"Again?" Bridger exclaimed into his PAL. He was halfway through his shift when Wendy and Dr. Gravel requested a shuttle to take them over to the abandoned ship. It had taken Dr. Gravel most of the morning to repair the damage done to his schematics, but they were relatively back on track.

Until now anyway.

Mistaking his exasperation for a command, he heard Henderson's voice once more, "The Seaquest is sending us an error report when we request permission to launch sir. We can't get off the boat."
"Understood, Lieutenant."
"Somebody tell me how long it will take to fix this!" he said a touch too loudly, and to no one in particular.
"I'll have it fixed in about 15, sir." a voice behind him replied.
"Thank you. 15 minutes, Henderson."
"Yes, sir."
-----
(25 minutes later)

"What seems to be the problem?" Nathan asked through gritted teeth as he watched the officer tap away at the controls.
"Nothing, technically, Captain. There seems to be some bloatware on the system that's running unnecessary background tasks that are diverting the energy from the launch controls. It's simple, but messy, and hard to get rid of."
"How'd it get there in the first place?"
"No idea, sir. Could be just about anything."
"How much longer until you can fix it?"
The officer winced. "Probably another half an hour, sir."
Bridger sighed. "Carry on."
"Aye, sir."
"Henderson?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Tell the doctors to head back to med bay, we'll contact them when the problem's fixed. Please maintain your position, we'll need to test the launch function once the issue is cleared up."
"Aye sir."
---------
Bridger couldn't fully relax for the rest of his shift, at least not until he heard the words "The shuttle has docked sir." In the end it had taken them 45minutes to get the Drs off on their shuttle to the abandoned sub, but given the circumstances, he wouldn't have been surprised if yet more disasters had happened. Thankfully the rest of the Drs trip was fine and their return went smoothly.

Leaving the bridge to Ford, the Captain stopped by the mess to pick up some dinner. Taking the food back to his cabin, he found Lucas sitting at his table concentrating on whatever was on the table in front of him. Sitting in the chair beside him lightly snoring, was Tony Piccolo. Bridger put his tray down on the table and indicating Tony, he said quietly to Lucas,

"You must have really kept him on his toes today to tire him out like this."

Lucas looked up at him and smiled. Bridger could see that he and Tony had already eaten based on the mustard smudges all over his chin and cheeks.
"Veggie burgers for dinner?" he asked unnecessarily.
"Yep. They were really good."
"Did any of them make it into your mouth, or just all over your face?" Lucas just looked at him, puzzled. "Go wash your face, kiddo. You've got mustard everywhere."

With that Lucas slid off the chair and headed for the Captain's bathroom.
Placing a hand on Tony's shoulder, he gave the younger man a gentle shake. "Piccolo, you can go now. Thanks for staying with him."
Shaking himself awake, Tony looked up at the Captain. "Aw, crap Captain Bridger, I didn't mean to fall asleep, I swear."
"Don't worry about it Tony, I understand." he replied with a wry smile.
"Thanks Cap, I'll see you later."
Glancing down he spotted the paper that Lucas had been scribbling away at. He moved to take a closer look, and was quite surprised at what he found. He had been expecting something academic, math equations, specs for the vocorder, things along those lines. What he found instead was the a picture of what appeared to be the Seaquest (thankfully labelled as such) drawn by the clumsy hand of the 6 year old. Nathan couldn't help smiling to himself when he spotted the fact that Lucas had included a Captain's chair and stick figure Captain. He thoughts fell to Lucas and the rather disturbing lack of noise coming from the bathroom.

"It's awfully quiet in there. What are you doing Lucas?"

Opening the door he saw the boy kneeling on the sink, staring at himself in the mirror, covered from nose to chin in shaving cream, some of it dripping off his face and onto his T-shirt.

Nathan ran his hand down his face and groaned. Reminding himself of the natural tendency small children have to do things like this, he asked evenly,

"Lucas Wolenczak, why are you covered in my shaving cream?"

Lucas turned to face him, and in a very slow, patient tone, responded "I wanted to shave."

Of course you did. Nathan thought to himself. How silly of me for even asking.

"And why exactly do you want to shave?"
Lucas shrugged. "You do."

If he thought that puppy dog look was bad at 16, it was pretty damn hard to say no to at 6. In fact, he'd bet it was impossible. I should get him to call the Secretary General and secure more funding.
Smiling at the thought, he quickly turned Lucas around and sat him on the sink counter.

"

Wait there a minute, champ, I'll get the razor."
"All right!" Lucas exclaimed happily.

Rooting through his medicine cabinet, Bridger quickly found his razor. Slipping out the blade, he handed the now harmless instrument to Lucas.
"But I can't see nothin'."

Bridger held up a mirror in his other hand and stood in front of Lucas, positioning the mirror in front of the boy so he could see.
He watched as Lucas' little hands held the razor, dragging it down his cheeks. Once again, Nathan found himself biting the inside of his cheek to maintain his composure. What the hell was happening? When had he become this emotional?

He watched as Lucas finished "shaving". Putting down the mirror he looked at the boy. "Good job, kiddo. You're almost a pro."

"Almost?"

"Well, you did miss a spot" Nathan said. As he finished his sentence, he scooped up a spot of shaving cream off Lucas' cheek and smeared it on the boy's nose, causing him to collapse into giggles. After a moment Lucas launched himself into the Captain's arms in the way that children do when they're confident that someone will catch them. It took Lucas mere seconds to rub the shaving cream on his nose off on the Captain.

"You shoulda shaved too, Cap'in."

"Oh?" "Yeah, you're scratchy."