Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor do I own Battlestar Galactica. They are owned by Joss Whedon and Ronald D. Moore respectively. I merely play with their toys while they're away. Also, this series entirely ignores anything not directly mentioned in Battlestar Galactica, so ignore anything from Caprica. This was conceived before that, so I'm not letting it hamper my creativity.

"Military? They're all worthless. All the battlestars in all the fleets of all the Colonies couldn't put even the slightest dent in the vampire population."
-Anath Brijesha, Chairman of the Watchers Council (21013-21027)

Earlier today

Willow Canaan now regretted her mostly not sleeping on the flight to the Battlestar Galactica, because she was now rather drowsy, while her girlfriend was downright perky. Well, for Tara, that is. But, Willow had never met any of Tara's family before. After the relative disaster of their dinner with Willow's parents, Willow was determined to make a good impression on Tara's relatives. At least, the ones she liked. Tara had told her, hesitatingly, about her father's family. Willow was terribly tempted to turn the Lothians in general into rats.

But this side of the family was the one that Tara's mother had come out of. Sure, they were military, but they were Tara's family, and she liked them. They couldn't be terrible. These were the people Tara had known and adored her entire life, and Willow would by lying to herself if she didn't admit she felt more than a little pressure at meeting them.

At least, especially, this first one.

Tara moved through the Battlestar with relative ease; she'd never been here before, but Willow had interrogated out of her that she'd memorized the specs of a Columbia-class Battlestar when she was in grade school for fun. Back before she had been initiated into Wicce, witchcraft and magic.

Tara finally came to the door they were looking for, and knocked hard. A gruff 'come in' could be heard through the door, and Tara opened the hatch to the commander's quarters.

Once inside, Willow took in Tara's uncle. They had little resemblance, but Willow could see the strong, blue eyes in both of them – eyes that showed an overt calmness and intensity from the old veteran, while they betrayed the strong person under all Tara's uncertainty. But, the way they looked at each other, with a kind of unquestioned love that was only shared by family, banished any hint of doubt in Willow's mind that they weren't related.

"Tara!" the commander said, betraying a slight emotion with a smile as he rose from a rather comfortable looking couch in the center of his room, and standing to look into his niece.

"Uncle Bill," Tara said, smiling, her normal nervousness absolutely gone (well, not absolutely gone – it had rather annoyingly fled into Willow's own spirit) as she went up to, and hugged, her uncle.

After a short hug, they released each other, and the commander spoke to Tara, "How are you?"

"I'm alright, Uncle Bill. School's fine."

"How long has it been? Two, three years?"

"Just two years. Here!" she suddenly declared, as she moved out of the way, "Uncle Bill, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Willow Canaan. Will, this is my uncle, William Adama."

Willow felt the commander's eyes fall onto hers with his face becoming serious, and she immediately felt like she was being assessed, tested for worthiness. It took every ounce of her determination not to degrade into a bubbling, babbling mess the way she would in seconds to anyone and everyone, even her best friends, back in High School – before Buffy, that is. Her voice, however, still came out nervously,

"Nice to meet you, sir."

Whatever Commander Adama had been looking for in Willow, he'd apparently found after Willow spoke, and he nodded, and spoke warmly, though gruffly, "It's a pleasure, Miss Canaan. And sir is for the military personnel."

"Yes, sir. I mean, right, I understand, Commander, uh, Mr. Adama."

Adama's gaze darkened for a moment, "Now, Miss Canaan, I'm sure you understand, Tara is my niece, and she means a great deal to me. If you hurt her," he said, before Tara interrupted him

"Uncle Bill!" Tara said, lightly hitting the man, "Stop threatening my girlfriend."

"It's alright, sir," Willow stumbled over her words, "Commander, um, sir, I and my friends do the same, though, I don't think they did so to Tara, because they didn't see her as any sort of threat because I'm bisexual and none of them knew that before Tara so it came as kind of a shock to them, but I've threatened my best friend's boyfriends myself, and she's threatened mine in the past."

Commander Adama turned to Willow's girlfriend, with what was, to her, an inscrutable look on his face. Apparently, it wasn't so to Tara –

"What? I think it's cute."

Willow blushed.

After having met Tara's cousin, Lee, Willow was actually doing alright. She had managed not to babble too much in front of either Tara's uncle or her cousin, and she'd managed, by following Tara's memory map, to not get lost once on the confusing battlestar.

Now, after the tour of the brand new museum – models and real versions of everything that had been used in the Cylon War! It was fascinating. Cylon centurions, raiders and basestars; Colonial vipers and models of the Columbia-class battlestars and the older, individual colonial models used in the early part of the war. To a nerd, even a science nerd like Willow, it was amazing. And totally worth how much Xander and Buffy were going to rag on her for her descriptions when she got back to Sunnydale.

Now, she was sitting in the audience of the official opening ceremony for the museum. Laura had spoken already, and now a priest of some sort was finishing her speech. Willow, honestly, hadn't been listening. It wasn't important enough. But Tara's uncle? That was important. Not to mention that he was a real veteran of the war – not like Laura or the priest. Something she respected.

Military were generally bad, unfortunately – look at what happened with Deucalion! That was just asking for a new War, mixing cybernetic parts with demon. Even the Cylons would probably find that disgusting. But, the heroes of the Fleet from the Cylon War were the reason for unification. It was the reason for the end of the ghettos, and for the freedom of the mithrasaries all throughout the Colonies. And that was a cause Willow could rally behind.

"And now," said a rather annoying tour guide (Willow had never caught his name), "it is my great pleasure to introduce the last commander of the Battlestar Galactica, Commander William Adama, a veteran pilot of the Cylon War."

There was a decent amount of applause, including a polite amount from Willow, as Tara's uncle approached the podium.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Doral, everyone," the old military man said, his eyes looking all across the audience, settling ever so slightly on Tara for a moment before he continued, clearly reading from a sheet of paper in his hand, "The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but,"

The commander trailed off, looking into the eyes of the Galactica officers in the crowd, and then into space for a few seconds, as his voice broke a little, but he forged on a little, "sometimes it's too high."

He folded the paper in his hands, looking at the audience, and his formal, loud voice fell into more familiar tones, the honest gruffness Willow had seen in his quarters back.

"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question," he said, looking into everyone's eyes, "Why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder, because of greed, spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon," he stopped, looking down, "upon our children."

He steadied himself behind the podium, looking back to the audience, "We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play the gods, create," he stopped, searching for a word, "life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really."

He looked deeply into the eyes of everyone in the room, all of them spellbound and silent as he spoke, "You cannot play the gods, then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things you've done anymore."

There was silent for several moments, before Secretary Roslin began applauding, standing with her hands impacting, before the whole room followed her, including Willow and Tara, applauding wildly for Galactica's last commander.

Present

"But if we evacuate the Moira onto the Prometheus now, we have to make the Aethilides start unloading onto the Gideon, and Gideon is scheduled to take the offload from Malafide. They've been waiting on that ship for a while."

Willow sighed, "Exactly, then the Malafide can empty here, there's plenty of space."

Aaron Doral was arguing, pointlessly, "If Malafide empties here, we risk the security of the ship from political terrorists, who could take advantage-"

"Terrorists? Come on! It's the frakking end of the worlds!" Willow said, losing her temper, "If you're still worried about terrorists taking out the President in the middle of a godsdamn apocalypse, you clearly need to get your priorities in order!"

"Miss Canaan's plan works for me," she finally interrupted, ending the argument, "Tell Malafide to get in position to evacuate directly to Colonial One, and rearrange the convoy to get it done."

The room chorused, "Yes, Madam President."

"Captain Adama, Madam President," said a man, coming in – Colonial One's captain – "We've got a signal from two military shuttles. One is callsigned 'Boomer' and the other is civilian flown. They're requesting to land."

"Give them clearance. Captain Apollo, meet Boomer and our civilians flying a raptor in the docking bay. Miss Canaan, you get down to the hatch in the docking bay and organize where Malafide's refugees are going to come aboard."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, Madam President."