Kara Thrace sat quietly in the unusually empty hanger deck staring at Vipers that she couldn't fly. She should have been frustrated, they needed every pilot they had. She should have been resentful, watching the other pilots fly off into the reaches of space. She should have been pissed off, but somehow she couldn't find it in her to care.
"Hello, Lieutenant." A serene voice said from behind her.
"Madam President." She said as she quickly got onto her feet. "What are you doing on the Galactica this late?"
"Doctor Cottle and I are both very busy people. The end of the day is the only time we have to see each other." The President replied.
"Oh."
"And I just had a very interesting dinner with Commander Adama."
Kara bit her lower lip and tried to look slightly ashamed. "Yeah?" she said tentatively .
"Uh-huh." Laura smiled. "So you're grounded." The older woman stated matter-of-factly.
"Did Cottle tell you that? Or the Commander?"
"The second culprit."
"And how did he seem about it?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"You know, I can never tell with him. All those years in politics, I thought I'd gotten reading people down to a fine art. Yet William Adama remains an enigma."
"What did he say?"
"Oh, the usual military stuff. Fraternization regs, impropriety. 'How can he continue to try and enforce the rules when the two people closest to him are soon going to have blatant evidence of having broken the rules.' Blah, blah, blah."
"Oh, gods." Kara covered her eyes with her hands.
"I'll tell you what, though. The whole time he was saying it….he was trying to sound so serious, but the whole time he was grinning like, well like a man who just found out he was going to be a grandpa."
"We didn't plan it this way. We didn't plan on this happening."
"Are you sorry that it did?"
Kara took a moment to consider everything. Weigh every consequence, every ramification and answered truthfully. "No."
Laura Roslin walked up beside her and stared out onto the Vipers in front of them. "Plans don't mean anything, Lt. Nobody planned on any of this happening. But there is so little left in this world, if you find something to hold onto, hold onto it with everything that you have. Regulations be damned. It's not all that we had hoped for, but it's enough. You know why it's enough?"
The younger woman looked over at the older one. "No."
"Because it has to be. Captain Apollo loves you. And you love him?" The president eyed the Lt. questioningly.
Kara nodded.
"Then I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, but that is what you have today. And it's enough."
The two women stood there silently for a moment.
"When are you due?" Roslin asked.
"Seven months." Kara answered.
"I'll be dead in six."
"Madam President, I'm so sorry."
The President raised her hand to cut off any further comment. It could have been taken as a harsh, irritated gesture, but Laura Roslin had such a grace and kindness about her in that moment that it was impossible to see it that way.
"One thing I've learned. People are born when they are supposed to be born and people die when they are supposed to die. You can try fighting those two things but all that will do is leave you exhausted when what is destined to happen finally happens."
"So say we all." Kara whispered. Both women smiled.
"Captain Apollo mentioned that you were nervous. Happy, but nervous."
"The idea of me being a mother…I don't know. My mother wasn't exactly Parent of the Year." She tenderly touched her fingers. The older woman saw the gesture and gently grasped them as well.
"We don't just learn from our parents. We learn from other people as well. Older…..and younger." She said, letting go.
"I've actually had some good role models of what a mother should be like."
"Yes. I hear Caroline Adama was quite a woman." Roslin said looking toward the floor.
"Oh, yeah. Her too." Kara said and noticed that the President's eyes jerked up to meet hers at the comment.
The older woman's eyes moistened and she looked back to the planes. "I was pregnant once too, you know."
The younger woman's mouth fell open slightly.
"I miscarried in my fifth month. At the time I was devastated, couldn't get out of bed for weeks. I carried it with me, like a weight around my neck. But now I realize it was a blessing." Roslin looked at Kara, the younger woman's eyes demanding explanation. "If that child had been born, if that child had lived, it would have been in Caprica City at the time of the attack. And I would have been here, in space. My child would have died, and I would have been burdened with survival. The pain would have been too much for me to deal with, and I wouldn't be able to do the things that I needed to do, to make sure that other people's children lived."
They were both silent for what seemed like a long time, but was probably only a few minutes.
"Do you know what it was? The baby that you lost?"
"It was a girl."
"What would you have named her?"
"Emily. After my grandmother."
"That's a nice name."
"Yeah." Roslin stopped and lowered her eyes. "The gods have asked for my life. And at times I have questioned it. At times their demand has made me so angry that I couldn't see straight. But now I realize it's a fair trade." She turned to look at the other woman. "You go have your baby. You go love your baby. Let that be your legacy. I'll find your baby a home. That will be mine."
Kara nodded. Her eyes making a silent promise.
Laura smiled and walked out of the hangar.
Laura Roslin died early on a Tuesday morning. She went to bed on Monday night and just never woke up.
Their fight was all consuming, the struggle filled their days. But everyone agreed that her death was fitting. They thought it was a gift that their leader had died in a moment of peace.
Billy refused to touch the population board, and yelled at anyone that tried to erase the last digit.
"But, Billy." They would say, "It's not accurate."
"I don't care." He would say. "She's not really gone."
So they left it alone, and subtracted the number in their heads, knowing that what was on the board was incorrect.
And then two days later it wasn't incorrect anymore. Because a baby had been born…..on the Galactica of all places.
William Adama walked into Sickbay and looked at Doc Cottle, who grinned and pointed at a curtained off section of the room with his cigarette. When he opened the curtain he found his son kissing his wife's forehead while she gazed at a small, pink, wiggling little thing in her arms.
"Morning, Starbuck." He said as he jolted them into awareness.
"Morning, Sir." She smiled. "I brought in the cat."
"I can see that." He grinned.
"One of these days you'll have to tell me what the frak that means." Lee laughed.
"Watch the language in front of your child, Captain." Kara smiled up at him mischievously.
"Like you're one to talk." He said as he reached over and lifted his daughter out of her mother's lap. He watched enthralled as the baby tentatively opened her blue eyes and reached out her little hand, spreading her tiny fingers as if to say hello.
"Hey little baby, come meet your grandpa." Lee said as he laid the girl in his father's waiting arms.
"Hello, Sweetheart. Does 'little baby' have a name yet?" Adama asked, never taking his eyes off his granddaughter.
"Kara wants to call her Emily." Lee said. "She won't tell me why."
Kara smiled a small smile.
"Emily Adama." The Commander replied. "That's got a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
And Lee just laughed.
-Finis