Chapter 4

Stephen was awoken by an insistent banging on his door. He hauled himself out of bed with a groan.

"This had better be good," he shouted to whoever was outside. He opened the hatch to see a distracted looking Lee holding the hand of a less than happy Alex.

"Hey Whiz could you do me a big favour and look after Alex? Kara's labour's started and I need to get her to sickbay, and my father's on duty."

"Sure. She OK?"

"Well, she's swearing a lot but she isn't threatening me yet which is always a good sign." He turned to his son. "Alex, Uncle Stephen's going to look after you for a little while." Beseeching blue eyes stared back at him.

"Wanna stay wiv you daddy!"

"Daddy has to look after mommy at the moment, son," replied Lee, as gentle but firm as he could be. "Now you be a good boy and we'll see you soon."

He ruffled his son's hair and received a nod in return but the toddler's chin was wobbling. As soon as Lee had left him alone with Stephen he started crying. Oh Lords, thought Stephen, I'm not trained for this sort of thing. He tentatively picked the little boy up just as he started to really wail.

"I want my mommy!"

"Well mommy's a bit busy right now, Alex. Won't I do?"

"No! Want mommy!"

"Hey, you're going to have a baby brother soon, isn't that exciting?"

"Don't want bruvver, want mommy!"

He felt sorry for the poor little mite who had obviously picked up on his father's concern for his wife and was petrified for his mother, and didn't know what to do other than cry for her. He needed something to distract him. Stephen dressed quickly, picked up the screaming toddler and headed for the one place that he thought would take his mind off his mother. By the time they reached the hanger deck Alex had reached the gulping stage, but was occasionally breaking out into fresh sobs. He wouldn't normally take a child on to the deck, but it was still early and the hanger deck was relatively quiet; there wasn't a change in CAP due for another hour. Despite this the chief was already hard at work as Stephen had known that he would be.

"Hey chief, I've got an emergency situation here that I need your help with."

"Well if it isn't my favourite junior rookie pilot. What's up with you kiddo?" Alex buried his face in Stephen's neck and carried on crying.

"Alex is getting a little brother soon and he isn't very happy about it."

"Starbuck's in labour?" Stephen nodded. "Well I'm glad you warned me. I'll avoid the CIC today."

"CIC?" asked Stephen bewildered.

"Yeah. When she was having this one no one warned me and I innocently went up to CIC to give a report to the admiral. The old man nearly bit my head off for no apparent reason. I only narrowly avoided a trip to the brig! He sure loves that woman like she was his own little girl," said the chief, shaking his head in wonder. "Well I think that this warrants an inspection of the mark VII don't you?"

They walked over to the back of the deck where Lee's mark VII viper was parked. Alex started to show a bit of interest and dared a peek out from Stephen's shoulder.

"Tha's daddy's plane," he whispered reverently. Lee may no longer have been able to fly, but none of Galactica's crew would even think about taking the "Apollo" identifier off his plane: it would be kept there for posterity as a mark of respect for what he had achieved whilst flying that ship.

"Yes it is. Want to see inside?" Alex scrubbed at his eyes and nodded shyly. Stephen shifted him safely onto his shoulder and he started up the steps. Half an hour later, equilibrium restored, he managed to get him out of the cockpit again with the promise of breakfast.

−

To say that Kara wasn't very happy was the understatement of the year. As she got her breath back after another contraction had subsided, she glared at major Cottle accusingly.

"I thought you said this was going to be easier the second time around."

"I said it would probably be quicker the second time. I didn't say anything about it being easier."

"Frakking great! Just what I need: fine print." She turned the glare on Lee, who was sitting quietly in his chair, holding her hand. "And I don't know what you're frakking smiling about. I swear that if you ever even think about doing this to me again, Lee Adama, I really will cut the frakking thing off!"

"Well let's see if there's anything I can do to help with this one then," he replied, smile still in place. Very carefully, he pushed himself out of his chair and slowly stood up. Once he'd gotten his stance firm he held his arms out towards an incredulous Kara.

"You….You're standing up," she stammered, stating the blindingly obvious.

"Yup. Come here." He gestured towards her. She got off the bed and staggered over to him.

"But how?"

"This new arm that Stephen made has meant that I've been able to exercise much more easily and I've pretty much mastered standing." Tears stood out on her lashes as she smiled tremulously at him. "I've been working on it in my gym sessions as a surprise for you. I wanted to be able to do this for you again, Kara." She burst into tears. "Oh sweetheart, I didn't mean to make you cry."

"It's just I'm…I'm so happy…….I'm so happy for you," she managed to just about get out through her sobs.

Cottle, who had been in on the secret, stood grinning at them.

"Well kids, shall we have a baby?"

"Yes let's," replied Kara, wiping her eyes and feeling the familiar pressure building for the next contraction. It didn't seem so bad with Lee's shirt clutched in her hands and his gentle hand rubbing her back.

−

Stephen reflected that all in all he'd managed rather well on his prolonged impromptu babysitting duty. He didn't think roping Cally in to help was a cop out, even if she was one of Alex' regular babysitters. It was more him taking advantage of a spontaneously presented opportunity to spend some more time with her. He didn't want to over-analyse why he wanted to do that, but just decided that he enjoyed her company. Now the three of them were sitting in his lab building a kind of toy rocket ship from the spare bits of stuff around the lab. He went to answer the phone when it rang, then returned to pick up Alex and swing him up in the air.

"Congratulations kiddo; you're now part of a pair!"

When Stephen walked into sickbay with Alex he knew that everything was okay by the smiles he saw all round. Kara was sitting up in bed with Lee seated next to her, his good arm draped around her shoulders and a goofy grin plastered on his face. The admiral was holding the baby and making strange cooing noises to his new grandson.

"Mommy!" Alex screamed excitedly as he ran over and launched himself onto his mother's bed. Lee and Kara pulled him up to sit between them.

"Hey there champ." He hugged his mother tightly then looked at her with a confused expression.

"You're not fat any more mommy," he said with paralysing honesty. There was a sharp intake of breath at what Starbuck's reaction might be to such a statement. Some of the men in the room tried to stifle laughs and failed.

"Well yes, that's absolutely right Alex, but I think we might need to work a bit on your chat up lines before you get much older. Do you want to meet your brother?"

"Yeah!"

Adama brought the baby over and laid him carefully on his brother's lap. Lee showed him how to make sure that he kept his head supported. Alex looked at the tiny baby in wonder, for once speechless. Stephen, who had brought his camera, recorded the moment for posterity.

"What's his name?" Stephen asked.

"Marcus Lee Adama," replied his proud father.

"Going for the Caprican god theme again? Good thing there's so many of them, the rate you two are going."

"Hey I've learnt my lesson. There aren't going to be any more unless Kara says so. I don't fancy having to sing falsetto for the rest of my life."

"Huh?"

"She threatened to castrate me."

"I plead diminished capacity," Kara laughed. She reached over and let her new son hook his tiny fist around her finger. She looked down at her two children with a benign smile. "It never seems so bad after the event. Besides, we'll need a little girl at some point to balance out the family."

"I have witnesses to that statement, darling," replied Lee with a grin.

"Yes, and they'll also remember that I said 'at some point'. Let's at least get through the diaper stage with both of these before we think about another one!"

−

There was an extraordinary party going on. The chief, his deck crew and most of the pilots had brought a whole load of their hooch to Lee's quarters to wet the baby's head and somehow things had gotten out of hand. There had been a difficult moment when the admiral had appeared, but he had diffused the situation quickly.

"I'm not an admiral tonight, I'm a grandfather!" He had grabbed one of the jars of booze, raising it to his son in salute, and then took a deep drink.

"Lords preserve us chief!" he managed with a slight cough and smarting eyes. "Are you sure this stuff won't make us go blind?"

When the president had turned up after visiting Kara they thought that they had really been in trouble, but she always liked to encourage the Galactica's crew to let their hair down when they could. Even Doc Cottle was sitting on the couch pulling blissfully on a stogie.

"Still doesn't beat a cigarette, but I'm not complaining!"

The party had spilled out into the corridor. Alex, who had been asleep in his new room, but had been woken by all the commotion, was moving from lap to lap, winning the hearts of practically every female in the room with his wide-eyed excitement.

"I'm a big boy now. I've got my own room and a real bed and everything. My bruvver's gotta sleep in my cot 'cos he's only a tiny baby, but I'm gonna look after him 'cos I'm his big bruvver."

He was now sitting on Hotdog's knee being given his first taste of alcohol. Lee had noticed too late to stop the giggling pilots, but to his immense relief Alex screwed up his face and stuck his tongue out in disgust after one sip. He was going to have enough trouble keeping it from Kara that she'd missed a great party without having to explain to her why their eldest son had a hangover!

The main protagonists were now getting to the bleary eyed stage; even the president was a little giggly. They had Stephen's star maps spread out on Lee's desk and were arguing over the merits of all the potential new home planets.

"What about that one?" said Laura Roslin, pointing rather incoherently at a small planet circled by several moons.

"Why that one?" Lee enunciated carefully.

"I don't know. I just like the look of it."

"Then that one it is Madame President," replied Adama, saluting her rather lopsidedly.

In years to come there were apocryphal stories as to how the new home of the survivors of the twelve colonies had been selected, but none of them came close to the truth. The people who knew the real story either weren't telling or just plain couldn't remember it properly!

THE END