Spoonful of Sugar
Or, if you prefer….
All the Tasty Goodness
Author's Note: This idea has been peculating for a while. I just haven't had the time to write it down. A bit of pilot-sauciness; it stems from, well… Once you read it, I think it will become self-explanatory.
This afternoon...
"Admiral?" Knocking on the outside of the hatch, Felix Gaeta nervously tapped his fingers against the report secured to his clipboard.
"Enter."
Adama's gruff tone was softened by the open expression on his face as his chief tactical officer stood at attention in front of his desk.
Waving a hand toward the nearest chair, the one Lee always managed to sit in despite it being too small for his sizable frame, Bill bit back a smile. Ever since New Caprica, he had noticed how much more it took to rattle Gaeta. Now, the unflappable Mr. Gaeta was squirming like a toddler with a full nappy.
"Do you have something to report?" Looking over his glasses was the only way he saw the pink tinge of embarrassment wrap around Gaeta's neck.
"Yes, Sir."
Stumbling over his second word, Felix cleared his throat and fired off a prayer to Hermes: please, all I need is fifteen minutes of composure – that's all I need – please – okay – maybe twelve minutes, tops.
Peeling off the top sheet and handing it over, he fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall just over the Admiral's left shoulder as Adama accepted his summary.
"Mr. Gaeta – keep that up and I'll tie you to that chair." Pushing his glasses higher onto his nose, Bill had no clue as to why submitting a simple report would make Gaeta want to jump out of his skin or how such an innocuous threat would make Felix's ears turn as pink as his neck.
Leaning back in his chair, Bill read the first couple of paragraphs and then set the paper on his desk. On top of the report fell his glasses. A barely indulgent look was levelled at Gaeta.
"Want to tell me why this," he waved a hand at the report, "reads like a chemistry dissertation on the properties of algae?"
"Yes, Sir," Gaeta blinked twice. Deciding that there was no other place to start than the beginning, he looked anywhere but at the Admiral's face.
"You see, Sir…"
Yesterday Morning…
Clutching his clipboard in one hand, Felix rested the other on the back of a chair. Breakfast was in full swing despite there being only one item on the menu. It had been weeks since Galactica had passed through a solar system that fostered any viable supplies – except water – for the fleet. Food stores had run low and thanks to Cottle, Galactica's crews had been living a one-hundred percent algae diet for the past month. The good Major thought it was wise to cultivate the stuff for a 'rainy day' and had the protein-rich vegetable matter grown on several ships, including the Battlestar.
Getting a tray and balancing it on his paperwork, he scanned the room. Men and women, people he had been living with for years now, were scowling at each other. General chatter was little more than terse, one-sentence questions-and-replies. At one table, Sharon and Helo were barely looking at each other. Helo was making an effort to push his algae-mush around his plate where as Sharon wasn't even bothering to keep up a pretence. She was sitting back, arms crossed, like she was expecting Helo – who wasn't even looking at her – to apologize for something.
Not too far away, the Tyrols were equally out of sorts. A cycle of arguments was wrapping around Cally, Galen and little Nicky.
"Nicky – if you don't sit still, we're going back to quarters immediately." Cally snapped.
"Leave him alone, Cally. He's just restless." Galen rolled his eyes at his wife.
"Yeah – that's good, Galen. Teach your son how to 'leave things alone' – yeah – that's good parenting." Cally's brown eyes narrowed at her husband "Nothing like making Nicky just like you, is there?"
Deliberating eavesdropping, Felix expected to hear the Chief fire off some sort of retort. That's what Cally and Galen did. They snipped, sniped, and called each other out, but at the end of the day, they still went home together and it was obvious that those two were completely in love with each other.
What he wasn't expecting was to see Galen's face scrunch up, take on the beginnings of a disparaging look and sarcastic reply, only to scrap it at the last moment. An almost – apologetic? – expression wrinkled the edges of his face before he tipped his chin downward and started to give his mush the same vigorous workout that Helo was giving his food. The tension in his hands, the white-knuckled grip he had on his fork and the overly square set of his shoulders, were the only tell-tale signs that he was bottling up his frustrations.
Adama had tasked him with the job of finding out why morale on ship had plummeted. It wasn't as if this was the first time algae was the only thing in the cooks' pots. People still did their jobs, but reports had come in describing a rise in domestic disputes among committed and 'committed' couples. Sarcastic comments, people sleeping in the hallways outside their assigned quarters and stony silences were the first sparks of a fire that could quickly get out of control. It was logical that the best place to start trying to figure what was going on was somewhere where he could observe as many people as possible without it looking like he was watching and evaluating their every move. Hence, that was the reason for his visit to Central Mess.
Weaving his way around tables, snippets of conversations – ones very much like the kind he heard between Cally and Galen – rose to his ears. Looking for a safe place to sit became a challenge. Every time he got near someone he thought could sit with, he 'bounced against' – was repelled by – a force field of tension emanating from those who had come down to breakfast.
A table, right smack in the middle of No Man's Land, had several spare seats. In fact, there were only two people sitting at table built for twelve.
Lee and Kara – Starbuck and Apollo – were sitting across from one another laughing and bantering, completely impervious to escalating tempers in the mess hall.
Quietly taking a chair two seats away from Starbuck, he smiled at the nod she gave him as he sat down. He had been one of the few who stood by her when she first returned to the Fleet and she had taken on more than a few people who tried to make his life more difficult than it had to be.
Easily returning Apollo's friendly greeting, he tucked into his assignment. Apollo never forgot how Gaeta had trumped Dee's assertion – the one that landed Lee on his knees, handcuffed to his ankles by a pair of Marines, helpless, as Starbuck screamed her innocence and was all but forced out of an airlock – that Kara was a cylon by forcing his way through the crowd of onlookers and waving concrete proof that she was, indeed, human.
Pulling out a pen and a fresh sheet of paper, he started to try to work out some sort of pattern. It wasn't unusual for crew members – especially him – to work during meals and besides the casual greeting, Lee and Kara didn't interrupt him and respectfully left him alone. For the most part they were too wrapped up in trying to out-argue each other as to which nugget was going to washout out.
"Oh yeah? Well – did you see how Spanky couldn't even make it up the access stairs without tripping?" Starbuck, tipping her fork end-over-end down an invisible set of stairs, made a clear demonstration of what happened to the new recruit on the hanger deck.
"Oh yeah – and BullsEye is SO going to make it." The scoffing tone in Apollo's voice was rich. "The kid couldn't hit the broad side of an asteroid if he wanted too!"
"I'll give you that – but at least the kid made it into his Viper without doing a full on ass-implant in front of the whole deck crew." Smirking, not ready to lose the argument, she cited the one thing the trainee did right. Starbuck's particular sense of humour could entertain or cut someone down. Apparently Spanky earned a little bit of both. "You gotta admit that I gave him the perfect name."
"Yeah – you did; but Spanky? You know he's never going to live that down, right?" It wasn't the first time Apollo had tried to convince Starbuck to be a little gentler when it came to christening her nuggets.
"That kid earned his name! What did he think would happen when he let it slip just how much he likes," Starbuck morphed in to Kara with a lick of her lips and a wicked glint in her eye, "corporal punishment."
Saved from making any indication that he had heard what they were saying by hastily gulping down half of his glass of water, Felix cut Lee and Kara from his peripheral vision. He had too if he was going to keep his composure. The way Kara's voice took on a purring quality and Apollo's alpha-maleness rolled off of his uniform was enough to make Felix need the rest of his water. Draining the last few inches of his drink, he saw Helo bristle as Sharon abruptly pushed her chair back and headed out of the mess hall. In short order, the number of crew members in the cafeteria was cut by a third, leaving behind frustrated partners free to glower at the two people who were deemed 'responsible'.
The pattern Felix had been looking for hadn't revealed itself completely, but it was evident from the way Galen, Karl and several others were casting pointed looks at his table that Lee and Kara had a hand in what it was that was going on.
Chancing a look at the couple nearest to him, he saw a tangle of supple fingers. Guessing that it was safe enough, his let gaze linger and watched as Starbuck tilted Apollo's wrist to read his chronometer.
"Time to go," the dangerously playful lilt to her voice was enough to convey that she was heading out to teach her next class.
"Have fun." Squeezing her fingers and sensuously rubbing the back of her hand, Apollo was all Lee.
"Don't we always?"
Question as to whether she was referring to her and students or what she and Lee did in private, semi-private or barely darkened corners was answered by the way Lee's eyes were glued to the confident swagger of her hips that carried her out of the mess hall. Hell, he didn't even swing that way and Felix felt the draw of Starbuck's innate sensuality from clear across the room.
The smile that hugged the edges of Lee's face didn't falter as Karl and Galen took up flanking positions on the opposite side of the table.
"Okay – out with it." The amiable Helo was replaced by a frustrated growl from a man who was reaching the end of his rope.
"Yeah - what the frak, Adama?" Tyrol crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited for an answer.
Lee answered both their questions with a 'sucks to be you' smirk and making it a point to swallow a heaping spoonful of algae like he was savouring something tasty and delicious.
Turning a chair around and sitting on it backwards, Gunny's intimidating frame didn't match the imploring look on his face.
"Come on, man – you're making the rest of us look," pausing to find the right word, it was clear he settled on the only one he could muster, "bad."
The way Lee scooped up the last of his breakfast and licked the spoon clean was just plain mean. So was his Sphinx-like answer.
"It's an acquired taste, gentlemen." Standing up, gathering his things with 'I can't help it if you don't get it' look, he passed on one more piece of advice. "If I were you, I'd get used to it before the ladies," a gentlemanly nod was offered to a scowling Sgt. Hadrian, "take matters into their own hands."
Watching Lee's back as the man went to put his tray in the bin, Felix felt a hot flash sear every inch of his face as Hadrian's tell-tale blush and the fact that none of the other men could look at each other connected the dots and spelled out exactly what was… wrong … with the crew.
Pausing by the door, grinning like a cat that had its full of cream, Lee turned and held up his hand like it wasn't his fault.
"What can I say, people – it's all up to you." Shrugging his shoulders and nonchalantly stuffing his hands in his pockets, the man had the audacity add, "Gianne was a vegetarian. And, lucky for me, so was Zak."
Felix ground his teeth together to keep his jaw from dropping open as Lee strolled leisurely to the door and took a right towards CIC. All the pieces of conversations he had heard now made sense as did the reason why the regimen oriented, by-the-numbers-by-the-book Lee Adama and the volatile-but-brilliant Kara Thrace were the most relax, laid-back crew members and 'committed couple' on the ship.
He had to get to Cottle to work out the chemistry and then go to Head Cook – there was still time.
Back in Adama's office...
"The third page is a requisition form. Balancing out the Ph levels should – rectify – the situation within a couple of days."
Adama had listened to Gaeta's rambling explanation but still didn't understand what the man was getting at.
"Okay – so Cottle's signed off on this but I still don't understand why we have to-"
Oh, Hermes, just one more minute – please! Felix silently begged as he searched for the best analogy to use to get his point across without having to actually 'draw' the Admiral 'a picture'.
"Sir – have you ever heard the expression, 'you are what you eat'?" Gaeta asked delicately. Dredging up horrible cliché, he winced as the words came out of his mouth. "How about, 'a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down'?"
Bill watched as the pink tinge turned red and started to creep across Gaeta's face.
He still had no idea what Gaeta was talking about.
"Sir – have you ever eaten asparagus?"
Recalling a distant memory, Bill couldn't control his eyebrows hitting his hairline any more than Gaeta could stop the flaming red colour from taking over his entire body.
The commanding officer of the last Battlestar and the father of two children figured out the root cause of the low morale on Galactica.
Reaching for his phone, he rang the Officer of the Deck.
"Page the Head Cook. I want him in my office five minutes ago!"
Realizing that the… problem … was Fleet wide, his next words were even more hurried.
"Get the President on the horn, ASAP!"