Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore and the Sci-Fi channel. This story was partly inspired by missredoren's Youtube clip.

Adama's Secretary

She was in the opera house, chasing after Hera. As Athena met her at the bottom of the steps, Six picked up the girl as she had done in the previous dreams. Six reached for the door and then… nothing. A loud buzzing had all three women looking around as the dream faded.

Roslin woke to the sound of Adama's phone ringing. She blinked and remained in his bed, waiting to hear him answer it. As it continued to ring, she sighed and pulled back the covers, grabbing her bathrobe as she headed into the living room. There he was, stretched out on his couch, snoring louder than a Raptor's engine. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. We've both been through a lot this week, emotionally and physically. At least we've moved past the point of being angry with each other. Now how do I wake him up?

"Bill," she called. "Bill!" He did not respond as the phone kept ringing. Well, if it's an emergency, one of us ought to answer it, she reasoned.

Those days in college drama floated back to her as she gave her voice an accent. "Hallo, may ah help you?"

Helo's voice sounded slightly dazed. "Uh… this is CIC. Is the admiral there?"

Roslin glanced over at the admiral, who was finally blinking his eyes. "He's rat he-ah. Wait a me-nut."

"Who is this?" Helo demanded.

She watched as Adama sat up. "Phone's for you. It's CIC."

He nodded and took the phone. "Adama. Alright, I'll be there. What?" he paused and glanced at Roslin, who had perched herself on his desk, crossing her ankles. "That was my secretary. Just started. Wanted to be here early to revise my book keeping system. Accent?" Roslin blushed as he faced her again. "It's bad, but not intolerable. I'll be right there." He hung up the phone and turned back to her.

"Bill, I tried to wake you. And then I was worried that it might be an emergency," she explained.

"It's fine. Actually if people think I have a secretary, then it's a good cover for you staying here," he relayed with a smirk before standing and walking to his closet to look for a fresh uniform.

She followed him. "It's better than your 'there isn't room anywhere else' excuse. I mean, it's a big ship, Bill. Someone would say something sooner or later."

He chuckled. "True. There's been some strange activity in the area, so they want me to go down and take a look at the data."

Worry creased her brow. "Is it the Cylons?"

"We don't know yet," he told her, shrugging on his military jacket.

He left his quarters as she returned to bed. In CIC, the DRADIS had misidentified a comet. After doing a complete systems check, everything was running normally again. While there was a pause in activity, Lieutenant Dualla approached the admiral. "Sir, I heard you have a secretary. Should we send our reports directly to her?"

"No, Dee. I'll be taking them still," Adama told her, smiling politely. I wonder who else is going to ask me about my 'secretary,' he mused.

Roslin sat through another meeting, sighing every time Lee Adama opened his mouth. Deities, what possessed me to give him this job? Then she glanced over at Tory, who looked just as bored. She and Tory had laughed about the 'secretary' incident earlier that morning before the meeting. After arguing with Lee on a few points, she felt the need to end the meeting.

Turning to Tory, she mentioned quietly, "I need you to schedule a meeting with the admiral's secretary."

Lee heard and watched the two talk. Secretary? When did my father have time to get a secretary? He decided to ask him about it later. Neither he, nor Roslin realized though that a few other people had heard her remark.

Roslin had left Adama's quarters to take care of a debate between a few delegates when Lee appeared at the door. "If you've come to argue politics, the president isn't here right now," Adama stated gruffly.

"Actually I wanted to ask you a few questions," Lee replied.

The admiral sighed and let his son in. "What is this regarding?"

"Your secretary," Lee began, glancing around the room, half expecting to see a woman wandering out of the bathroom.

"My what?" Adama asked, blinking. Then he remembered. "Oh, my secretary. Yes, what about her?"

"What's she like? Where did you meet her?" Lee probed.

Adama fought himself not to chuckle. It was not often that he could pull off a ruse in front of his son. "She used to be the file clerk for one of the captains. Her former employer won't admit to it though. She ended up on Galactica because they had a big fight. He wanted her as a maid as well as a secretary, so she left. I was carrying a few folders the other day and literally bumped into her in the hall. She asked me if anyone needed a secretary these days. I figured I could give her a job for a while until she found a better one."

Lee nodded. "Interesting. What's her name?"

Frak, I wasn't planning on names. Hmm, no that won't work. How about… no, that's, well I just can't use that one. I know. "Linda. Linda Roth."

"What's she look like?" his son questioned.

Think. This should be easy. You've got that old photo in your desk somewhere. Adama turned and reached into his top drawer. After a moment he removed a photo of a small blonde woman with blue eyes, sitting on the steps of a library. "I've been meaning to give it back to her. It fell out of her portfolio the last time she was here. Apparently she keeps it around for job interviews."

Lee only glanced at it briefly before handing it back to him. "I still can't believe you have a secretary. I thought you were good at keeping your own books."

"It's gotten more difficult lately and it's nice to have someone else to lean on," Adama commented.

His son turned to leave, but then looked back. "What does the president think of her?"

Adama was unable to hide the smirk. "They get along fine, most of the time."

"Does she know the president's been, well, staying here?" Lee questioned.

The older man simply walked him to the door. "She's promised to be discreet."

When Adama reached CIC for another shift, he walked onto the deck to the murmur of whispers and people glancing at him. "I hear she's short. Someone said she's blonde with glasses. No, I heard she's a brunette. I heard she was a captain's mistress. No, that's ridiculous. She's a recent widow and he's giving her a job."

"Is there something I should know about?" Adama asked, looking at Colonel Tigh.

"No, sir. We were just wandering when we would meet this new secretary of yours," Tigh answered.

Adama rubbed the bridge of his nose. This has gone too far. I'll have to talk to Laura about this. "She's busy," he said dismissively.

As Roslin headed to the admiral's quarters later that afternoon, Tom Zarek caught up with her. "I hear Adama has a secretary. Do you think she'll start coming to meetings instead of him? I mean, he's such a bore. A secretary might be better for such meetings."

The president fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Tom, she's only doing book keeping."

Zarek shrugged and started to walk off. "I'll bet she's pretty. I wonder if she's single. It's not like we have many choices these days."

When he was out of earshot, she sighed and shook her head. This is getting out of hand. She entered Adama's quarters and sank down into the couch. Adama entered later to find her napping. Sensing that she was no longer alone, she sat up and looked at him. "How was your day?"

He smiled at her. "Interesting. Our 'secretary' joke is beginning to look like the joke's on us. Everyone in CIC was gossiping about her. Lee even asked what she looked like."

Roslin untucked her legs, placing them out in front of her and crossing her ankles. "What did you do?"

Adama handed her a picture. "I showed him this."

She studied it, noticing that the library behind the woman seemed familiar. "Bill, who is this? That library was destroyed in the last major earthquake on Caprica."

He took the picture back and grinned. "That's actually my mother. The last time Lee saw her, she didn't look anything like this picture, so he didn't recognize it as her."

Roslin laughed. "You realize that this is only going to get worse because you have a picture now. I ran into Tom on the way here. He wants to know if she's single."

"He must be desperate, considering his opinion of me," Adama added with a wry grin.

A knock at the door brought their attention back to more pertinent issues. Adama opened the hatch to find Tigh standing there. He let the other man in, who took in the room with his good eye. "Alright, I give up. Where is she?"

Roslin stood and smirked at him. "Who are you looking for, Colonel?"

"The new secretary, Linda Roth," he mentioned.

She looked at Adama and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, 'Using 'L' and 'R,' really. Bill what were you thinking?'

At the expression she was shooting his way, Adama snorted. "Come on, Bill. Where are you hiding her? The whole crew wants to meet her."

Roslin giggled as she perched herself on the edge of the desk. Adama grinned and faced his old friend. "Saul, meet my secretary," he paused, gesturing toward Roslin.

"It was all a huge misunderstanding," she managed to say, catching her breath.

Tigh sat down, perplexed. "Why?"

Roslin crossed her arms. "Because Admiral I-know-what's-happening-on-my-ship-at-all-hours was dead asleep when the phone rang. I answered it, using an accent."

The colonel laughed and shook his head. "I should've known it was just you two. Next you'll be prank-calling CIC."

He left and once again, it was only Roslin and Adama. "I suppose I should hold a press conference just to tell them I don't have a secretary. This ruse of ours is only going to get us in trouble," he mentioned, rubbing a few kinks in his neck.

She walked over to him, deciding to give him a hand. Putting pressure on the knots, she began to massage his stiff neck. "Yes, you probably should. We'll sort it out and people will forget."

"That feels good. Thank you. This had better sort itself out soon. The last thing I want is a huge stack of job applications to read," he remarked.

The next day a small press conference was held, in which the admiral addressed the issue of the secretary after discussing the progress on the road to Earth. "It has been rumored that I have a secretary. Those rumors are false, based on a miscommunication."

"But Admiral, why contradict a story that you yourself established?" a man in an itchy brown suit asked.

"It was a joke not to be taken seriously and it was misunderstood," Adama replies simply.

The final question was directed at Roslin. "Madame President, is there any truth to the rumor that you're staying here on Galactica because of an affair with Admiral Adama?" a small brown-haired woman asked.

Roslin glanced over at Adama and chuckled. "Now Katie, that's just a rumor. As we have learned, the admiral does not have a secretary, which means that most things handed to me from him are put together hastily in order to move onto more important issues. Since I deal with more paperwork than he is accustomed to, I assist him how he handles me reports and what I'm looking for, regarding a format," Roslin replied calmly.

The next day's headline read: Filing System Flops; President Helps Admiral Organize His Affairs. After throwing away as many copies of the newspaper that they could find, Adama and Roslin had the unfortunate task of sorting through the admiral's inbox, picking out and tossing the two hundred and forty-three applications that had poured in for the position of the admiral's secretary.

Fin……………………………………….