Picture Perfect (Part 4 of 4)
Picture Perfect (Part 4 of 4)
RETURN TO PART 3
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
They had been on the algae diet for years now, so Louis couldn’t write off the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as his breakfast disagreeing with him. Racetrack had piloted them over to Colonial One, so he couldn’t blame a bad Raptor ride, either. As he helped Felix off the Raptor wing, he noticed that Felix looked as ill as he felt.
Racetrack, however, was annoyingly cheerful. “Just think, this time tomorrow, I’ll be flying you and Nina and Tabitha from the Adrastria home to Galactica.”
“We hope,” Felix sighed, moving out of the way as Louis helped Racetrack pile ration bags onto the waiting dolly.
Racetrack shook her head. “I keep telling you, you’ve got nothing to be worried about. Amanda’s convinced you’re wonderful. I read the letter she wrote to the Child Welfare Minister for you. She’d gladly give you a dozen kids if you wanted.”
Louis was surprised when Racetrack shooed him away from the dolly and steered it herself, walking along beside them out of the hangar deck and into the long hallway. Usually whenever he and Felix rode with her, she sent them to make the ration delivery while she continued her run or took care of other business on the ship.
She jerked her chin in Felix’s direction and mouthed something that Louis didn’t understand, but he still got the message. He put his hand on Felix’s shoulder and smiled at him. Felix turned and offered a scared but genuine smile in return. He slid his hand down to the small of Felix’s back and kept it there, not guiding or helping, just touching Felix the way he knew made him feel safe.
The truth was, Louis was just as worried and uncertain about today’s outcome as Felix was. They’d done everything they could. They’d taken the process very slowly, giving Tabitha and Nina a few months to get to know them and get comfortable being around them, so that when the four of them discussed going through with an official adoption, the girls had been ready and happy to say ‘yes.’ Amanda, the Agathons, and even Colonel Tigh had written them glowing recommendation letters.
But so had Dr. Ramos, and that was where their fear lay.
Felix blurted, “The Minister probably thinks I’m a frakking drug addict, Racetrack. Would you give two kids to a morpha junkie?”
“Is that what’s got you two so paranoid today?” Racetrack said. “You weren’t a junkie. Frak, my eighty-year-old grandma got a little morpha addiction after she had surgery for a broken hip. It happens all the time. And it wouldn’t have gotten out of hand if Cottle had been doing his frakking job and kept you under observation longer.”
Felix winced. After the incident with the jump calculations, Felix had wanted to publicly explain the whole story behind his time on the Inchon Velle with Dr. Ramos, but Louis had convinced him not to. He’d argued that Felix had punished himself enough, and that the mutineers who’d re-sworn their loyalty to Adama and Tigh before the end had gotten a blanket pardon without having to admit anything. When Felix had still insisted on telling the brass, Louis relented but had him confess to Major Cottle rather than Colonel Tigh. Felix and Tigh had a fraught relationship already, and Louis feared that Tigh might let his emotions get the better of his reason. Plus, though Cottle had only known that Felix was somehow involved with Zarek’s machinations before they’d had him committed, Louis suspected Cottle had pieced together most of the rest of the story himself already. Just as Louis had expected, Cottle told Felix he’d been a frakking moron, then had him re-affirm his oath and swear to never do it again, or he’d kill him if Louis didn’t first.
Even so, Louis could tell Felix couldn’t quite let go of his guilt. Louis was terrified of how Felix might react if his stay on the Inchon Velle got in the way of getting the adoption approved.
“Your grandma wasn’t in treatment for four weeks for her addiction, I bet,” Felix muttered.
Racetrack sighed. “Maybe not, but who doesn’t need therapy these days? I dare you to find me somebody who hasn’t been suicidal or addicted to something or otherwise completely frakked up at one point or another in the past five years.”
“Louis,” Felix said, smiling at him sweetly. Everyone on the Pegasus had been suicidal by definition those first few months before they encountered the Fleet, but Louis didn’t have the heart to correct him.
Louis suspected from the look on her face that Racetrack knew better, too, but she let it go. “Yeah, well, name me two. You can’t.” They walked in silence until Racetrack said, “Gods, would somebody tell a joke or something? I feel like I’m going to a funeral.”
“Sorry,” Felix said. He sighed in resignation. “Fine. Go ahead and tell Louis about my callsign.”
Racetrack lit up. “Really?”
“If that doesn’t get a laugh, I don’t know what will.”
“Yes!” Racetrack pumped her fist in the air. “But it’s not nearly as funny if he doesn’t know the whole story.”
“There’s a whole story behind it?” Louis said, already starting to grin. “Oh, you can’t renege now, Felix.”
Racterack began before Felix could even open his mouth. “So, me and Felix were in the same Raptor Basic Flight class years and years ago, right? And Felix somehow gets it into his head that shagging our flight instructor is a good idea.”
Louis pretended to be scandalized, and Felix blushed.
Racetrack continued, “Not only was the flight instructor frakking him, but he was doing it in the Raptors.”
Felix turned an even deeper shade of red. “I wasn’t really crazy about that part. It was all Herc’s idea.”
“Of course it was Herc’s idea,” Racetrack agreed. “Because we all know that the remedial lessons he scheduled with you were his idea, too.”
Felix was still embarrassed, but he took over the story from Racetrack. “Herc told me that my three-point flip-turns sucked, and if I wanted to get my wings, I needed a lot more practice. And since practice basically meant…frakking…too…”
“I’m not seeing what this has to do with your callsign,” Louis said. “So you were bad at a maneuver, your teacher made you practice more, and you tended to mix practice and sex.”
Racetrack laughed. “The thing is, three-point flip-turns aren’t part of the Basic Flight exam! They’re something that only stunt pilots do, so of course Felix sucked at it. Herc strategically misled him about the exam so he could have more Raptor frakking time.”
“What the frak?”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Turned out, he had a thing for Raptors rather than a thing for me. I was just the only one naïve and needy enough to buy into him. When the other nuggets stopped laughing behind my back long enough for one of them to tell me the truth-” he looked knowingly at Racetrack, “-I was understandably not happy and broke things off with Herc. I thought I was being smart by waiting until after my exam to do it, but I forgot about getting a callsign.”
Louis bit back a snicker. “Oh, no…”
Felix took a deep breath. “He dubbed me ‘Back Door.’”
Louis couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore. “I suppose it could’ve been worse.”
“I heard Pansy, Deep Throat, and Cock-Blocker were all in the running,” Racetrack added. “Pansy was too nice, Deep Throat inaccurate-”
“Wait a minute-” Louis interrupted.
“Inaccurate at the time,” Felix clarified. “I was young and relatively innocent.”
Racetrack continued, “And Cock-Blocker, though the favorite of the bunch, probably wouldn’t have made it past the brass. So, did that calm your nerves?” The door to the Child Welfare Minister’s office was in view. Louis felt the butterflies in his stomach take wing again. “Aw frak, it didn’t, did it? You both still look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Thanks for trying, anyway,” Felix said. “I guess this is just too important not to make us nervous.”
“Is it, though?” she asked. “It’s the end of the worlds. Who cares if you have the right paperwork? The four of you all want it, and Amanda and the Colonel are both on board. Why should anybody else matter?”
“For one, the last thing we want is to get Amanda in trouble for giving away children without proper authorization,” Louis said. “She could lose her job.”
“And two,” Felix said, stopping in front of the door to the minister’s office, “if it’s official, the girls would have certain rights and benefits if anything should happen to us. We’ll be able to choose a legal guardian for them. Without that...Nina could go back to the crèche, but it won’t be long before Tabitha is too old for Amanda to take her back in.”
Felix looked at the door, then at Louis. “Should we ask her now?”
They were a little early for their meeting, and Louis wanted to put off going in as long as possible. He nodded.
Felix turned to Racetrack and said, “We’ve talked about this a lot, and we were hoping that you’d be willing to be Tabitha and Nina’s guardian, if something should happen to the two of us.”
Racetrack stared at them in shock. “You…what? I figured the Agathons-”
“They’re alternates-we have a lot of alternates, since it’s a dangerous world,” Felix said. “But we decided that foisting two sisters on Hera wouldn’t be fair to her. And even though maybe it’s not politically correct, we’re just not completely comfortable with the idea of a Cylon raising our kids.” Louis was the one who wasn’t comfortable with it, but he appreciated Felix’s understanding on that point.
Louis couldn’t tell whether Racetrack’s dropped jaw meant she was surprised but happy or blanking on a polite way to tell them they were nuts. He said, “We know it’s a lot to ask, but the girls know you from all the Raptor runs you’ve done with us and them, and they like you. We’re so grateful for all the help you’ve given us over the past few months, and…we trust you.”
That was when Louis finally placed the look on Racetrack’s face. He realized that nobody had trusted her or given her any real responsibility since the mutiny.
Racetrack hugged Louis so fiercely she nearly squeezed the air out of his lungs. “Of course I’ll do it.” She hugged Felix a little more gently, but he still wobbled on his prosthesis. “I won’t let you down, I promise.” She looked back and forth at them, grinning from ear to ear. “I have to go drop this stuff off, so good luck. You’ll do fine. Just don’t tell her the story of how you got your callsign, all right?”
She patted them both on the shoulder before she pushed the dolly down a side corridor and out of sight.
Felix took a deep breath and put his hand in Louis’s. “Ready?”
Louis nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
They entered a long room full of waist-high stacks of papers and folders. A woman about Felix’s age with neatly cut brown hair and wearing an equally neat brown suit sat at a desk at the other end of the room, flipping through another huge stack of papers and signing some of the pages. She didn’t look up until Felix apologized for coming in without knocking.
“Oh, that’s fine,” she said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and standing up. “Carla Robson, pleased to meet you.”
Felix shuffled forward and took her outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Felix Gaeta, and this is my husband, Louis Hoshi.”
Carla had to reach a little farther across the desk to shake Louis’s hand. When she did, her jacket sleeve pulled back just far enough to reveal a small Sun of Apollo tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
Louis’s heart sank.
Carla said, “Please, have a seat. I’m sorry, I’m a little swamped with paperwork, as you probably noticed on your way in. Could you refresh my memory as to what it is you’re here for?”
“We were hoping to finalize adopting Tabitha and Nina Raniere today,” Felix said. “We set up this meeting a week or two ago, I think?”
“Oh, that’s right.” There was something very wrong about Carla’s expression. She wasn’t as good of an actor as she thought she was. “I’m sorry you apparently didn’t get my message. It could’ve saved you a trip. Government policy is that we’re strongly encouraging surrogacy for couples that can’t have children on their own. We’re not really approving adoptions like this at this time.”
Felix’s jaw dropped. Louis closed his eyes and wished he was surprised.
“But Amanda-er, Ms. Winters-she’s offered us nothing but encouragement the whole time,” Felix said.
“Ms. Winters is excellent at her job, but policy decisions aren’t a part of that job. I’m sorry if you were misled. We’re pushing surrogacy to maintain genetic diversity and decrease the median age of the human population. The crèche system is a safe and efficient way to care for and educate the Fleet’s parentless children. We really only arrange adoptions of infants that need wet nurses. Obviously, that’s not the sort of care you and your husband can provide, nor is it what, uh-” she flipped open a file folder and scanned it “-what Tabitha and Nina need, given their ages.”
Felix’s hands twisted nervously in his lap. Louis knew Felix could tell something else was wrong, but he doubted he knew what it was. Felix said slowly, “At the beginning, we did look into surrogacy, and we’re still very willing to contribute our genetic material to the repopulation effort when we find a habitable planet, if that’s what we’re asked to do. But there aren’t that many women willing to be surrogates in an environment like this. And now, we don’t just want to adopt in the abstract. We want to adopt Tabitha and Nina.”
He took Louis’s hand. Louis inwardly cringed, but he didn’t show it. Felix continued, “It’s been a short time, but we love them. They…it’s harder for them, of course, but they like us, and I think someday they might grow to love us, too.” When Carla didn’t respond, Felix added politely but firmly, “I apologize if I’m misunderstanding, but I know children have been adopted from Tabitha and Nina’s crèche recently.”
Carla sighed and folded her hands. “My primary concern is to serve the best interests of the children in the Ministry’s care. I don’t say this to be cruel, but I have some concerns about placing children in your care.”
Felix’s fingers tightened around Louis’s. “Such as?” Louis asked.
“For one, the two of you living and working on a military vessel doesn’t exactly make for an ideal child-rearing environment. It’s a dangerous ship, and though it has a daycare, it doesn’t have a school for older children. The crèche system provides for their educational as well as their emotional and physical needs all in one location, and-”
“We’ve already thought about that,” Felix cut in, not out of rudeness but out of a kind of relieved eagerness, obviously thinking he was about to solve the whole dilemma. Louis tried to think of a way he could excuse the two of them for a moment so he could tell Felix what he suspected was really going on. “Nina will go to Galactica’s daycare while we’re at work, and Tabitha’s going to be a day-student at her old crèche. One of our friends does a regular shuttle-run to the Adrastria, and between her and the Colonel, we’ve arranged the schedule so Tabitha can take the shuttle both to and from school. Some days she might be there an hour late or an hour early, but we’ll make sure she stays caught up on her schoolwork. As for Galactica being a dangerous ship, well, is there a safe ship in the Fleet? Lots of families and civilians live on Galactica.”
“It’s still far from ideal,” Carla sniffed. “Plus, there’s your work schedules. Children need routine, and I don’t see how you can provide that with your current lifestyle.”
Felix looked at Louis, urging him to say something with his expression. He didn’t want to leave Felix out to dry, but he could already feel himself slipping into his Pegasus mindset: don’t make waves, keep your head down, and let the higher ups have their victories so you can survive.
Felix gave up on Louis and said, “We’ve discussed that at length with Colonel Tigh. He’s dealt with service families before. Yes, they may need a babysitter every now and then, but we’re going to make sure we’re there for them when they need us.”
Carla closed the file. It was clear she’d run out of patience playing this game. “I’m sorry. I can see you’ve tried to address these concerns, but I cannot in good conscience approve the adoption.”
“I don’t understand.”
Carla threw a careless hand in the air. “I don’t see what’s unclear about what I’ve said. Not to mention, even you have to admit that your disability creates some concerning limitations.”
“Oh my Gods,” Louis said to Carla, shaking his head in disgust. “That’s just cruel.”
“My-what?” Louis could see Felix’s heart shatter. He tried to get Felix’s attention, but he was transfixed with Carla. “I can’t teach them how to play Pyramid, but trust me, I wouldn’t have been able to do that with two legs, either,” he joked lamely, voice breaking. “But I can play with them, and hug them, and hold them. I can even carry Nina a little ways, if I don’t have to stoop over to pick her up. I-”
Louis put a hand on Felix’s arm. “Felix, stop. Don’t even honor that crap with a response. That has nothing to do with what’s going on here.”
Felix was still lost in grief and panic. “I could understand it on some level if it was my mental health history, but my leg-I never-”
Carla veritably pricked her ears up at that, then grabbed the folder and flipped through it. “Your mental health problems are also a serious concern, uh…”
Finally, reason returned to Felix. “You didn’t even read our file before we came, did you?” Carla stuttered an unintelligible response as she pored over their file. “What’s going on here?”
Louis sighed. “She’s Sagittaron.”
Felix blinked. He stared at Louis for a long moment, then turned back to Carla. He didn’t bother asking how Louis knew. “Because we’re two gay men?” Felix said incredulously.
Carla shook her head but didn’t meet Felix’s eyes. “This administration’s policy is to encourage surrogacy for those who are not able to procreate without assistance.”
“No,” Felix snapped, face turning red. “You might be encouraging surrogacy, but there’s no way the government is discouraging adoption. Who the frak do you think you are?”
“Felix, let’s get out of here.” Louis stood up and tried to haul Felix up by his arm, but Felix flinched away from him.
“No!”
Growing up on Picon, Felix had no frame of reference for how to deal with this. In fact, Louis could tell he’d been completely blind-sided; of all the things that could get in the way, he was sure this one had never crossed Felix’s mind. Louis knew it was up to him to salvage the meeting and get out before Felix did any real damage.
He said quietly, “You don’t understand how this works. We’re not going to change her mind, so let’s just-”
“I don’t want to understand how this works!” Felix shot back, pushing himself up to standing. “This is bullshit! I don’t even know how to respond to…to…”
“That’s part of the point. You can’t respond to it. Let’s go.”
“That’s it?” Felix said in disbelief. “You’re giving up on the girls, just like that? Everybody deserves to be loved. Nina and Tabitha deserve to be loved. They deserve a home, and parents, and-this isn’t right!”
“I know it’s not. We’re not giving up, but we’re not going to win here.”
Felix’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He looked back at Carla, who sat at her desk with a passive, unreadable expression on her face. “Sorry to have wasted so much of your time,” he added over his shoulder as a sarcastic parting blow. He shuffled across the room like an old man.
Louis turned to follow after him. He saw in his mind the image of Amelia sitting at the desk in her room, the Sun of Apollo branded on the inside of her wrist. But he saw other things, too: Amelia scoring the winning goal in the regional semi-finals; Jordan trying to ride Bruno like a pony and Bruno putting up with the rambunctious three-year-old; the two of them together in the hammock, their laughing faces turned toward the sun; Tabitha and Nina smiling when he and Felix sat down beside them at their lunch table. “You deserve to be happy too, Dad.” “I got it from you, Dad. Even if I’m not sure I agree with you, I respect that: doing what you believe in, no matter what.”
He stopped and turned around.
“Enough.”
Carla lifted her eyes and said flatly, “Pardon?”
Louis took a step forward. “I’ve had enough.” He could hear Felix stop at the door and turn. “I stayed very quiet while you said your piece, because I knew nothing I said would change your mind. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say.”
“I’m sorry, but-”
“No,” Louis interrupted her right back. “No. I don’t expect that anything short of having a word with the President is going to change this situation-and if you’re curious, yes, we will be having more than a few words about this with the President.”
She paled. For the first time that day, Louis felt he had her attention.
“I don’t expect this to change anything, but I need to say some things, and I do expect you to sit there and at least pretend to listen.” He heard Felix creep a few steps closer. “We’re not perfect parents. We have weaknesses. I have a tendency to try to shield people I love from their problems, and if Felix doesn’t spoil Nina rotten, it’ll be a miracle. And are there going to be things that come up that the two of us won’t be as good at handling because we’re both men? Probably.
“But any couple is going to have weaknesses and blind-spots in raising a child. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. The important thing is, we know that. We’re not afraid of taking on all those parts of being a family that don’t come easily. And most of all, there’s no couple in this Fleet of any kind that could love those girls more than we do, and who could want more for them than we do.
“Like my husband said, everybody deserves to be loved. Tabitha and Nina deserve to be loved, and we deserve the chance to try to give them that love. And that’s all that I have to say.”
Felix was right behind him when Louis turned back toward the door. They walked out together, hand in hand. When the door shut behind them, Felix pulled Louis into an embrace and held him in silence for a long time.
~~**~~**~~
As you watch the instant photo develop before your eyes, you see:
By any objective measure, it’s not a great picture. The lighting is terrible, a harsh, flat, fluorescent glare. The shoulder of someone in line ahead of you is in the frame. The backdrop is the dull gray paneling of the hallway outside the office of one of the many bureaucrats whose signature you still need. Tabitha is squinting, Nina has a huge pink juice stain from lunch covering most of her shirt, and though maybe no one else would notice, you can tell Felix is about ready to keel over from exhaustion after standing and walking so much today.
You knew the shot wasn’t going to turn out well long before the shutter clicked. But when Felix told the woman behind you what you were doing there, and she had been so kind to offer to take your first photo together with her camera, you couldn’t turn her down.
And in spite of the bad lighting and the hot, noisy hallway and the fatigue of a day spent almost entirely standing in lines, you are all smiling. Tabitha, arms folded primly in front to hide at least some of the wrinkles in her shirt, her elusive, brilliant grin on full display. Felix, one hand on Tabitha’s shoulder, the other arm wrapped around your waist, clear to anyone who’s paying attention that it’s not just to keep himself steady on his prosthesis. You, holding Nina a little awkwardly, but she smiles at the camera as she leans against your chest.
Someday, if it’s lucky enough to survive that long, the photograph will fade. But you know that what’s in it, this family, will be with you forever.
~~**~~**~~
It was a good thing Nina was small for her age, or Louis wouldn’t have been able to carry her all the way from Galactica’s hangar deck to their quarters. Even so, his shoulder was going numb. He shifted her as she dozed, one little arm wrapped around his neck and the other snuggling her beloved stuffed dog. Tabitha half-sleep-walked beside Felix, clutching her pink backpack full of clothes, books, and a handful of toys in front of her.
They hadn’t envisioned their first day as an official family being quite so hectic. It wouldn’t have been, had Carla done her job the way she should. Just as they’d been climbing into the Raptor to go back to Galactica-and just as Racetrack was describing what she’d do if she ever got Carla alone in a Raptor with her-a secretary rushed in with two sets of adoption papers, blank except for the Child Welfare Minister’s signature. So while they had only been planning on having to take Nina and Tabitha for their mandatory health exams and fingerprinting today, they had also had to spend nearly seven hours in various lines on Colonial One, re-collecting the signatures of undersecretaries and associate directors that Louis and Felix had gotten on the copies of the forms they’d originally sent to the Child Welfare Office. They still weren’t sure if Carla had done it that way because she hadn’t noticed the nearly-completed forms in the file, or whether it was a thinly veiled final “frak you.”
Louis absentmindedly placed one foot in front of the other, staring at the monotonous grey-and-blue hallways until he’d let himself fall into a daze. Luckily, Felix noticed when they’d made it to their hatch.
“Welcome home.”
Nina woke up as soon as Louis crossed the threshold. He set her down, and she and Tabitha looked around the room. It was a shame they were too tired to take in the details, considering how much work he and Felix had put into fixing up the place for them. They did at least take a cursory peek inside the small cabinet he and Felix had sanded and repainted as a combination dresser-toy chest. Nina pawed through the small collection of toys and games they had painstakingly amassed over the last month, but Tabitha went straight for the copy of Mists of Minoa, Book Two. Louis’s throat suddenly tightened.
Tabitha looked at him. She didn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes made hunting through markets on five different ships to find that book more than worth it.
What little was left of the evening progressed smoothly. The only real surprise came when it was time for bed. Some of the deck crew had built another bed into the wall opposite Felix and Louis’s bed, and they’d also procured a roll-away that could be folded up for more living space during the daytime. Felix and Louis were surprised when Nina refused to sleep alone, and Tabitha didn’t seem too keen on the idea herself.
Even with the brief crying fit the suggestion of separate beds produced, an hour after they had arrived, everyone was in bed. They’d installed the privacy curtains like Helo had recommended, but for tonight, they left them open. Felix’s stump was swollen from walking and standing too much during the day, so he lay on his back with the stump elevated on a pile of pillows. It was a little awkward, but Louis lay with his head on Felix’s chest, so he could see the girls huddled together in bed by the glow of their nightlight.
Felix was watching them as well. “I still can’t believe they’re really here,” Felix whispered.
“I know what you mean,” Louis murmured.
Felix stroked his hair. “Have I told you how incredible you were with that horrible woman in the Child Welfare Office?”
“You may have mentioned it once or twice.” Or had been telling the story to everyone they’d seen in the past day.
Felix chuckled softly. “Well, it bears repeating.”
“You know it was me bringing up the President that scared her into giving us the papers, right? Nothing I said made a difference to her.”
“I know, but it made a difference to me.” Louis looked up at that. Felix continued, “You’ve always seemed almost apologetic about being happy, like we don’t deserve to have good things happen to us. Hearing you say that we deserve this chance, this life-it meant a lot.”
Felix awkwardly leaned down to kiss Louis on the forehead. They lay wrapped in comfortable silence for a long time.
“Go to sleep,” Louis finally whispered.
“How did you know I was still awake?”
“I know you.”
Felix sighed. “It’s just…godsdamn it, there is going to be a high school for Tabitha and Nina to go to, or I’m going to die trying to organize one.”
“We’ve got a few years to figure that out.”
“I know. But it’s important.”
“Speaking of the future,” Louis ventured, knowing he was taking a risk, “where are we going to go when Galactica finally dies?”
“That’s a long ways off,” Felix answered a little shortly.
“Not as long off as Tabitha going to high school,” Louis said as gently as he could. “I’m sure the Colonel will make a place for us on the baseship if we want one, but I’m not so sure about raising a family there.”
“Let’s not talk about the baseship.”
“We could always muster out, then. Any ship’s captain would give his right arm to have two people with our skills. I don’t know how humans are going to work in a Cylon CIC, anyway.”
“Please, Louis, I don’t want to talk about that now. I promise I won’t pretend like it’s never going to happen, but for tonight, can’t we just enjoy this?”
Louis ran his hand up and down Felix’s side. “Yes, we can, and we should. We have plenty of time to deal with it later.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Louis was fairly certain Felix still wasn’t asleep, though he was silent. As exhausted as he was, Louis couldn’t sleep, either. Too many thoughts about the future and the past raced through his mind in a bright, strange jumble of happiness and loss, fear and hope.
Suddenly, he noticed that Nina was wide awake, too, and staring across the room at them. More specifically, she was looking at the way Felix’s stump resting on the pillows tented their sheets. Louis shifted, and she looked up. At first, she looked worried that he was going to scold her for being awake. When he smiled and winked at her, though, she mirrored him with a wide grin and a return wink. He winked his other eye. She tried to copy him, almost getting her less-coordinated eyelid shut several times before finally giving up and scrunching both eyes shut for a moment.
He wasn’t sure it would work, but Louis closed both his eyes and kept them closed for about two minutes. When he slitted one open, he discovered the little copycat with her eyes shut, fast asleep. He smiled to himself. That trick had never worked on Amelia or Jordan.
The memory of Amelia and Jordan still hurt. He didn’t think that pain would ever go away, though by now, he’d learned that it did change over time. His eyes were inexorably drawn to the far wall.
The picture wall was the one thing they’d made time for that evening, despite their fatigue. Louis and Felix had already added several photos underneath Nina’s drawing: Felix’s mom and sister sitting on a couch with Felix between them, both of them playfully picking on him; Dee dancing with Felix at her wedding, laughing at the dozenth time Felix stepped on her toes; Jordan hugging Bruno; and Amelia smiling sweetly as she sat in her newly-redecorated bedroom. Tabitha added her picture of herself with her parents to the collection, and Nina put up a photo of Racetrack and Amanda. They hung the instant photo of the four of them taken that day right in the center.
Louis’s eyes drifted down to the picture he’d added once the girls were in bed, the one of Jordan and Amelia sitting together in the hammock in the backyard. He’d never been able to bring himself to put a picture of them on the Memorial Wall, but this was different. This wasn’t relegating them to a place of overwhelming loss and guilt, a place you could wallow in or avoid completely as you wished. This was making them a part of their new family, even though they couldn’t be there to meet the other people Louis loved.
He could never be sure, but he believed Amelia and Jordan would have been proud of him.
RETURN TO PART 3
~~**~~**~~
Present Day
They had been on the algae diet for years now, so Louis couldn’t write off the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as his breakfast disagreeing with him. Racetrack had piloted them over to Colonial One, so he couldn’t blame a bad Raptor ride, either. As he helped Felix off the Raptor wing, he noticed that Felix looked as ill as he felt.
Racetrack, however, was annoyingly cheerful. “Just think, this time tomorrow, I’ll be flying you and Nina and Tabitha from the Adrastria home to Galactica.”
“We hope,” Felix sighed, moving out of the way as Louis helped Racetrack pile ration bags onto the waiting dolly.
Racetrack shook her head. “I keep telling you, you’ve got nothing to be worried about. Amanda’s convinced you’re wonderful. I read the letter she wrote to the Child Welfare Minister for you. She’d gladly give you a dozen kids if you wanted.”
Louis was surprised when Racetrack shooed him away from the dolly and steered it herself, walking along beside them out of the hangar deck and into the long hallway. Usually whenever he and Felix rode with her, she sent them to make the ration delivery while she continued her run or took care of other business on the ship.
She jerked her chin in Felix’s direction and mouthed something that Louis didn’t understand, but he still got the message. He put his hand on Felix’s shoulder and smiled at him. Felix turned and offered a scared but genuine smile in return. He slid his hand down to the small of Felix’s back and kept it there, not guiding or helping, just touching Felix the way he knew made him feel safe.
The truth was, Louis was just as worried and uncertain about today’s outcome as Felix was. They’d done everything they could. They’d taken the process very slowly, giving Tabitha and Nina a few months to get to know them and get comfortable being around them, so that when the four of them discussed going through with an official adoption, the girls had been ready and happy to say ‘yes.’ Amanda, the Agathons, and even Colonel Tigh had written them glowing recommendation letters.
But so had Dr. Ramos, and that was where their fear lay.
Felix blurted, “The Minister probably thinks I’m a frakking drug addict, Racetrack. Would you give two kids to a morpha junkie?”
“Is that what’s got you two so paranoid today?” Racetrack said. “You weren’t a junkie. Frak, my eighty-year-old grandma got a little morpha addiction after she had surgery for a broken hip. It happens all the time. And it wouldn’t have gotten out of hand if Cottle had been doing his frakking job and kept you under observation longer.”
Felix winced. After the incident with the jump calculations, Felix had wanted to publicly explain the whole story behind his time on the Inchon Velle with Dr. Ramos, but Louis had convinced him not to. He’d argued that Felix had punished himself enough, and that the mutineers who’d re-sworn their loyalty to Adama and Tigh before the end had gotten a blanket pardon without having to admit anything. When Felix had still insisted on telling the brass, Louis relented but had him confess to Major Cottle rather than Colonel Tigh. Felix and Tigh had a fraught relationship already, and Louis feared that Tigh might let his emotions get the better of his reason. Plus, though Cottle had only known that Felix was somehow involved with Zarek’s machinations before they’d had him committed, Louis suspected Cottle had pieced together most of the rest of the story himself already. Just as Louis had expected, Cottle told Felix he’d been a frakking moron, then had him re-affirm his oath and swear to never do it again, or he’d kill him if Louis didn’t first.
Even so, Louis could tell Felix couldn’t quite let go of his guilt. Louis was terrified of how Felix might react if his stay on the Inchon Velle got in the way of getting the adoption approved.
“Your grandma wasn’t in treatment for four weeks for her addiction, I bet,” Felix muttered.
Racetrack sighed. “Maybe not, but who doesn’t need therapy these days? I dare you to find me somebody who hasn’t been suicidal or addicted to something or otherwise completely frakked up at one point or another in the past five years.”
“Louis,” Felix said, smiling at him sweetly. Everyone on the Pegasus had been suicidal by definition those first few months before they encountered the Fleet, but Louis didn’t have the heart to correct him.
Louis suspected from the look on her face that Racetrack knew better, too, but she let it go. “Yeah, well, name me two. You can’t.” They walked in silence until Racetrack said, “Gods, would somebody tell a joke or something? I feel like I’m going to a funeral.”
“Sorry,” Felix said. He sighed in resignation. “Fine. Go ahead and tell Louis about my callsign.”
Racetrack lit up. “Really?”
“If that doesn’t get a laugh, I don’t know what will.”
“Yes!” Racetrack pumped her fist in the air. “But it’s not nearly as funny if he doesn’t know the whole story.”
“There’s a whole story behind it?” Louis said, already starting to grin. “Oh, you can’t renege now, Felix.”
Racterack began before Felix could even open his mouth. “So, me and Felix were in the same Raptor Basic Flight class years and years ago, right? And Felix somehow gets it into his head that shagging our flight instructor is a good idea.”
Louis pretended to be scandalized, and Felix blushed.
Racetrack continued, “Not only was the flight instructor frakking him, but he was doing it in the Raptors.”
Felix turned an even deeper shade of red. “I wasn’t really crazy about that part. It was all Herc’s idea.”
“Of course it was Herc’s idea,” Racetrack agreed. “Because we all know that the remedial lessons he scheduled with you were his idea, too.”
Felix was still embarrassed, but he took over the story from Racetrack. “Herc told me that my three-point flip-turns sucked, and if I wanted to get my wings, I needed a lot more practice. And since practice basically meant…frakking…too…”
“I’m not seeing what this has to do with your callsign,” Louis said. “So you were bad at a maneuver, your teacher made you practice more, and you tended to mix practice and sex.”
Racetrack laughed. “The thing is, three-point flip-turns aren’t part of the Basic Flight exam! They’re something that only stunt pilots do, so of course Felix sucked at it. Herc strategically misled him about the exam so he could have more Raptor frakking time.”
“What the frak?”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Turned out, he had a thing for Raptors rather than a thing for me. I was just the only one naïve and needy enough to buy into him. When the other nuggets stopped laughing behind my back long enough for one of them to tell me the truth-” he looked knowingly at Racetrack, “-I was understandably not happy and broke things off with Herc. I thought I was being smart by waiting until after my exam to do it, but I forgot about getting a callsign.”
Louis bit back a snicker. “Oh, no…”
Felix took a deep breath. “He dubbed me ‘Back Door.’”
Louis couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore. “I suppose it could’ve been worse.”
“I heard Pansy, Deep Throat, and Cock-Blocker were all in the running,” Racetrack added. “Pansy was too nice, Deep Throat inaccurate-”
“Wait a minute-” Louis interrupted.
“Inaccurate at the time,” Felix clarified. “I was young and relatively innocent.”
Racetrack continued, “And Cock-Blocker, though the favorite of the bunch, probably wouldn’t have made it past the brass. So, did that calm your nerves?” The door to the Child Welfare Minister’s office was in view. Louis felt the butterflies in his stomach take wing again. “Aw frak, it didn’t, did it? You both still look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Thanks for trying, anyway,” Felix said. “I guess this is just too important not to make us nervous.”
“Is it, though?” she asked. “It’s the end of the worlds. Who cares if you have the right paperwork? The four of you all want it, and Amanda and the Colonel are both on board. Why should anybody else matter?”
“For one, the last thing we want is to get Amanda in trouble for giving away children without proper authorization,” Louis said. “She could lose her job.”
“And two,” Felix said, stopping in front of the door to the minister’s office, “if it’s official, the girls would have certain rights and benefits if anything should happen to us. We’ll be able to choose a legal guardian for them. Without that...Nina could go back to the crèche, but it won’t be long before Tabitha is too old for Amanda to take her back in.”
Felix looked at the door, then at Louis. “Should we ask her now?”
They were a little early for their meeting, and Louis wanted to put off going in as long as possible. He nodded.
Felix turned to Racetrack and said, “We’ve talked about this a lot, and we were hoping that you’d be willing to be Tabitha and Nina’s guardian, if something should happen to the two of us.”
Racetrack stared at them in shock. “You…what? I figured the Agathons-”
“They’re alternates-we have a lot of alternates, since it’s a dangerous world,” Felix said. “But we decided that foisting two sisters on Hera wouldn’t be fair to her. And even though maybe it’s not politically correct, we’re just not completely comfortable with the idea of a Cylon raising our kids.” Louis was the one who wasn’t comfortable with it, but he appreciated Felix’s understanding on that point.
Louis couldn’t tell whether Racetrack’s dropped jaw meant she was surprised but happy or blanking on a polite way to tell them they were nuts. He said, “We know it’s a lot to ask, but the girls know you from all the Raptor runs you’ve done with us and them, and they like you. We’re so grateful for all the help you’ve given us over the past few months, and…we trust you.”
That was when Louis finally placed the look on Racetrack’s face. He realized that nobody had trusted her or given her any real responsibility since the mutiny.
Racetrack hugged Louis so fiercely she nearly squeezed the air out of his lungs. “Of course I’ll do it.” She hugged Felix a little more gently, but he still wobbled on his prosthesis. “I won’t let you down, I promise.” She looked back and forth at them, grinning from ear to ear. “I have to go drop this stuff off, so good luck. You’ll do fine. Just don’t tell her the story of how you got your callsign, all right?”
She patted them both on the shoulder before she pushed the dolly down a side corridor and out of sight.
Felix took a deep breath and put his hand in Louis’s. “Ready?”
Louis nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
They entered a long room full of waist-high stacks of papers and folders. A woman about Felix’s age with neatly cut brown hair and wearing an equally neat brown suit sat at a desk at the other end of the room, flipping through another huge stack of papers and signing some of the pages. She didn’t look up until Felix apologized for coming in without knocking.
“Oh, that’s fine,” she said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and standing up. “Carla Robson, pleased to meet you.”
Felix shuffled forward and took her outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Felix Gaeta, and this is my husband, Louis Hoshi.”
Carla had to reach a little farther across the desk to shake Louis’s hand. When she did, her jacket sleeve pulled back just far enough to reveal a small Sun of Apollo tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
Louis’s heart sank.
Carla said, “Please, have a seat. I’m sorry, I’m a little swamped with paperwork, as you probably noticed on your way in. Could you refresh my memory as to what it is you’re here for?”
“We were hoping to finalize adopting Tabitha and Nina Raniere today,” Felix said. “We set up this meeting a week or two ago, I think?”
“Oh, that’s right.” There was something very wrong about Carla’s expression. She wasn’t as good of an actor as she thought she was. “I’m sorry you apparently didn’t get my message. It could’ve saved you a trip. Government policy is that we’re strongly encouraging surrogacy for couples that can’t have children on their own. We’re not really approving adoptions like this at this time.”
Felix’s jaw dropped. Louis closed his eyes and wished he was surprised.
“But Amanda-er, Ms. Winters-she’s offered us nothing but encouragement the whole time,” Felix said.
“Ms. Winters is excellent at her job, but policy decisions aren’t a part of that job. I’m sorry if you were misled. We’re pushing surrogacy to maintain genetic diversity and decrease the median age of the human population. The crèche system is a safe and efficient way to care for and educate the Fleet’s parentless children. We really only arrange adoptions of infants that need wet nurses. Obviously, that’s not the sort of care you and your husband can provide, nor is it what, uh-” she flipped open a file folder and scanned it “-what Tabitha and Nina need, given their ages.”
Felix’s hands twisted nervously in his lap. Louis knew Felix could tell something else was wrong, but he doubted he knew what it was. Felix said slowly, “At the beginning, we did look into surrogacy, and we’re still very willing to contribute our genetic material to the repopulation effort when we find a habitable planet, if that’s what we’re asked to do. But there aren’t that many women willing to be surrogates in an environment like this. And now, we don’t just want to adopt in the abstract. We want to adopt Tabitha and Nina.”
He took Louis’s hand. Louis inwardly cringed, but he didn’t show it. Felix continued, “It’s been a short time, but we love them. They…it’s harder for them, of course, but they like us, and I think someday they might grow to love us, too.” When Carla didn’t respond, Felix added politely but firmly, “I apologize if I’m misunderstanding, but I know children have been adopted from Tabitha and Nina’s crèche recently.”
Carla sighed and folded her hands. “My primary concern is to serve the best interests of the children in the Ministry’s care. I don’t say this to be cruel, but I have some concerns about placing children in your care.”
Felix’s fingers tightened around Louis’s. “Such as?” Louis asked.
“For one, the two of you living and working on a military vessel doesn’t exactly make for an ideal child-rearing environment. It’s a dangerous ship, and though it has a daycare, it doesn’t have a school for older children. The crèche system provides for their educational as well as their emotional and physical needs all in one location, and-”
“We’ve already thought about that,” Felix cut in, not out of rudeness but out of a kind of relieved eagerness, obviously thinking he was about to solve the whole dilemma. Louis tried to think of a way he could excuse the two of them for a moment so he could tell Felix what he suspected was really going on. “Nina will go to Galactica’s daycare while we’re at work, and Tabitha’s going to be a day-student at her old crèche. One of our friends does a regular shuttle-run to the Adrastria, and between her and the Colonel, we’ve arranged the schedule so Tabitha can take the shuttle both to and from school. Some days she might be there an hour late or an hour early, but we’ll make sure she stays caught up on her schoolwork. As for Galactica being a dangerous ship, well, is there a safe ship in the Fleet? Lots of families and civilians live on Galactica.”
“It’s still far from ideal,” Carla sniffed. “Plus, there’s your work schedules. Children need routine, and I don’t see how you can provide that with your current lifestyle.”
Felix looked at Louis, urging him to say something with his expression. He didn’t want to leave Felix out to dry, but he could already feel himself slipping into his Pegasus mindset: don’t make waves, keep your head down, and let the higher ups have their victories so you can survive.
Felix gave up on Louis and said, “We’ve discussed that at length with Colonel Tigh. He’s dealt with service families before. Yes, they may need a babysitter every now and then, but we’re going to make sure we’re there for them when they need us.”
Carla closed the file. It was clear she’d run out of patience playing this game. “I’m sorry. I can see you’ve tried to address these concerns, but I cannot in good conscience approve the adoption.”
“I don’t understand.”
Carla threw a careless hand in the air. “I don’t see what’s unclear about what I’ve said. Not to mention, even you have to admit that your disability creates some concerning limitations.”
“Oh my Gods,” Louis said to Carla, shaking his head in disgust. “That’s just cruel.”
“My-what?” Louis could see Felix’s heart shatter. He tried to get Felix’s attention, but he was transfixed with Carla. “I can’t teach them how to play Pyramid, but trust me, I wouldn’t have been able to do that with two legs, either,” he joked lamely, voice breaking. “But I can play with them, and hug them, and hold them. I can even carry Nina a little ways, if I don’t have to stoop over to pick her up. I-”
Louis put a hand on Felix’s arm. “Felix, stop. Don’t even honor that crap with a response. That has nothing to do with what’s going on here.”
Felix was still lost in grief and panic. “I could understand it on some level if it was my mental health history, but my leg-I never-”
Carla veritably pricked her ears up at that, then grabbed the folder and flipped through it. “Your mental health problems are also a serious concern, uh…”
Finally, reason returned to Felix. “You didn’t even read our file before we came, did you?” Carla stuttered an unintelligible response as she pored over their file. “What’s going on here?”
Louis sighed. “She’s Sagittaron.”
Felix blinked. He stared at Louis for a long moment, then turned back to Carla. He didn’t bother asking how Louis knew. “Because we’re two gay men?” Felix said incredulously.
Carla shook her head but didn’t meet Felix’s eyes. “This administration’s policy is to encourage surrogacy for those who are not able to procreate without assistance.”
“No,” Felix snapped, face turning red. “You might be encouraging surrogacy, but there’s no way the government is discouraging adoption. Who the frak do you think you are?”
“Felix, let’s get out of here.” Louis stood up and tried to haul Felix up by his arm, but Felix flinched away from him.
“No!”
Growing up on Picon, Felix had no frame of reference for how to deal with this. In fact, Louis could tell he’d been completely blind-sided; of all the things that could get in the way, he was sure this one had never crossed Felix’s mind. Louis knew it was up to him to salvage the meeting and get out before Felix did any real damage.
He said quietly, “You don’t understand how this works. We’re not going to change her mind, so let’s just-”
“I don’t want to understand how this works!” Felix shot back, pushing himself up to standing. “This is bullshit! I don’t even know how to respond to…to…”
“That’s part of the point. You can’t respond to it. Let’s go.”
“That’s it?” Felix said in disbelief. “You’re giving up on the girls, just like that? Everybody deserves to be loved. Nina and Tabitha deserve to be loved. They deserve a home, and parents, and-this isn’t right!”
“I know it’s not. We’re not giving up, but we’re not going to win here.”
Felix’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He looked back at Carla, who sat at her desk with a passive, unreadable expression on her face. “Sorry to have wasted so much of your time,” he added over his shoulder as a sarcastic parting blow. He shuffled across the room like an old man.
Louis turned to follow after him. He saw in his mind the image of Amelia sitting at the desk in her room, the Sun of Apollo branded on the inside of her wrist. But he saw other things, too: Amelia scoring the winning goal in the regional semi-finals; Jordan trying to ride Bruno like a pony and Bruno putting up with the rambunctious three-year-old; the two of them together in the hammock, their laughing faces turned toward the sun; Tabitha and Nina smiling when he and Felix sat down beside them at their lunch table. “You deserve to be happy too, Dad.” “I got it from you, Dad. Even if I’m not sure I agree with you, I respect that: doing what you believe in, no matter what.”
He stopped and turned around.
“Enough.”
Carla lifted her eyes and said flatly, “Pardon?”
Louis took a step forward. “I’ve had enough.” He could hear Felix stop at the door and turn. “I stayed very quiet while you said your piece, because I knew nothing I said would change your mind. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say.”
“I’m sorry, but-”
“No,” Louis interrupted her right back. “No. I don’t expect that anything short of having a word with the President is going to change this situation-and if you’re curious, yes, we will be having more than a few words about this with the President.”
She paled. For the first time that day, Louis felt he had her attention.
“I don’t expect this to change anything, but I need to say some things, and I do expect you to sit there and at least pretend to listen.” He heard Felix creep a few steps closer. “We’re not perfect parents. We have weaknesses. I have a tendency to try to shield people I love from their problems, and if Felix doesn’t spoil Nina rotten, it’ll be a miracle. And are there going to be things that come up that the two of us won’t be as good at handling because we’re both men? Probably.
“But any couple is going to have weaknesses and blind-spots in raising a child. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. The important thing is, we know that. We’re not afraid of taking on all those parts of being a family that don’t come easily. And most of all, there’s no couple in this Fleet of any kind that could love those girls more than we do, and who could want more for them than we do.
“Like my husband said, everybody deserves to be loved. Tabitha and Nina deserve to be loved, and we deserve the chance to try to give them that love. And that’s all that I have to say.”
Felix was right behind him when Louis turned back toward the door. They walked out together, hand in hand. When the door shut behind them, Felix pulled Louis into an embrace and held him in silence for a long time.
~~**~~**~~
As you watch the instant photo develop before your eyes, you see:
By any objective measure, it’s not a great picture. The lighting is terrible, a harsh, flat, fluorescent glare. The shoulder of someone in line ahead of you is in the frame. The backdrop is the dull gray paneling of the hallway outside the office of one of the many bureaucrats whose signature you still need. Tabitha is squinting, Nina has a huge pink juice stain from lunch covering most of her shirt, and though maybe no one else would notice, you can tell Felix is about ready to keel over from exhaustion after standing and walking so much today.
You knew the shot wasn’t going to turn out well long before the shutter clicked. But when Felix told the woman behind you what you were doing there, and she had been so kind to offer to take your first photo together with her camera, you couldn’t turn her down.
And in spite of the bad lighting and the hot, noisy hallway and the fatigue of a day spent almost entirely standing in lines, you are all smiling. Tabitha, arms folded primly in front to hide at least some of the wrinkles in her shirt, her elusive, brilliant grin on full display. Felix, one hand on Tabitha’s shoulder, the other arm wrapped around your waist, clear to anyone who’s paying attention that it’s not just to keep himself steady on his prosthesis. You, holding Nina a little awkwardly, but she smiles at the camera as she leans against your chest.
Someday, if it’s lucky enough to survive that long, the photograph will fade. But you know that what’s in it, this family, will be with you forever.
~~**~~**~~
It was a good thing Nina was small for her age, or Louis wouldn’t have been able to carry her all the way from Galactica’s hangar deck to their quarters. Even so, his shoulder was going numb. He shifted her as she dozed, one little arm wrapped around his neck and the other snuggling her beloved stuffed dog. Tabitha half-sleep-walked beside Felix, clutching her pink backpack full of clothes, books, and a handful of toys in front of her.
They hadn’t envisioned their first day as an official family being quite so hectic. It wouldn’t have been, had Carla done her job the way she should. Just as they’d been climbing into the Raptor to go back to Galactica-and just as Racetrack was describing what she’d do if she ever got Carla alone in a Raptor with her-a secretary rushed in with two sets of adoption papers, blank except for the Child Welfare Minister’s signature. So while they had only been planning on having to take Nina and Tabitha for their mandatory health exams and fingerprinting today, they had also had to spend nearly seven hours in various lines on Colonial One, re-collecting the signatures of undersecretaries and associate directors that Louis and Felix had gotten on the copies of the forms they’d originally sent to the Child Welfare Office. They still weren’t sure if Carla had done it that way because she hadn’t noticed the nearly-completed forms in the file, or whether it was a thinly veiled final “frak you.”
Louis absentmindedly placed one foot in front of the other, staring at the monotonous grey-and-blue hallways until he’d let himself fall into a daze. Luckily, Felix noticed when they’d made it to their hatch.
“Welcome home.”
Nina woke up as soon as Louis crossed the threshold. He set her down, and she and Tabitha looked around the room. It was a shame they were too tired to take in the details, considering how much work he and Felix had put into fixing up the place for them. They did at least take a cursory peek inside the small cabinet he and Felix had sanded and repainted as a combination dresser-toy chest. Nina pawed through the small collection of toys and games they had painstakingly amassed over the last month, but Tabitha went straight for the copy of Mists of Minoa, Book Two. Louis’s throat suddenly tightened.
Tabitha looked at him. She didn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes made hunting through markets on five different ships to find that book more than worth it.
What little was left of the evening progressed smoothly. The only real surprise came when it was time for bed. Some of the deck crew had built another bed into the wall opposite Felix and Louis’s bed, and they’d also procured a roll-away that could be folded up for more living space during the daytime. Felix and Louis were surprised when Nina refused to sleep alone, and Tabitha didn’t seem too keen on the idea herself.
Even with the brief crying fit the suggestion of separate beds produced, an hour after they had arrived, everyone was in bed. They’d installed the privacy curtains like Helo had recommended, but for tonight, they left them open. Felix’s stump was swollen from walking and standing too much during the day, so he lay on his back with the stump elevated on a pile of pillows. It was a little awkward, but Louis lay with his head on Felix’s chest, so he could see the girls huddled together in bed by the glow of their nightlight.
Felix was watching them as well. “I still can’t believe they’re really here,” Felix whispered.
“I know what you mean,” Louis murmured.
Felix stroked his hair. “Have I told you how incredible you were with that horrible woman in the Child Welfare Office?”
“You may have mentioned it once or twice.” Or had been telling the story to everyone they’d seen in the past day.
Felix chuckled softly. “Well, it bears repeating.”
“You know it was me bringing up the President that scared her into giving us the papers, right? Nothing I said made a difference to her.”
“I know, but it made a difference to me.” Louis looked up at that. Felix continued, “You’ve always seemed almost apologetic about being happy, like we don’t deserve to have good things happen to us. Hearing you say that we deserve this chance, this life-it meant a lot.”
Felix awkwardly leaned down to kiss Louis on the forehead. They lay wrapped in comfortable silence for a long time.
“Go to sleep,” Louis finally whispered.
“How did you know I was still awake?”
“I know you.”
Felix sighed. “It’s just…godsdamn it, there is going to be a high school for Tabitha and Nina to go to, or I’m going to die trying to organize one.”
“We’ve got a few years to figure that out.”
“I know. But it’s important.”
“Speaking of the future,” Louis ventured, knowing he was taking a risk, “where are we going to go when Galactica finally dies?”
“That’s a long ways off,” Felix answered a little shortly.
“Not as long off as Tabitha going to high school,” Louis said as gently as he could. “I’m sure the Colonel will make a place for us on the baseship if we want one, but I’m not so sure about raising a family there.”
“Let’s not talk about the baseship.”
“We could always muster out, then. Any ship’s captain would give his right arm to have two people with our skills. I don’t know how humans are going to work in a Cylon CIC, anyway.”
“Please, Louis, I don’t want to talk about that now. I promise I won’t pretend like it’s never going to happen, but for tonight, can’t we just enjoy this?”
Louis ran his hand up and down Felix’s side. “Yes, we can, and we should. We have plenty of time to deal with it later.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Louis was fairly certain Felix still wasn’t asleep, though he was silent. As exhausted as he was, Louis couldn’t sleep, either. Too many thoughts about the future and the past raced through his mind in a bright, strange jumble of happiness and loss, fear and hope.
Suddenly, he noticed that Nina was wide awake, too, and staring across the room at them. More specifically, she was looking at the way Felix’s stump resting on the pillows tented their sheets. Louis shifted, and she looked up. At first, she looked worried that he was going to scold her for being awake. When he smiled and winked at her, though, she mirrored him with a wide grin and a return wink. He winked his other eye. She tried to copy him, almost getting her less-coordinated eyelid shut several times before finally giving up and scrunching both eyes shut for a moment.
He wasn’t sure it would work, but Louis closed both his eyes and kept them closed for about two minutes. When he slitted one open, he discovered the little copycat with her eyes shut, fast asleep. He smiled to himself. That trick had never worked on Amelia or Jordan.
The memory of Amelia and Jordan still hurt. He didn’t think that pain would ever go away, though by now, he’d learned that it did change over time. His eyes were inexorably drawn to the far wall.
The picture wall was the one thing they’d made time for that evening, despite their fatigue. Louis and Felix had already added several photos underneath Nina’s drawing: Felix’s mom and sister sitting on a couch with Felix between them, both of them playfully picking on him; Dee dancing with Felix at her wedding, laughing at the dozenth time Felix stepped on her toes; Jordan hugging Bruno; and Amelia smiling sweetly as she sat in her newly-redecorated bedroom. Tabitha added her picture of herself with her parents to the collection, and Nina put up a photo of Racetrack and Amanda. They hung the instant photo of the four of them taken that day right in the center.
Louis’s eyes drifted down to the picture he’d added once the girls were in bed, the one of Jordan and Amelia sitting together in the hammock in the backyard. He’d never been able to bring himself to put a picture of them on the Memorial Wall, but this was different. This wasn’t relegating them to a place of overwhelming loss and guilt, a place you could wallow in or avoid completely as you wished. This was making them a part of their new family, even though they couldn’t be there to meet the other people Louis loved.
He could never be sure, but he believed Amelia and Jordan would have been proud of him.
