Capsized 13

The Admiral stepped off the shuttle a happy man; he had managed to deliver his gift and would now wait, hopefully, for a positive response. He was fairly certain that Laura would love his present; it wasn't a bunch of expensive flowers, easily obtained on Caprica before the Cylons had come upon them, but he was sure the sentiment behind his hand crafted gift would have more meaning to her anyway. He thanked all his years of model ship building as they had left him with quite dexterous fingers for his age. His only worry was that it was too soft hearted and she would think it silly.

As the Admiral made his way back to CIC, he was greeted by Lieutenant Dualla coming his way. She asked as she reached him, "Admiral may I have permission to go off ship, sir?"

"Certainly, Lieutenant, just make sure you're back for your next shift," Adama answered slightly puzzled by the request. It was not normally required for crew members, when every thing was stable aboard, to ask for permission to leave the ship, the only exception was pilots who had to timetable their time away to maintain a certain number available for emergencies.

Dee smiled up at the Admiral and explained herself, "I think I may have solved the chocolate problem, sir."

"Really?" Adama asked hopefully.

"Yes, sir, I just need to hop over to one of the other ships to pick it up."

"That's great," and enquired, "what do you need in exchange?"

"I'm not sure as yet, Admiral."

"Well," Adama carried on as a few crew members filtered past the two of them, "why don't you come to my quarters when you get back and we can get you sorted out?"

As the crew gave the two of them, long glances.

Adama continued, "I'm very grateful for the attention you're paying to this."

As the crew members looked at each other with surprise.

"Not at all, Admiral," Dee said, "I'm enjoying every minute of this cloak and dagger stuff, you know I'd do anything I could for you."

As the crew members stride faltered.

"I'll see you later then, Dee," Adama smiled patting her on the shoulder.

As the crew members sped up to tell others what they had seen and heard.

If the Admiral's light mood was noticed, as he came and quickly left CIC, it wasn't mentioned, certainly not within ear shot of Colonel Tigh, who had his own thoughts on the matter. None of them very worthy of repeating about just what his old friend was up to with Dualla, but he couldn't imagine, despite the rumours and what he had witnessed for himself, that Bill Adama would mess around with his son's estranged wife. No, something else must be going on and that was more worrying than the idea of him frakking Dualla.

Much later saw a glut of shuttles boarding Galactica, on the first Dee sat happily, well semi happily she had achieved her aim to get something with chocolate in but it wasn't quite what she had expected when she left. She hoped that the Admiral would be satisfied with what she had managed to get. She had done her best and she doubted that a single chunk of the confectionery still existed in the fleet.

She had rather enjoyed doing all this tracking down, it took her mind off her marital problems. Lee had been pressurising her to get back together but in the next minute he would be off sitting with Kara for hours on end in the cells.

As Dee had confided in the Admiral the other day she wasn't going to compromise with Lee again, she loved him dearly, she just wasn't sure that he felt the same and unless he was prepared to give her all of him then she didn't want to know, she wasn't going to have Kara Thrace's leftovers.

Being able to help the Admiral, purely because of an embarrassing mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was a pleasure. He had cut a lonely figure in the last few years, no one to turn to and speak with on an equal level. Of course he had Saul Tigh and Lee but they tended to turn to him for support rather than the other way round. Laura Roslin was very much in the same boat, lots of supporters but very few friends. They had naturally gravitated towards each other - first as leaders, then as friends and hopefully now as lovers.

Looking back, if they hadn't been so tied up in their own lives they would have seen the desperation that surrounded the Admiral when they had jumped away from New Caprica. He had been a smaller presence without Laura Roslin around and they had ignored the angry outburst as a simple need to reunite the fleet but now you could see it was that and something more, something very personal.

Dee stepped off her shuttle, as the other two transports came in and decided to make her way straight to the Admiral's quarters. A sharp rap on the hatch and Adama was there inviting her in.

She pulled out the package for Adama and watched as he looked puzzled by what she held, "It's the best I could do, sorry," she said somewhat embarrassed by what she offered, she knew she had done well to get this, but now that she stood in front of her father-in –law it felt inadequate.

He took the package from Dee and opened it to see what it held before looking back up at Dee in surprise, "This is great, Dee, thank you."

"There is only one, sir, that's all I could get," she said then grimaced, "and I had to promise a bottle of ambrosia for it."

To her relief the Admiral smiled and nodded his head, "that's fine I'll sort it out for you."

Adama came round his desk after putting away Laura's surprise and stood in front of Dee before pulling her into a hug.

"Thank you for everything you have done to make this relationship of mine perfect," Adama said as he held his daughter-in-law.

There was a crash of the hatch hitting the wall, "Just what sort of relationship are you having with my wife?" came the angry voice of Lee Adama standing in the hatchway.

The pair jumped apart as if guilty and stared in astonishment at Adama's raging son.

"Lee," Dee tried to smooth things over, "there is nothing going on here."

"Really," Lee snarled waving his arms about in fury, "then how come, I've heard from a number of people about how my own Father is playing around with my Wife, then I come in here, and find you all over her, I'd like to know exactly what is going on!"

The equally cross sounding voice of Laura Roslin was heard as she stepped round him through the hatch from behind Lee, "So would I!"

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