Authors note: Great to see people that are reading it...but still no reviews? Hmmm...

Chapter 4 Family and Noodles

Kat couldn't remember the last time she had been this tired, until she saw her daughter yelling at some nuggets on the Titans Hanger Deck, for getting the drill for the 10th break formation wrong.

'Ya child birth, was pretty damn tiring that and dealing with a whole army of Adama's, but 5 days without sleep this has to be a new record.'

Kat was in her mid-fifty's, but if anyone was to guess her age they would have all guessed mid-thirty's and they would have been wrong. Kat was the same height as Bill; she was skinny like all other female soldiers, but strong like Bill, strong like an Adama. Her shoulders, arms and stomach were well toned; and her long legs accented all her other features. However all these features were hidden under her black uniform, which matched her shoulder length jet black hair that was tied up in a ponytail.

"Commander on Deck!" Captain Rachel 'Danny' Adama called out as soon as she saw her mother approach her and the nuggets, they stood at attention saluting. Kat saluted the nuggets and her daughter.

"At ease; Captain Adama I would like to speak to you, please," Kat walked over to a lone viper and waited for her daughter.

After dismissing the nuggets to their quarters, Captain Adama walked over to her mother, as soon as the nuggets were out of eye shot, she relaxed in the presence of her mother. Rachel Adama looked just like her mother; the only difference between them was Kat did not let her guard down except to one man, and her emotions were always in check, except for the occasional sarcastic sentence here or there, just to break the tension; either way it would take a lot to get any reaction from her, she was a rock, therefore an Adama. Rachel acknowledged that even though she too was an Adama she still had to learn to be the hardened warrior that her superiors were. The second difference was their eyes; unlike Rachel's eyes, Kat's eyes were a dark emerald green; while Rachel's eyes were like the Admiral's; a piercing cobalt blue.

"You wanted to talk to me mom?"

"How are you doing Captain," Kat asked. Sensing that this was not a casual mother daughter talk, Rachel threw back on the Captain charade and stood up straighter.

"The nuggets are getting better sir, I expect them to be fully ready tonight, and they're just some minor glitches we have to sort out, but that shouldn't take too long either." Kat looked at her daughter and smiled, she couldn't help but notice how her daughter tried so very hard to be like her and the Admiral. Rachel looked exhausted from the constant drills and meetings with the various CAGs, just as exhausted as she was, even though she hid it fairly well from everyone else, except the Admiral, he always saw right threw her.

Kat reached over and without another word embraced her daughter in a fierce hug as she uttered, "I love you," Rachel couldn't help but burry her head into her mother's shoulder, "I'm so very proud of you, you know that right?"

"Mom, I'm going to be ok."

Kat placed her hands on either side of Rachel's face to look at her, and with a smile she said, "your just like your father, you know that right?"

Rachel smiled and nodded, "I'm almost like him, I'm not as strong as dad-"

"That will come in time," Kat placed a kissed on her daughters head and tentatively let go of her. "There is to be a family meeting at fourteen hundred hours at home-"

"Home being?"

"Home, home" Kat smiled.

"May I ask why?"

"Where going into battle Rachel, it's good not only for morale, but to draw strength from the family, to remember what we're fighting for."

Rachel nodded slowly, "I'll be there sir."

14:00

"LEE!" Rachel ran into the house as soon as she spotted Lee and wrapped her arms around him.

"Whoa there, Rach"

"Sorry" Rachel said sheepishly and removed herself from Lee's side.

"It's ok it's good to see you, I've missed you too," Lee messed her hair up before stepping aside revealing his wife.

"Hey Dee."

"Hey yourself," Dee and Rachel embraced each other.

The Adama house was outside of Lynx city far away from prying eyes. The house itself was huge, complete with a finished basement and 2 other floors, the house was made of wood resembling much like a cabin but had some features like a farm house. The wood theme continued inside the house, birch was used for the trimming, the railings and a good portion of the floor; when the wood ended the carpet began. The walls on the lower level were covered in earthy tones a light pine green covered the back splash in the kitchen and continued into the open living room of which it was adjacent too. The Kitchen itself was in the form of a "U" and a large birch island situated in the middle; all the counter tops where made of white marble. The large kitchen table that could sit 6 was positioned near a large open window overlooking the large deck and golden plains of the planet; it was adjacent to the entrance of the kitchen and to the stairway.

"Looks like the whole family is here," Kat emerged from the top of the stairs carrying various folders, and setting them down upon entering the kitchen.

"If the whole family was here, we wouldn't be going into battle tonight now would we?" Bill too came down the stairs with a stack of folders and put them down beside Kat's pile.

"Good point," Kat stated.

"How are you, Lee?" Adama asked.

"Good, nervous, I'm a whole bunch of things right now," Lee answered sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Adama smiled knowingly and turned to Rachel, Rachel instantly came to him and wrapped her arms around him; Adama sensed the same thing that Lee was giving off, nervousness, scared, afraid to lose. Rachel put her head on his shoulder and held on to him tightly, trying so very hard to gather the strength he had. Adama bent his head down and whispered in her ear, "It's going to be ok little one, I'm not going anywhere"

"You don't know that," whispered Rachel.

Bill squeezed her tightly and let her go, he smoothed out her hair that Lee had tussled and nodded to the kitchen chair. Bill smiled to his daughter-in-law who held his son's hand.

"Ok so, it's like this whether you wanna hear this or not it must be said," Bill started as Kat stood beside Bill, "If anything happens to me-"

"Dad," Lee interjected painfully.

"If anything happens to me, Kat becomes Admiral; the paperwork is already taken care of. If anything happens to the both of us, then Lee you're the new Admiral and you take what's left of the fleet and find Earth."

"And what happens if something happens to all three of us?" Lee asked.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, and if it does your orders are clear you get the hell out of here, jump back to Lynx grab our people and find this legendary planet," Kat replied.

"You have your orders, there's no sense of going through them again, just know that this mission ends one way, and that's the successful rescue of our people, every single one of them."

"Dee, your people have the VIP list?" Kat asked.

"Yes, I've made copies to the Raptor Pilots, they know what to do, and I've also briefed the RSA about their jobs."

Kat nodded and turned to Lee, "your ship is fuelled, and ammunition is fully stalked?"

"It's like she's brand new," Lee said.

"Good, cause we only got one chance of doing this, and were virtually doing this blind."

"Lee, did your father ever tell you the story of why he loves noodles so much?" the Adama family sat around the large kitchen table drinking coffee and eating cold noodles.

Lee looked up from his bowl his mouth stuffed with noodles he managed to croak out "No."

"Your father years ago, had just become CAG of the newly built Battlestar Galactica, he was ordered one morning to see the Commander in his quarters, which was no problem for the CAG but for William 'Husker' Adama who got drunk partying all night because of the promotion, it was a problem. So Bill got out of his bunk, put on his uniform, walked slowly from his rack to the commander's quarters; shall I continue or should you?" Kat asked Bill, who was stuffing noodles in his mouth like his son, he nodded to her and Kat continued.

"The Commander was called to the CIC, so Bill waited there in his quarters, as Bill was waiting he spotted a bowl of noodles and at the time Bill hated noodles, but because Bill had nothing in his stomach besides alcohol, without a second thought he grabbed the Commander's noodles, and ate them."

"He did what?" Dee looked stunned at her father-in-law.

"So in the middle of a mouthful, the hatch opens and it's the Commander, Bill is ordered out of his quarters and ordered to run 5 Laps around Galactica and to come back to him; I've never seen Bill so sick in my life, cause there he was running around Galactica vomiting at every turn it was horrible!" Kat explained, "Then he-"

"Then I came back to him looking as pale as a ghost," Adama began setting aside his bowl, "he was sitting on a wooden chair eating a bowl of noodles, he then directs me to sit down and ordered me to eat the other bowl of noodles that was in front of me, it took every amount of will power I had, not to be sick on the Commander's table. When I finished eating the noodles he asked me 'why he made me run around the ship?' I replied 'because I ate your noodles' he shook his head and replied 'it's because you did not appreciate the noodles, you just ate them because you wanted them; you don't need, you want. A man or women should always realise life is too short for people like us, many things can be taken away in an instant and no matter how big or small we will always end up regretting it, cause we never gave it the appreciation it deserves, even if it's noodles'... from that day on I loved noodles."

The Adama family leaned back in there chairs, and sat quietly, letting the story and its message sink in.

Authors End Notes: See the thing at the bottom? ya? would you mind typing something in there and sending it off so I know what you thought so far? You will?! Great! Cause that means I can send out the next chapter faster! Cause don't you wanna know if Laura is haunting Bill?