Despite his skillful broken field running on Colonial Boulevard, Lee was more than five minutes late getting back to the shuttle. Although the shuttle pilot Lieutenant Merinat Adams, a young recruit and pretty new in her job, wasn't likely to leave behind the CAG, Lee always tried not to take advantage of his rank, and the first thing he gasped when he trotted up was, "Sorry I'm late."
Merinat had been standing with her back to the Boulevard and looking into the shuttle, so Lee was taken completely by surprise when she turned around holding a small, rag-wrapped bundle that could only be a baby. "No prob, Captain. We've been having lots of fun waiting." Pouting her lips, the lieutenant kootchied and cooed for the baby's benefit. "Isn't he adorable?" she asked Lee, tucking a yellow scrap of blanket out of the way to reveal a tiny wrinkled face that was inextricably both ugly and beautiful at the same time.
Lee looked inside the shuttle expecting to see the baby's mother. There were no people, just the inertia regulator equipment. Catching his scan, Merimat explained, "The camp physician brought him out while you were gone. We're supposed to take him to the Galactica for transfer to the Paracelsus. He's a Wind Child." A baby fathered by the wind and born to the rain, a polite name for an unwanted bastard. He'd been disowned by his mother, who had legally divorced her baby by public declaration in the same way that Lee had just divorced his wife. A mother usually limited her declaration to a doctor, a public official and hopefully, but not always, a willing foster parent. Once the practice had been uncommon, but after the President and her Temporary Senate outlawed birth control, it had come back in vogue. It was perfectly legal and perfectly cold-hearted.
Carefully supporting the baby's head, Merinat held out the small bundle. "Could you take him, Captain, so I can start the pre-flight check?"
Lee stood frozen for a second. Him? Hold a baby? "I don't think … that is, I've never …" Realizing that he was floundering, he reluctantly offered both his hands. "I've never held a baby, at least not that I can remember."
Merinat laughed, undoubtedly delighted to discover one of her CAG's weaknesses. "Here I'll show you how."
Lee leaned back in the shuttle seat, a bottle in his hand and the warm bundle of baby boy tucked in the crook of one arm. This was easier than he'd expected. With closed eyes and a peaceful, calm expression the baby was eagerly sucking the yellow protein drink. Merinat had showed Lee how to stop him every once in a while, put him up on a shoulder and make sure he burped. "You're a good baby, you know that?" Lee said as the baby's mouth worked hungrily. "Yes, you are."
Listen to me, Lee thought. I sound like an idiot … or a father.
Lee could have insisted on flying the shuttle, but that wouldn't have been fair to Merinat who deserved the dignity of being allowed to do her job. And he'd wanted some private time to think about what had just happened on Zodiac. It had been a spur of the moment decision to divorce Serena, but it had been the right one. Although he'd known long ago marrying her had been a mistake, it had taken him a long time to find the guts to end the charade.
And Lee wasn't looking forward to telling his father about his sudden decision to part ways with his wife. The Commander would have plenty to say about it. True, he hadn't been very fond of Serena, but he'd done his best to protect her as a favor to a dead friend. For Lee, the next six days were going to be hell in more ways than one.
The sucking had slowed down and Lee decided it was time to try the burping maneuver. Putting one of the baby's scraps of blanket on his shoulder, he gently removed the nipple from the sleepy mouth, and slung the tiny body into place. "You should have a name," Lee said as he rubbed the small back, "or at least a call sign. What do you think of Stinger? That suit you?"
Stinger burped an answer and it sounded like, "Great."
Bringing Stinger back down to the original configuration, Lee wiped the miniature mouth, rewrapped the blanket snuggly and offered the bottle again, but Stinger nodded to himself as though he'd just made a decision, closed his eyes and fell asleep. Lee looked down at the bundle in his arms and tried to remember if he'd held a baby before. He didn't think he'd ever had as an adult. His only real experience with babies had been his brother Zak, his junior by four years. He'd probably held him a few times, but it had been so long ago.
It was strange how much he still missed Zak even after five years. Whenever Lee was in his father's quarters, he always took a moment to look at their old childhood pictures. Sometimes he tried to imagine how Zak might have coped with the Judgment. It always came up, "Not well." Zak had been the closest to their mother, and like her funny, soft and gentle. He hadn't belonged in a military career, but since Zak had been an Adama -- and his father's son at least in stubbornness -- that's all he'd ever considered.
At first Lee had been blamed his father for his brother's death, but he'd been making assumptions. Then Kara had given him the facts, and he'd blamed her. That had been wrong too. She'd only been a lovesick fool following her heart just like he had with Serena. Lee had been wrong all around.
It didn't matter now. Zak was gone. Soon Lee would be too, and there'd be no one to remember or care anymore.
But thanks to Commander Lighter he'd have children. Even if he never saw them and they never knew his face, there'd be children to carry on the Adama bloodline. He'd failed his father in a lot of things, but at least there'd be that.
Stinger moaned a little and changed position. His eyes fluttered. Merinat had suggested a lullaby might help him to sleep, but Lee didn't know the words to many songs and the only one he could think of right now was the Fleet battle hymn. He began to sing it in a quiet voice somewhere between a tenor and a baritone.
Space is where we all belong
Stars above us and all along.
Night is short and we have found
The best place to gather round.
Stinger seemed to like the first stanza, so Lee went for the chorus.
If peace is for every man.
You and I must take a stand
And win for our sweet Lords
Vict'ry, union, and true accord.
His voice trailed off. Stinger was completely quiet once again.
There was something about the baby that reminded Lee of Kara. It hadn't been the eyes, which were closed now anyway. Stinger's were blue and Kara's were green. Or the hair. Stinger had none, and Kara's was an untamed blonde frill that never looked the same from one day to the next. It was some other elusive quality, something indefinite, but still there. Then Lee had it. It was the baby's peaceful trusting look. Occasionally he and Kara had been on the same six-man flight-ready rotation and shared the bunkroom off the launch bay. Kara looked just like Stinger when she was asleep.
Almost asleep himself now, Lee tilted his head back and looked out the view port at the Galactica growing ahead and slightly to the right.
Six days left. Six days.
.
Surrounded by the noise and bustle of the starboard landing pod's hangars where every piece of Galactica useful for the new colony was in the process of being packed up for shipping planet-side, Lee had volunteered to take Stinger down to Commander Lighter in sickbay. The baby would have woken up in a matter of minutes in the hangar and Merinat needed to make another round trip down to Zodiac before her shift ended. As soon as Merinat had disappeared to look for the Launch Officer and her next cargo, he had regretted the hasty offer. "He's not mine. He's a Wind Child," he had told Chief Cally who had been a few feet away staring at him open-mouthed, her black schedule board in her hand.
"Of course, Sir," she had said and had turned back to the carton-crammed hangar.
He'd hurried through the stacked boxes and out of there. In the crowded passageway filled with crewmembers waiting for their ride to Zodiac and through the busy living quarters section, he had walked as fast as he could. Finally he had reached the relative peace and quiet of the ventral levels close to sickbay.
"Ah, Captain Adama! Glad you could make it!" Lighter had said as soon as Lee stepped into the former supply closet she was using as her laboratory. It's where Galactica's doctor had told him to go with the baby in his arms.
One of Lighter's nurse assistants, a black-haired woman with a solid matronly look, had bustled up to take Stinger, saying as she'd turned to go, "What a cute little guy!"
"I've been calling him Stinger. He seems to like it," Lee had called after her. Without the warm baby, his arms had felt cold and empty.
Commander Lighter had crossed Lee's name off a list, then told him to sit down on the examination bench that took up most of the tiny compartment. He'd tried to protest that he'd come down only to drop off the baby and would come back some other time for his legacy donation, but she'd ignored him.
Her examination hadn't taken long, just a quick look down his throat, a check of his pulse, and a body temperature reading from a probe in his ear. After poking him in the arm with a huge needle that looked like an electron blaster and hurt like hell, the Doctor had taken two small vials of blood. In the small room's stringently bright overhead lighting, the blood had looked almost black, like bottled death. Finally, the Doctor had handed Lee a small clear glass jar with a paper lid and said, "Here ya go."
"Here I go?" Lee had asked.
"Yeah. Be my guest." She'd gestured toward the open hatch that led to the sickbay's unisex head. "I think there's a copy of The Way to Love in there, but if you'd like, I can try to run down A Thousand Ways to Make a Baby."
"No thanks," he'd said faintly.
So that's why he was in this tiny white compartment with his pants unzipped trying to think … happy thoughts.
He couldn't bring himself to open the black book that lay on a nearby shelf. No matter what the pictures showed them doing, those men and women were long dead in the Judgment and he couldn't get that out of his mind. It wasn't a happy thought at all.
And as for Serena -- she'd stopped exciting him that way a very long time ago. He didn't really want to think about her now anyway. That would completely kill the mood.
"Frak," Lee muttered, then he groaned and thought, Precisely. Unless he wanted to spend the rest of the watch in here, there was no way to get around it.
Closing his eyes, Lee let his mind wander through his most private fantasy, the one he always tried to avoid: It began with him and Kara in the bunk room off the launch bay dressed only in their underwear and getting ready for bed, just the two of them. In the fantasy, Lee finally was able to tell Kara how much he wanted her, and she said, "Me too," and spread her arms to invite him into her bunk. But he didn't hurry right in, not with Kara. There was no need to. They had all the time in the universe.
So he decided that the first thing he'd do was to kiss every inch of her -- except the lips. He'd leave them for later. He imagined slipping her knit undershirt out of the way as needed but not taking it off as he progressed from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, testing with his mouth and his tongue the varying textures of her skin, her hollows and her swells. Lee took pride in being thorough in every part of his life, and it took a while to cover her completely.
But it was worth it because then his dream Kara moaned and begged him to stop the teasing. "Kiss me on the lips," she said. "I need you to kiss me."
"Now?" he asked his beautiful Kara. "Okay, now, but only because you asked me." Then and only then he kissed her on the lips and let his tongue explore the inside of her mouth. He imagined it tasting just like her -- salty, sweet, vinegar and fire.
In his fantasy, Kara was the first to start pulling off clothes, but it didn't take him long to catch up and within seconds their bodies were lying together moistly warm and intimately personal. Then her arms were inviting him up higher and Kara was beneath him, and they moved to music and a song he wanted to sing with her forever. So soft, so soft, so very, very soft …
Lee quickly grabbed the jar.