an angle that didn’t make sense. The only reasonable conclusion was that he’d been cut in two.
“Dad? You there?”
Louis said, “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I’m here. I don’t know why the Gods do that, Jordan. I guess we’ve got to just be grateful for the time that we have with the ones we love.”
“Yeah,” Jordan said. Louis could hear the tears threatening to come back. “I gotta go, Dad.”
Louis had to stop himself from sighing in disappointment. “You do? Okay. It was so good to hear your voice. I miss you guys so much, and I really wish I could be there for you and Bruno.”
“Me, too.”
“I love you. Tell Amelia ‘love you’ for me, too, and I’m sorry I missed her.”
“I will.”
“I love you, kiddo,” Louis repeated.
“Love you too, Dad. You coming home soon?”
The knot in Louis’s chest tightened. “In a couple months.”
“Okay. I’ll tell Amelia. Bye.”
“Good-bye. I love you.”
The receiver clicked, the connection cut. Louis stared at it in his hand for a solid minute before he finally threw it at the wall of the call station booth. Then he rested his forehead against his knees and covered his head with his hands, shoulders shaking as he tried and failed to not let all the day’s failures wash over him again.
CONTINUE TO PART 3