Al was finishing the last of the coffee and had started on the latest issue of the Black Hills Pioneer when Alma returned from the Bank of Deadwood and her business with Leland Adama, Attorney at Law. As she put away her light cloak and hat and began straightening up the kitchen, he stepped out to the porch out of habit.
It had been odd at first, observing the camp melting into spring from the three foot high front porch of the Ellsworth-Swearengen home instead of the Gem's lofty balcony, high above the muck. Al's coffee cup still balanced just fine on the railing, though.
He supposed he should put away the term "camp" from the Deadwood nomenclature for good. It had been a proper town, at times as busy as a small city, for over three years now. He no longer tried to calculate in his head how many whores an increase in population would support. Dan now would work those figures out, or get Silas to do it, him having the greater head for numbers.
The screen door clicked behind him.
"I brought your jacket, Mr. Swearengen. It's too cool yet to be out here without it."
Alma held out his jacket, the walking stick she hadn't mentioned in her hand as well. Presumptuous woman, minding his aging joints more carefully than he did himself.
"Thanks for the jacket, and set the stick down, would you? I'm not of a mind to go for a stroll just yet."
"As you like." She came to stand by him, linking her arm in his.
Al looked at the woman standing next to him, a wide gold band gleaming on her left hand. Featherings of white were at her temples, and her delicate pureblood features had softened just a bit with the passage of the last three years. The large Deadwood Public Library down the thoroughfare spoke to her relentless commitment to the betterment of the town, though. That hadn't softened whatso-fucking-ever.
And put her, and the Bullock woman, and Laura fuckin' Adama in one room with a civic problem…Christ Almighty! Thank God they hadn't yet taken affront to whorehouses and saloons, other than asking that the former be referred to as "gentlemen's clubs" or "sporting houses."
"Do you think the Adamas will stay settled this time?" She glanced up the road, wider this year, that led to Falcon's Rest.
"I expect so. Now that the great mystery of their origins is over, and they've done all they need to do, at least for now, they should be content enough to rest on their laurels."
"Did I tell you that Mrs. Adama is talking about a children's theater, attached to the library?"
"No, you didn't, and I'll thank you not to do so now, if you don't mind. If it's a donation you're lookin' for, take it out of our account." He gave her a stern look from under black eyebrows that had started to speckle with silver.
Alma smiled indulgently at his gruffness. He knew she was well aware he had mixed feelings about the theater. Sounds like the ladies are spendin' too much time in Jack Langrishe's presence. He'd have to speak to Adama about that silver-tongued Irish show-runner, he thought, as he sat down in one of the wicker porch chairs.
Alma stepped behind him and bent enough to put her arms around his shoulders. That lily-of-the-valley perfume still brought him to a respectable cockstand, even with him occasionally needing his gold-headed cane to get up the stairs.
"Have you taken note of the traffic on the coach road? It hasn't stopped since six this morning."
"Yeah, that fuckin'—sorry—that shindig they're holdin' is bringin' folks in from all over." He shrugged. "They're popular, I guess. Him more than her, I imagine, though she has her followers, too."
She chuckled softly in his ear. "Remember when you thought they were deposed royalty?"
"Hush, woman." He felt a flush creeping across his weathered cheeks. "A man tries to suss something out with inadequate information, he should be excused for not gettin' it right."
They sat in contentment on the porch, Alma rubbing his shoulders now and then as they both surveyed the town they'd helped build in their different ways. Not the way he'd pictured his declining years…but when he was with his elegant, sometimes befuddling wife, he found he couldn't complain. If he'd been a religious man, he would have offered up prayers of thanksgiving regularly.
Not being such, he concentrated on being a decent enough husband and at least an adequate step-father. Sofia would be looking at women's colleges back east within the next couple of years, and he found (although he would never, on pain of death, admit it) he would miss the young lady she'd become. She reminded him of Alma sometimes, and he wondered if Alma's father hadn't been such a bounder, if she would have made different choices in her life.
Not that a pimp and cutthroat sounded much better than a broad-tosser and a clip, but at least he knew what he was. No self-deception here.
The child had become easier in his presence, once he started giving over a half-hour every evening to playing a game or two of checkers. And she'd taken his lessons in self-defense with a good enough attitude. God help the man who tried to cause her harm when she was out on her own.
A flash of white caught his eye at the far end of the thoroughfare. As it raced closer, he jumped to his feet, bad hip be damned.
"Get back, Alma." He pulled his best knife out of its sheath on his belt as he tried to assess the activity from his less-than-ideal vantage point. His pulse slowed as the running figure became clear: it was his step-daughter, skirts held up and running like the devil was at her heels.
He leaned over the porch railing, glowering at the child he'd once ordered…well, the less he thought about that, the better.
"What the fu—what the he—" He growled in frustration. Damn Alma and her aversion to nasty language. "What's the matter, child?"
The words were barely out of his mouth when he realized she was grinning ear to ear.
"Guess what came in on the stage just now?" Her Nordic blue eyes were dancing.
"Sofia, please! Come sit and tell us what's gotten you so excited." Alma gestured for her adopted daughter to come sit on the wicker settee.
"Mr. Adama's new book came today!" She tried to get her breathing under control and act like a lady, Al could tell. Never did see a child so excited by books.
"Is it another one about the plucky brothers who fly to the moon, having a series of implausible but entertaining adventures?" He gave Sofia an indulgent smile, hoping she didn't find out he had purchased a copy of the children's book for himself. Cocksucker was almost as good as Jules Verne, though he'd never tell him that.
Her color was high in her cheeks. "No, Mr. Swearengen, it's ever so much better! Mr. Merrick let me take a look at the copy he ordered. It's about a girl who secretly sneaks onto a rocket and flies to Mars."
He raised an eyebrow. "A thief, in other words."
Oh, hell, he couldn't take the crestfallen expression that was starting to erase her smile.
"Never mind, child. I'm sure it's not exactly thievery if it's a…a space ship. Maybe that's more like piracy."
The sunny look was back again. "Mr. Merrick says the mercantile bought a dozen copies to sell." She looked at her mother and step-father hopefully.
"Don't hint, Sofia. You're better served by simply asking for what you want." Alma gave her a stern look.
"Now, Alma, you'll have her speakin' her mind as quick as Trixie. Let's not be hasty, hmm?" He gave his wife a slight smirk as he pulled a few coins out of his pocket.
"Take this, young lady. Go buy a copy for yourself and one for the library." He sat back in his chair with no little satisfaction at his civic-mindedness. "Be quick about it, and mind you carry yourself in a lady-like manner. We'll take it up to Falcon's Rest later on, see if the great author himself can sign it for you."
Sofia grinned and ran down the porch stairs, blond ponytail flying until Alma cleared her throat. She slowed her gait and walked quickly back down the thoroughfare, seeming to keep herself from breaking into a run again by sheer force of will.
"So, we're going to see the Adamas? I thought this was something of a private gathering," Alma said.
"I talked to Adama yesterday about it. They have some private memorial hoopla they'll be startin' come evening, but he asked we come by mid-day."
Alma smiled as she watched her daughter navigate the crowded wooden sidewalks with the requested decorum. "Are you sure they won't mind? They are such private people."
"Nah, he's easin' up in his old age, same as I am. Not that I blame him for his discretion. If I'd sickened my wife multiple times, draggin' her all over the world gettin' ideas for stories, I'd keep it to myself, too."
"Oh, surely some of her talk of family responsibilities was true, Albert. I enjoy her fiction as well as his, but I remember what I saw and heard when she would come back so sickly."
He looked up the road towards Falcon's Rest, then turned in his chair to look back at the town he'd founded almost a decade ago.
"As with most of our tales, Alma, I'm guessin' the truth is somewhere in between, muddled in the middle of the lies and the facts half-told." He pulled himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his hip. "A hundred years from now, what's it going to matter, anyways?" He held out his hand to help her up.
The foot traffic had slowed enough so he thought she'd be comfortable with him slipping an arm around her waist in the shade of the porch. "What matters," he continued, "is that she seems to be enjoying good health right now. As is he." He moved closer, her scent going to his head a bit. "As are we. I'd have us make an early visit and an early return, if it's all the same to you."
He was gratified to see he could still bring a blush to her cheeks. "Mr. Swearengen, you are incorrigible."
"So they say, Mrs. Swearengen. So they say."
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. . ********************************************
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. Saul glared up at the wagon driver as well as he could with the use of one eye. "I said pull to the left, Godsdamnit!"
The fine-boned man driving the wagon glared right back. "Colonel-Mr. Tigh, I claim expertise in science, and in farming. I make no such claims in wagon-driving."
"Just pull here, then here, Gaius." Caprica touched the reins with a light hand. The deep blue clothing she now favored suited her coloring as well as scarlet red had. Letting her guide him like it was nothing new at all, Gaius pulled the wagon neatly up to the hitching post as Saul called others over to start helping unload the wagon.
"Frak me, I would've thought it was too early for tomatoes yet." Saul looked at the bushel baskets with grudging admiration. Besides the basket of tomatoes and another of green peppers, there were three kinds of greens, potatoes, carrots and parsnips that had been stored through the winter, and jars of green beans and corn.
"Not to brag, but our greenhouses have been quite successful. Wait until we come back in two months," he said with the expected Baltar self-pride. "I'm trying a new strain of melon, and we're setting out strawberries this year."
Saul looked up to where Caprica sat in the wagon. "Still full of himself, I see."
She smiled beatifically down at him, her left hand resting on her belly, just beginning to round against her skirt. "I think you'll actually enjoy the results of his self-confidence this time, Saul."
A pang of loss ran through him, then he remembered the scope of his real, true family. He couldn't begrudge them their happiness, even if it was Gaius Baltar. He began directing the gathered men to unload the wagon and start bringing the food to the matriarchs of Falcon's Rest.
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. Every cook-stove in Falcon's Rest was going strong by mid-day, dozens of loaves of bread coming out to cool every couple of hours while more were put in the oven. Cast iron pots bubbled on stovetops or sat in banked coals to keep gallons of potatoes, beans, and corn hot.
Open fires a distance away from the houses blazed under large cooking pots suspended from hot oil within bubbled and popped, waiting to fry up pieces of fish and chicken dipped in buttermilk batter.
Fragrant steam was rising from a fire-pit nearby, where haunches of elk and deer had been put in covered pots with onions and pepper, then buried in hot coals hours earlier. The meat would be roasted and falling off the bone in another hour or two.
It was a far cry from the CIC, but as Saul looked around at the community preparations coming together, he felt the same as he had when everything and everybody around him was working like a fine oiled machine. There's a turn of phrase he'd have to remember to tell Ellen, he thought, as he swung the basket of tomatoes up on one shoulder.
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. ******************
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. Laura dusted off her hands and put her apron back on its peg as she watched Al slowly climb down from his wagon, accepting the cane Sofia offered with grudging grace. The kitchen activities seemed to be at a stopping point, at least for a few minutes. After a warm greeting, she told Alma and Sofia where they could find Bill and assured them he'd be delighted to sign the flyleaf of his new book.
"You're lookin' well, Mrs. Adama. Hard to believe I was havin' lumber measured for your coffin this time last year."
She leaned up against the buckboard beside the former pimp. "Trust me, I feel the same way." She looked over the beehive of busy former Fleet members going about a variety of tasks. "It was worth it, though."
"To get new material." He nodded.
"Excuse me?"
He cut his eyes at her with a sly grin. "Your journeys off to dangerous, sickening climates to gather material for those books you and he write, is what I mean. The sacrifices you made for your craft and such, that the two of you covered up with tales of mysterious family responsibilities."
Her grin was similar to his, if a bit forced. "Exactly. The sacrifices were worth it, in the end."
She wondered sometimes how much he believed their cover story, now firmly established since Bill had found a market for his writing and she for hers. Apparently Al Swearengen still retained his skill at disregarding whatever he didn't find pertinent to his own interests.
As if he could read her mind, he said, "A more curious man would wonder how being a couple of aspiring writers would lead to being responsible for the resettling of a large number of displaced persons...not that I personally give a fuck." His words hung in the air for a moment. "I suppose you could have led more complicated lives before you decided to put pen to paper. World's full of people doin' strange things these days."
Laura smiled and gave a non-committal hum.
"We do want to thank you for all the help you've given us, Mr. Swearengen. For all your…ways, you've been a remarkably trustworthy ally."
He waved her thanks off. "Believe me, Mrs. Adama, ain't nothing I did for you and yours that didn't profit me in some way, monetary or otherwise. The two of you came into Deadwood during some dark days. Your little…oddities, so to speak, proved a welcome distraction, as did you and your man's occasional listening ear."
She looked towards the community hall and saw Bill deep in conversation with Sofia Ellsworth as he held her new book and a pen, the new Mrs. Swearengen looking on with approval.
"I'm finally feeling like our dark days are behind us."
He followed her gaze and nodded. "Feels fuckin' good, does it not?"
This time her hum was one of agreement.
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. ************************************
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By the time the sun was setting, a roughly assembled dance floor had been set up next to the community hall and the amateur musicians had played a couple of folksy tunes on newly bought fiddles and mandolins. By unspoken agreement, the Adamas had the first dance, Bill gliding with Laura over the dance floor as easily as he had done at their first Colonial Day dance.
They were soon joined by the Tighs, who moved with the all the grace they'd developed over centuries of reading the messages of each other's bodies. Helo twirled Sofia in an old Caprican folk dance until both extended their hands to pull Sharon in to join them.
Taking a break, Laura sat at one of the long tables next to Bill, enjoying the way the torchlight played across his features. It reminded her of one of the few good memories of New Caprica. She patted her pocket, feeling for the home-rolled smoke Kara had given her before she and Lee headed up to Yankton. The cannabis they grew here was almost as good as New Caprican weed. She hadn't decided yet whether to recreate that bit of personal history tonight or not.
As she sat and watched the festivities, she overheard Al's deep rumble from behind her as he spoke to his wife.
"Well, we should be going before full nightfall, Alma. Tell Miss Sofia there'll be other dances, I've no doubt." The Swearengen family came up to say their goodbyes, Sofia looking tired but happy as they left.
Laura watched Bill and Al exchange a few private words by their buckboard, then shake hands with firm purpose. She'd have to ask about that later.
Much later.
By the time the Swearengens were out of sight, the music had come to a stop. The tables groaned with an array of platters and bowls, but first, the residents and guests filed into the community hall. It had been structured like one of the many churches in town, plain rows of benches facing a raised stage in front. It seemed like old times, sharing a podium with William Adama. Two tables were in front of the podium, one to each side, their contents covered with white sheets.
Once the group had settled in their seats, some standing along the walls, Bill began to speak.
"A man I met a few years ago said something to me I've never forgotten, and it seems right to share that with all of you tonight. The occasion was the anniversary of a tragedy in Deadwood, a tragedy for a few that meant others might live in peace." He glanced down at the card in front of him.
"'Remembering anniversaries seems to be the way we're made. Maybe it's Mother Nature's way of knocking us with a two-by-four once in a while so we don't forget our mistakes.'
"It's a time of looking back, so we can better plan going forward."
Bill went over the painful parts everyone remembered, presenting them in the context of what they had survived rather than what they had endured. When he reached the part about Sam Ander's sacrifice as the Fleet was flown into the sun, Laura was glad Kara and Lee had begged off. She was sure they would be remembering this date in their own way, in the privacy Kara needed.
The familiar slow clap began, rising to a crescendo when she changed places with Bill. The crowd of survivors quieted. She reiterated what Bill had said, stopping once when the images of Billy, then Elosha, Cami, and others flashed through her mind and tightened her throat.
"I thought of different ways to commemorate the first anniversary of the final end of our search, and thanks to the Tighs' foresight and Chief Tyrol's talents, I believe we found the right symbols for us tonight."
She walked to the tables and pulled back the sheets. One table held a pile of pale green loaves, the other held jars of clear liquid.
"I remember when we found the algae planet, how excited we were that we wouldn't starve. And I remember days when I was sure I couldn't get down another bite. I don't think anyone here ever wanted to taste this stuff again or drink another drop of Galactica rotgut, after we settled here." She smiled at the emphatic shouts of agreement.
"These are the last algae loaves and Battlestar home brew in the universe," she continued. "For better or for worse, it's a final taste of our former home, and of our journey. Please join me in finishing our last Fleet meal."
She had thought this would be a raucous celebration of putting the hardships of the past behind them. As she tore off a bit of algae bread, brought it to her mouth, and washed it down with the burning rotgut, she was surprised to feel tears come to her eyes.
We made it. We really, really made it.
She passed the loaf and jar to Bill, and the shine in his eyes told her he was feeling the same thing…triumph in their survival, grief for what they'd lost, and appreciation for what had let them survive. The mood was respectfully subdued as people passed the trays and jars around to share a bit of this last remnant of shipboard life in the Fleet.
Algae and homemade hooch had never tasted so sweet.
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. ************************************
.
Bill and Laura stood in the doorway of the community hall afterwards, watching the group of Colonials and Cylons shake off the weight of memories and dig into the bounty set out on the long tables. Chief Tyrol passed around glasses of amber whiskey poured from a keg of his fledgling distillery's finest, promising a much smoother blend in another few years' time. As people pushed away from the table, the musicians tuned up their instruments again. The guests who hadn't stuffed themselves completely began drifting back to the dance floor.
"You hungry?" Bill asked.
"Not really. I've been around food all day, and I put a few plates in the pie chest for later."
She could still see the heart-warming blue of his eyes, even by torchlight. Something she'd been dragging around, some old weight of responsibility and loss, seemed to have slipped away in the dark. She felt lighter, freer than she had in years.
And speaking of slipping away…
She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder, enjoying the bulk and warmth of his sturdy body. She almost purred in contentment as he stroked her back, lips touching her hair.
"Bill, can you coordinate closing everything up with the Tighs?"
He pulled back and looked at her with a puzzled expression. "How come? Aren't we doing that?"
"I need to go on to the house. I've got something I need to do there."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"You know I've had to move my belongings back and forth, never knowing how long I'd stay in one place, all that uncertainty, things lost…." She felt bad for a second as a dark look of worry crossed his face.
"I know. I remember times when…never mind. You're right. So?"
She couldn't contain the giggle that bubbled up as she leaned up to whisper in his ear. "I want to make sure I can find that red outfit you like so much."
The relief she saw in his eyes gave her a few pangs of guilt until she saw his gaze turn hot and wanting.
"I think I see Saul by the Chief's keg. I won't be long." He kissed her, a quick peck at first that lengthened into a prelude to the rest of their evening before she pulled away.
"Give me ten minutes," she said, as she slipped out the door into the night air.
"Oh, I'll give you more than that," he said, grinning and giving her that slumber-eyed loving look that always undid her.
She felt lighter than air as she walked towards their home. Her heart was full of so much love.
Full of so much life.
FIN