Chapter 14

As the Cylon raiders sped towards him, Apollo managed to take out the ship heading directly for him, but couldn't do anything about the one that had spun off to come up on him from behind. The missile lock warning signal went off in his cockpit. He knew that his luck had finally run out. He sent a small prayer to the Gods to protect his family and whispered "I love you, Kara" as he waited for the inevitable explosion.

In the CIC, the commander held Kara as she sagged against him, her face anguished. Neither of them wanted to watch the screens to see the final explosion, but it was almost harder to look away.

Suddenly, there was a loud "yee-ha" across the comms. "Take that you bastard!" Hotdog had somehow managed to double back in time to take out the missile and the last raider.

"You're all clear Apollo!"

"Hotdog, you mad son of a bitch, that was too close; I thought I was a goner."

"Hey, anytime boss!"

"We might need to have to chat about disobeying orders though."

"Sure sir, but honestly, I'm much more afraid of Starbuck than I am of you, and she would have had my ass if I'd left you there to die."

"You hear that Starbuck?" said Lee with a laugh, knowing that she would probably be in the CIC. "I'm going to have to review your role as flight instructor if this is how they end up."

"Stupid frak," Kara muttered through her tears so that only the commander could hear. "Owww" she rubbed her belly as a stronger contraction than any as yet caught her breath.

"Kara?" The commander still had his arm around her and had felt her wince.

"Really, I'm OK," she said, breathing deeply. "I'm not going anywhere until I've seen him," she said quietly. The commander nodded, knowing that he was a little the same way. He wouldn't quite believe that Lee had escaped in one piece until he saw him in the flesh.

"Dee, have Major Adama report to CIC as soon as he gets back to the ship."

Twenty minutes later the major bounded into CIC, still on an adrenaline high from the victory and being snatched from the jaws of death. He saw Kara and desperately wanted just to hug and kiss her, but was enough in control to realise that wasn't appropriate behaviour in CIC. Instead he saluted the commander.

"Mission accomplished sir," he said, an ear-to ear grin plastered on his face, as he tossed the silver lighter back to his father.

"Well done major. Report." The commander's calm tone brought Lee back down a little and he gave him his brief report of the mission. Whilst he was doing so the commander caught a glimpse of Kara out of the corner of his eye. She was biting her bottom lip in an effort not to cry out in pain and he knew that it was time to let Lee become a husband instead of an officer.

"Thank you, that will be all, major. Now can I suggest that you get your wife to sickbay before she gives birth to my grandson in the middle of CIC!"

"What? Kara?" Lee immediately spun around and rushed over to Kara.

"Oh don't fuss Lee, it's not that bad. He's only winding you up, you stupid frak; it won't be for ages yet."

"Why didn't you tell me that it had started?" She gave him an exasperated look.

"Well I didn't want to bother you as you seemed rather busy trying to getting yourself killed. Now shut up and help me down to sickbay or so help me I'll punch your lights out right here."

Lee didn't need a second invitation!

−

A while later the commander phoned down to sickbay to speak with Major Cottle, ostensibly to get a status report on the casualties from the operation, but this was really a cover for what he really wanted to know about.

"How's she doing?" the major just laughed.

"Much better than her husband at the moment!"

"Hey give him a break; he's had a hard day. He almost didn't make it back you know."

"So I gather."

"I bet she's laying into him real good."

"Yeah, I caught something in the tirade about his flying being worse than one of her nuggets. Abusing her husband seems to be Kara's preferred form of pain relief. Seems to be working pretty well at the moment too!"

"Well let me know when it's getting close, I want to be there."

"Sure will, we'll probably all need relief by that point! I'm keeping my more impressionable staff away so their vocabularies don't get expanded with words I'd rather they didn't know! It won't be for a good while yet though; this baby doesn't seem to be in any hurry to be born."

The commander returned the phone to its rest and turned to Tigh.

"Well Bill it's been one hell of a day and there's still more to come for you so why don't you turn in for a bit," said the XO

"Thanks, Saul." He rested a hand on his old friend's shoulder. "She's your ship colonel."

−

Alexander William Adama made his first appearance in the world at 6.13am the next morning. Now, two hours later, Major Lee Adama sat in a chair next to the sickbay bed in which his wife slept, his newly born son cradled in his arms. The medical staff had tried to get him to put the baby in his crib, but Lee wasn't having any of it. He had come so close to not being here for this moment that he wasn't going to be parted from his son anytime soon.

As he gazed down at the tiny blond head poking out of the blanket, he thought that he had been through just about every possible human emotion in the last 24 hours since he had first climbed into his viper yesterday morning. The encounter with the Cylons, coming so close to ending his life, had been followed by a long vigil at his wife's side. The doc had said that Kara's labour had been perfectly normal, but all he knew was that it had seemed to go on forever and had obviously been intensely painful for her. He had felt helplessly inadequate in the face of his inability to help her get any relief and he had to just watch her struggle through it, not able to offer much more than a hand to hold and comforting words. He became acutely aware of the very inadequate facilities there were on the Galactica for this type of medical need in comparison with what she could have had if they had been back on Caprica. But once the baby had been born you wouldn't have known what she had been through, such was the joy on her face as she held her new son. There had been tears all round; Lee was pretty sure that even his father had had a bit of a moist eye. He had certainly choked up when they had told him the baby's name. They had wanted their son to have a name of his own, not to be named for someone to whom he would always be compared, so they had given him the name of the Caprican god of peace, which seemed even more appropriate now than when they had first chosen it. However, neither of them had been able to resist the urge to include his grandfather's name as well.

Despite their residual fears about the possible after effects of Kara's trip to Caprica, the baby was perfect. Lee hadn't had much experience with children, but as he touched one tiny fist gently with his own finger, only to have it gripped in return, he felt an overwhelming surge of emotion for the tiny life he held. Kara had been right. All the efforts to fight the Cylons over the past year and a bit were worth it just for this moment; the beginning of a new human life, created in the midst of war.

−

The president of the colonies was pacing her office waiting for Commander Adama to arrive. They had taken to doing a joint press conference the day after major military operations, but this time the commander hadn't turned up at the scheduled time and was now over three hours late. No explanation had come from the Galactica. The press were kicking their heels in the briefing room, no doubt making up all kinds of conjecture as to the reason for the delay, and she was getting increasingly angry. She had been intending to announce his appointment to the position of admiral of the fleet at this press conference, but now she was having second thoughts. At last the door opened and the commander casually walked in.

"You're rather late, commander!" The president's voice clearly conveying her annoyance "I hate to keep the press waiting; it always makes them suspect something's going on that they don't know about."

"My apologies, Madame President," said Adama, an amused smile on his face at her impatience. He took her hand and kissed it gallantly, "but I was rather busy with something important that couldn't wait." He continued to smile at her. Who was this and what had he done with commander Adama? She was pretty sure that he wasn't a Cylon, but you could never be too sure these days.

"May I know what it was?"

"Yes you may," he replied, the huge smile still in place. He walked over to her white board, took the eraser and rubbed out the "8" at the end of the current population number and wrote in a "9". She clapped her hands together in delight, all her anger forgotten.

"Kara's had the baby! Oh congratulations, commander."

"Yes, I'm now officially an old man!"

−

Hotdog limped over to the area of sickbay where he knew they had put Kara and stuck his head around the curtain. The CAG was sprawled in a chair next to the bed, obviously fast asleep, with his son sleeping peacefully in his arms. Kara, surprisingly awake, lay in the bed just watching them.

"Congratulations, Starbuck," he said quietly.

"Hotdog! Hey, come over here." She turned to him and beckoned with a finger for him to get closer. She slapped him lightly on the cheek.

"That's for disobeying orders and for getting shot." Then she pulled him down closer and kissed him, "and that's for making sure that my husband came back alive."

"It was nothing, sir, just doing my job." Hotdog was embarrassed.

"No, it wasn't nothing, Hotdog. Look at that." She gestured towards Lee and the baby. "You did that, Hotdog; you made sure that Lee got to see his son born and that my little boy got to meet his daddy. Nothing can ever take that away from them now and you gave it to them. That's why we do what we do every day. You should be very proud." Her eyes were bright with tears.

"Oh frak, Starbuck, you're gonna make me all emotional."

"I won't tell if you don't!"

−

As Hotdog left Kara went back to watching Lee and the baby. She felt a great love swell up in her for both of them. Before she had gotten pregnant, and she and Lee had finally gotten together, she had been unsure whether she really had the capacity or even emotional ability to love. Now her whole perspective had changed. When she had been with Zac, she had loved him with all the capacity that she had at the time, but she realised now how small and immature that love had been in comparison with what she felt for Lee. The intense love she already felt for her child was further proof that she had changed beyond all recognition from the woman who had first stepped on to the Galactica after Zac's death.

She didn't have too long to carry on these reflections because it wasn't long before little Alex showed that he had other ideas about letting his father sleep. What had started out as small whimpers soon turned into full blown cries, waking Lee quickly.

"Lords, he's going to keep the whole ship awake if he's that loud all the time," he said as he offered the baby to Kara. She took him and placed him at her breast as the nurse had told her. This was a tense moment. It wasn't that she was terribly keen on the idea of breast feeding, but it was just a necessity. If the baby wouldn't feed from his mother then they were in trouble: baby milk and formula were virtually non-existent in the fleet. Fortunately, Alex knew a good thing when he saw it and began to suckle greedily. While he fed Kara took the opportunity to look at him critically.

"Well one thing's for certain, you wouldn't have been able to deny he was yours even if you wanted to: he looks just like you but in miniature. If it wasn't for the fact that I vividly recall giving birth to him I'd say I had nothing to do with this baby at all."

Lee was sitting on the side of the bed watching. On arm around Kara's shoulders, he caressed his son's downy blond head with a gentle finger.

"Oh, I don't know. That blond hair had to come from you and who knows, he may turn out to be just like you in other ways."

"Lords help us if he does!" Lee laughed lightly, but his expression quickly turned more serious.

"Can you believe that we made it here, Kara?"

"Not really, but I'm not going to think too hard about it right now. I'm just going to send a prayer to the Lords to thank them that we are and that Alex is here and he's healthy."

"So say we all," replied Lee with feeling. "I'm so proud of you. Now I know why the women have the babies; I couldn't have done what you did today. I'm just so sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it easier for you."

"You were there, that was the most important thing to me." She looked up at him, her eyes bright. He bent to kiss her and their tears mingled with the kiss. There was no need for words to convey what they felt at that moment. They both knew that they were beyond blessed to still both be alive, to be together and in love and to have the chance to raise a child. Despite everything that had gone on in their frakked up universe, nothing beyond these simple facts really mattered to them.

THE END

−

Author's note: That's it, finished! Hoped you like the sappy ending. The sad one was even sappier but I've been living in fear and trembling of Moonwhisper's pink granny slippers and the various other threats for the last few days so couldn't bring myself to do it! So, in the words of the great Starbuck "You've been fun, you've been a great audience; dismissed!"