Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore and the Sci-Fi channel. Violet Adama is mine.

Chapter 3: Sister's keeper

After Adama had dropped her off, Violet went straight over to the extra boxing gloves and headed to the punching bag, her hair reworked into a braid. As she continued her rounds, she occasionally looked around at the other people going in and out of the room. Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted Lee. A warm feeling of comfort at seeing a familiar face washed over her for a moment. He was walking over to the boxing area.

"Hey, I've never seen you around here before," he commented. "Aren't you a little young to be doing this?"

"I've been doing this for years," she retorted. "L-Major Adama, box with me."

He snorted and looked at her incredulously. "You're kidding, right? You're probably light enough for someone to send you across the room with a good punch."

She grinned at him and stepped closer. "Come on, my brother's your size. He and I box when we talk to each other. We basically try to block each other, and occasionally he lets me get through. Come on, I'm tougher than you think."

Chuckling, he shook his head at the slender 5'4'' teenager in front of him. Then he noticed that there was something familiar about her defiant, challenging attitude. Reminds me of the president a little, Lee mused. "I suppose I could help you with defense," he stated, putting his gloves on.

They practiced for a while, and he realized that she was not the amateur he had first taken her to be. She was quick on her feet and hit harder than he had expected her to. She also giggled at him when she dodged him, as if she knew him. As she blocked a few more punches from him, Adama decided to head over to the gym to check on the girl.

He glanced in the doorway and inhaled sharply. I don't believe this kid. I leave her alone for an hour and she's boxing. Entering the room quickly, he looked sharply at his children. She turned to see him enter and Lee took a shot at her, not realizing that she was too surprised by the admiral's arrival to block him. Doubling over for a moment, she wheezed a bit.

Lee looked at her with panic in his eyes. "I'm so sorry! I-"

She put one of her gloved hands up to stop him. "I'm alright, my guard was down. It's my fault, not yours," she stated.

Fortunately there were very few people in the area as Adama stood next to them and looked from one to the other. "What the hell is going on here?" he paused and faced Lee. "You, she's probably a third of your weight and half your size."

"Sir, she wanted me to… she was practicing defense-" Lee tried to defend himself.

"I don't care what you were practicing. You shouldn't be boxing with her," Adama retorted, attempting to keep his tone level.

"Dad, it was my fault and-" Violet started to say.

He faced her. "And you, small as you are, you should know better not to box with someone so much bigger than you!"

"But I-" she was going argue until she saw the firm resolve in Adama's eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Did she just call you, 'Dad'?" Lee interjected.

"Both of you, walk with me," the admiral said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. As they began walking toward his quarters, he looked over at Violet, who walked between him and Lee. "Now tell him what you told me," Adama instructed.

She explained everything to the man who resembled her half-brother on the way to the admiral's quarters. "That's quite a story," Lee told her. "What happens now?" he directed the question more toward his father than her.

"Now we all eat dinner. I'll see if I can make something out of the algae," Adama remarked.

"Algae?" Violet inquired.

"Our food got contaminated, but we found some nutritional algae on the planet we're now orbiting," Adama explained.

"Want me to see if Roslin wants to join us for dinner? She might have more ideas for how to deal with this situation," Lee added.

Adama rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed reluctantly. "Fine, I suppose it couldn't hurt."

A short while later, Cottle stopped by Adama's quarters. "This should cure her breathing problems after a while. Tell her to take one with breakfast and one with dinner," the doctor instructed, handing the admiral an orange pill container. Adama conveyed the information to Violet, who nodded and put the bottle in her bag.

Soon all four of them were at the dinner table, Roslin being surprised at the invitation, but glad to be included. After taking one of the pills Cottle had sent over, Violet watched as the others picked at the green pasty substance in the bowls, wrinkling their noses at it, but eventually brining the fork to their mouths. Watching the grimaces on their faces as they ate it caused her to shake her head and smirk. "This stuff looks frakkin' gross," she muttered to herself. "I'm thankful that we have something nutritious to eat, but it's bland, and it looks like swamp goop. May I please have the salt at least?"

They looked at her with raised eyebrows, and then back at their food. Roslin laughed first, then Adama joined her and Lee followed suit. She handed Violet the salt. "It doesn't look very appetizing, does it?"

"Not really, but give me some time and I might be able to make something descent out of it, besides engine grease," the girl remarked.

Lee and Violet went to chat in the living room while the president and the admiral volunteered to clean up. "She's got a great sense of humor," Roslin remarked, gathering the napkins.

Adama smiled. "It's a good thing to have," he paused, staring at the leftover rotting-lettuce-green algae. "I'm just not sure how to handle this situation."

The president smiled at him. "A friend of mine once said that you wake up one morning and you're parents. I don't think that she had this scenario in mind though."

He gathered up the plates, stacking them lightly and sighing. "She's going to need somewhere to go during the day. I can't just expect her to sit in a room all day," he grumbled. "I don't even know if she's finished secondary school."

"I can find that out for you tonight. To keep her away from the press, she could even work on Colonial One for a while. Depending on her education, she might also be able to teach some things to the colonists' children," the president suggested as she moved the silverware into a small plastic wash tub.

"You don't have to do that," he stated.

She took a deep breath. "I want to."

"Laura, this isn't your problem. I'm taking responsibility for her," he expressed.

Placing her hands on the table, she leaned toward him and looked him square in the eyes. "Bill, you've got a ship and a fleet to run. I wouldn't be offering to help if I didn't want to or didn't think that I could. I'll probably have to explain all this to Tory, but I think considering that Violet has the most respect for the two of us, if both of us help her, things will work out better in the long run."

"Which there will be considering that we can't send her back," he added.

"I'm not even going to pretend that I understand how her engine works. It's an interesting idea, but I don't know if trying to use it ourselves would really do us any good," she remarked.

He nodded in agreement. "There's that, and I don't think we have the resources to test it decently either. We've got too many other things going on at the moment to worry about moving around time."

Roslin glanced into the living room, seeing Violet tell Lee about certain models of ships. "She seems to get along well with Lee," the president commented.

The admiral harrumphed. "I found them boxing today. Apparently in her timeline, they used to spare. Like her brothers, she takes on things too much bigger than she is. She's got such a tiny build that a good punch would probably knock her flat on her back," he pointed out.

"She likes a challenge. I think it runs in the family," Roslin relayed with a grin.

"Why do all my children end up doing things beyond their capabilities?" he asked as he put the glasses away.

She smirked and faced him. "That's because the 'Old Man' has a lot of legends and they're trying to keep up him."

He chuckled and pulled out a chair for her as they both sat down. "And what are some of those legends?"

"They say that the 'Old Man' is charmed by the gods to keep fighting past human strength, and that no matter how beat he looks, he can still fight," she answered with a wry grin.

"I hear the president has a few legends too. There's the one about her being a prophet leading us to earth, and there's also the one about her continuing to cheat death because the 'Old Man' needs somebody to goad him on in his life," he teased.

She laughed heartily. "You've been listening to the rumor mill again, Bill."

He raised an eyebrow. "There's a rumor mill?" he joked and rested one elbow on the table. "And what are they saying now?"

Leaning her elbow on the table as well, she leaned closer to him. "They say that the admiral and the president had a secret affair on New Caprica and that she goes to dinner in his quarters and he walks her back to share breakfast with her on Colonial One," she relayed with a glint of mischief in her eyes. I don't think I would mind if that one was true.

Chuckling again, he shook his head and looked away for a moment. I wish that one was true. He faced her again with a mischievous look of his own. "I heard that the president and the admiral had a love child that's being raised by strangers."

That comment sent her into a fit of giggles. "You know what they say, for every rumor there's a hint of truth," she remarked, looking toward the living room where Lee and Violet talked.

The admiral sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know how to explain her. If her ID card didn't have my last name, this wouldn't be so confusing."

"And then there's the fact that she looks more like me than you. She and I can't be in any pictures together," she mentioned.

"I think that it's best if I say she's my niece for now. That would at least clear up the last name problem. I have to explain to CIC why she was asking for 'Dad' and using my call sign. I'll tell them that she thought her father might work on Galactica in CIC, but that he was actually killed on Caprica during the initial attack," he commented.

Roslin stood and he followed suit. "Well, now that we're done with dinner, I think I'll take her back to Colonial One with me now," she mentioned.

Adama was thinking back to the girl's ID card as he and the president walked into the living room. "Vie," he began, "What does the 'L' stand for on your ID card?"

She blushed. "My middle name's 'Laura.'"

Roslin approached the girl. "Are you ready to head over to Colonial One?"

Violet smiled politely. "Yes, just let me get my bag." When she returned, she looked at Lee. "Why didn't Zack join us for dinner? Does he work on another ship?"

Lee swallowed hard and glanced at his father. She looked over at Adama and cocked her head. The admiral walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Sit down, Vie," he began. When she had seated herself on the couch, he sat next to her and continued. "Zack died in a Viper accident a few years back. I'm sorry," he said gently.

The girl's eyes focused on the carpet and she sighed heavily, letting the reality of his words sink in. Oh frak, why did I have to loose him twice in the same day? They're watching me wondering if I'm going to cry again, she assessed. Taking a deep breath, she managed to compose herself behind a political reserve. "In my timeline Zack was going to be a pilot, but I talked him out of it because I could tell he wasn't getting it. He became an engineer and married Kara Thrace," she stopped talking when Lee made a face. "She's here, right?"

"Yes, but she never married my brother. Where she stands at the moment is complicated," Lee admitted briefly.

Violet looked over at Roslin. "I think I'd like to go now."

In actuality, the admiral and the president wondered if Violet was going to be sick again. She was silent all the way back to Colonial One. Roslin had a divider curtain and a makeshift bed for her. "Anything else you might need is probably in the bathroom. I might even have an extra hanger or two if you want to hang up your pajamas," the president mentioned.

The girl looked in her bag and then began laughing quietly. "I didn't bring any," she remarked. Then the laughter became sobs and she could not stop.

Roslin did the only thing she could think of and wrapped her arms around the girl protectively. "It's not a problem. We'll find you some," she stated, knowing that pajamas were not the real reason that her young guest was upset.

"It's not the pajamas," Violet choked, "I miss Zack. He was my protector when Lee teased me as we were growing up. Ever since we've been running from the Cylons, I've visited Zack to ask advice from him. And now he's not here."

The president continued to hold her in the embrace. "I know it's not fair, but those of us that are here would like to help you," she offered.

Violet then moved out of the hug. "Thank you, M-Madame President. I'm sorry that I'm so emotional. What you must think of me-"

"Is that you're coping with an enormous personal loss very well," Roslin finished. "Now I think that I have an extra long t-shirt that might work for you for tonight."

"Thank you," Violet managed.

(My thanks to carolann, Trinity Everett, zephyrchild, Mariel3, Jojo, Alesia G, and Phaser Lady for reviewing :D)