lls_mutant | FIC: Raptor Rides

I posted Part 11 of A Lot to Live Up To today, but somewhere along the line, the idea of this fic came to me and wouldn't let go. Not crossposted yet, but I probably will tomorrow. Enjoy! :)

Title: Raptor Rides
Author: lls_mutant
Summary: Everyone in the Fleet seems to get the joy of babysitting Hera Agathon. Why not Tom Zarek?
Rating: Total G
Characters: Hera Agathon, Tom Zarek
Spoilers: none, really
Author's Note: No, my three and a half year old didn't drive me nuts today. Why do you ask? Not quite as cracky as the summary makes it sound.

If there were things more tedious than listening to Captain Karl Agathon outline a military mission for the exploration of a sector of space for substances other than algae, Tom wasn't sure what they were. It was bad enough that he had had to sit through an hour long meeting on the subject. But the fact that Agathon still insisted on continuing the technical details in the hall was just beyond reasonable.

He'd never been so glad to see a Cylon as he was when the Eight called Sharon Agathon came towards them, holding a curly haired, sticky fingered toddler.

"Your daughter?" he asked as they approached.

Agathon blinked. "Yes," he said. "We need to take her to an appointment after we shuttle you back. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Tom said, because she was safely ensconced in her mother's arms, and the way that the Eight was looking at him suggested that she wasn't about to change the situation herself. Eager to get away from all three Agathons, Tom gestured down the corridor. "Shall we go?"

"Of course." Agathon fell into step behind him, the Cylon and the child on his other side. "See, the thing about this sector of space is that although we're near to a K-class star, the navigational aspects are…" he continued on, but Tom tuned him out, listening with only a quarter of his mind and uttering noncommittal responses when Agathon paused for breath. He climbed into the Raptor they indicated, the child staring at him for a moment before she followed him.

"I ride in back," she informed him.

Tom nodded.

The adult Agathons climbed in. "Everyone all right back there?" Sharon asked, and Tom almost felt like he should tell her that Hera was poking him.

"We're fine," he said shortly.

Oh, good Gods, Agathon was still talking. Tom had never pegged the man as being such a chatterbox, more the strong and silent type. Either he was doing an excellent job feigning interest, Agathon was nervous, or he was really interested in- what was it?- oh, the inner workings of Raptors in planetary systems.

"I like this part," Hera told Tom.

"Hmm?" he asked, startling back to reality. "This part of the flight, or this part of your daddy's story?"

"No, silly," Hera told him. "This part of the flight."

Sharon looked over her shoulder again. "Three, two, one…"

"Blast off!" Hera exclaimed happily.

The Raptor lifted out of the hangar bay, and Tom settled back. Only a few more minutes, and then he'd be back on Colonial One. He still had three more meetings and two proposals and-

"Action stations, action stations, set Condition One throughout the Fleet!" Gaeta's voice was crackly over the comm unit.

The adult Agathons looked at each other, and he picked up the comm unit. "Sitrep, Gaeta."

"We've got four raiders bearing in, opposite side of the Fleet. What's your status, Helo?"

"Two civilian passengers, almost to Colonial One."

"Well, drop them off and get moving, because we've got six more coming in."

The Raptor picked up speed, and before Tom knew it, they were on Colonial One. Hera's eyes were wide, but she was silent, gripping the sides of her seat.

Sharon turned around in the pilots' seat, looking frantically at Tom. "Take her," she ordered.

"What?"

"Take her! We'll come back for her when we're done, but we can't take a three year old on a combat mission! Just take her!"

"But if you-"

"We have a will," Agathon said. "You won't be stuck with her forever. Just take her until we get back. That's all you need to do." He had climbed back and was unbuckling Hera. "All right Hera," he said cheerfully. "You're going to go with Mr. Zarek today, okay? He'll take care of you, you just tell him when you need to go potty and when you're hungry. We'll be back for you. Got it?"

Hera nodded, and Agathon kissed her on the head. "Love you, sweetie." Sharon reached back and gripped her daughter's hand for a moment, and then nodded at Tom.

"Get her out of here. We'll be back."

Tom nodded and picked the little girl up. She came obediently, and he climbed out of the Raptor. "I guess we should wave," he said, as the door began to close. Hera nodded, and together they waved to the Agathons. They hustled out of the landing bay and the doors closed.

Tom Zarek stood in the halls of Colonial One, holding a three-year-old girl and looking around blankly.

"Well, frak."

***

Tom had a small office aboard the ship. He was pretty sure it used to be a janitorial closet, but it was private, probably so Laura wouldn't have to deal with him in her office. It was large enough for a desk, a filing cabinet, and two additional chairs. Tom offered one of them to Hera, who stared at him uncomprehendingly for a long moment.

"I need to work," he said. "Would you like to do some work, too?"

Hera nodded.

"I thought so. You seem like a very serious young lady. Very intelligent." Tom sat down at his desk and rummaged through until he found some paper and a few pens. There was a red one, a black one, a blue one, and for some reason he'd never fathomed, a purple one. He pulled one of the two chairs up to his desk and put the paper down, tapping it. Hera clambered up into the chair and got to her knees, leaning heavily on her forearms as she examined the supplies.

"Do you have green?"

"No green, sorry." He cringed, preparing for a tantrum.

But Hera just shrugged. "I like green," she said, uncapping the red pen and beginning to draw. She carefully sketched a large, lopsided circle. "We jumped already."

"Yes, I know." Tom flipped open a report from Jacob Cantrell and tried to read.

"We jump so the Cylons won't get us. I don't like the Cylons. They're mean." Hera said it conversationally, sitting back and cocking her head to study her handiwork. She put down the red pen and picked up the black one. She painstakingly began to add lines to her drawing. "Do you want to talk about Raptors?"

Gods, the whole frakking family was obsessed. "No," Tom ground out. "I want to do my work. You need to do your work, too."

"Okay." Three seconds of silence, and then, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you need to do your work?"

"Because the people of the Fleet are depending on me to help them."

"Why don't you fly a Raptor, then?"

"Because it's not only Raptors that help people."

"But Raptors are the most important," Hera said, nodding importantly. "Raptor pilots are the bravest."

"Let me guess," Tom said dryly. "You want to be a Raptor pilot when you grow up."

"No," Hera said. She did that weird thing that children do where her head cocked one way and her body went the other as she looked at her drawing. "Mommy says Raptor pilots have to listen. I don't like to listen."

"Then what do you want to be?"

"I want to be President."

Tom buried his face in his hands, unable to keep from chuckling. "Yeah," he said, looking back up at the little girl who was now staring at him with wide eyes, a smile quirking at the edge of her lips as she measured and analyzed his reaction. "I do, too."

***

Drawing kept Hera occupied for another fifteen minutes. Tom was just picking up his phone when Hera brandished her artwork. "It's you," she informed him.

Tom stared at it the blobby circle with the black scribbles for hair, the eyes that looked in two different directions, and the nose that took up over half his face. "Almost like looking in a mirror," he said. "Why don't you draw another picture?"

"No," Hera decided, slipping off the chair. "I'm done."

"Great. Then what do you propose to do?"

"What's 'propose'?" Hera asked, prowling over to look at his shelf.

"It means- hey, put that down!" Tom jumped up and snatched the book out of Hera's hands. "I only have three!"

"I wanted to look at the pictures," Hera told him.

"It doesn't have any," Tom said, feeling his patience starting to strain. "See?" He flipped through the book for her, showing her page after page of words.

"Can you read it to me?" Hera asked.

"It's grown up stuff," Tom said, because it was really a zombie novel, and a rather bloody one at that. "It's boring."

"Are there Raptors in it?" Hera asked suspiciously.

"No. No Raptors."

"Oh. Okay. Can we go someplace else now?"

Tom looked at the stack of work on his desk and sighed heavily. "All right," he said, because otherwise he suspected that the stack was going to end up in disarray on his floor. "Let's go somewhere else."

***

They wandered through the halls of Colonial One together, Hera keeping up a steady monologue on the workings of Raptors, her little hand in his. He nodded to people as they walked past, and was not at all imagining it when they stared at him.

"Are there other kids on this ship?" Hera asked.

"There are a few, I think," Tom said. He realized that although he saw them in the halls, he had no idea where they played or where they lived, or what their ages were.

"Do you have kids?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Tom sighed. "I never got married."

"Oh." Fortunately, they avoided the "do you have to be married?" question and went right into "Why not?"

"I never met the right woman," Tom explained. "Do you want to look out a window? We could see the other ships in the Fleet."

"Okay," Hera said agreeably. Tom led her over to a window in an office. "I can't see," Hera predictably complained, and he picked her up. "Why didn't you meet the right woman?" she asked.

"Let's see if we can find a Raptor," Tom suggested.

"I don’t see any," Hera said with disappointment, after they'd looked for a few minutes. But she didn't squirm to get down. "Why didn't you meet the right women?"

Tom sighed heavily. "I was in jail," he finally admitted. It wasn't like the kid wasn't going to hear it anyway. "I wasn't around a lot of women."

"Is jail like a time out?"

"Yes. A very, very long time out."

"Mommy and Daddy put me in time out when I'm naughty," Hera said. "Were you naughty?"

"The government thought so."

"What did you do?"

"I raised the voices of the people. I challenged the government and the status quo. I was a revolutionary, and I served those who had no voice, and called for their protection."

Hera blinked. "But what did you do?" she asked.

"I blew up a building."

"Oh. That's not good."

"Apparently not." He set her down because his back was hurting. "Why don't we go get lunch?"

***

Hera sat across from him, inspecting the algae. "They make it different on Galactica," she informed him.

"It's algae. How can it be different?" Tom asked.

"It tastes better."

"Oh. Well, this is what we have on Colonial One. Eat it."

"Or you'll blow me up?"

Tom considered it. "Yes," he finally decided.

Hera picked up her fork.

"What do you like to eat?" Tom asked, after Hera had taken a satisfactory five bites. (How many bites of the stuff were kids supposed to eat, anyway?)

"Not algae," Hera said.

"Do you like spaghetti?"

"What's… psgetti?"

He wasn't sure what hit him harder- the childish mispronunciation of the word from such an articulate little girl, or the fact that she didn't know what spaghetti was. Even in prison, they'd had spaghetti. Bad spaghetti, with canned sauce that was three chemical reactions removed from any sort of tomato, but spaghetti all the same.

"What about macaroni and cheese?" Hera shook her head. "Chicken nuggets? Grilled cheese?"

"Mommy sometimes gets sugar to put in it," Hera said, looking down into her bowl. "Can I have more to drink?"

Algae and water- that's what this kid was living on. Even on Sagittaron, Tom had had more than that. For once he was struck completely speechless.

***

"We looked out this window already," Hera said.

"You could draw again."

"No."

"We could find a book and I could read to you."

"No."

"We could race around the halls again."

"No."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I think I have to pee."

Tom stared at her. "Tell me you use the potty."

Hera's face split into a wide grin. "Silly. Big girls use the potty."

Praying that was a yes, Tom ushered her into a restroom.

Hera was fully competent in the art of peeing, being able to pull down her own clothing, climb up, and even flush. All Tom had to do was help her turn on the water and get the soap to wash her hands. "It smells bad," Hera opined.

"It does," Tom agreed. The soap had a strong astringent smell to it and was gritty, but at least it got the job done. He looked at his watch and groaned. "And it only killed five minutes. What the frak do your parents do with you all day?"

"We play."

"What do you play?" he said, and he knew the words before they even came out of her mouth.

"We play Raptors."

Tom sighed. "Of course."

***

"Okay," Tom said, collapsing in his chair and loosening his tie. "That's enough Raptors."

"But I like playing Raptors!" Hera protested.

"But I'm a lot older than you, and my back is going to give out any minute. Come on. Why don't I read to you?"

"Is it about Raptors?"

"No." She opened her mouth to protest, but Tom stopped her. "It's about our people," he said. "It's about freedom and justice and what we fight for. It's about our way of life, and it's about what we believe in."

"But no Raptors."

"No Raptors. But it's really, really good, and I'll get you some water."

"Okay."

He got a glass and filled it halfway and put it in her hands, and then tucked her against him as he opened a worn copy. "The Articles of Colonization," he read out loud. "Trust me. This is gonna be good."

***

"I, Hera Agathon…"

"I, Hera Agathon…"

"Do now vow and afirm…"

"Do now vow and firm…"

"That I take the office…"

"Where?"

"Just that I take the office…"

"That I take the office…"

"Of Vice Vice President…"

"Of Vice Vice President…"

"Of Children's Affairs and Raptors."

"Mr. Vice President!" Tom looked up to see Sharon Agathon confronting him, her arms crossed. He realized that this probably didn't look good, him kneeling in front of Hera, her left hand on the zombie book and her right hand raised. "What are you making my daughter swear to?" Sharon demanded.

Tom stood, placing a hand on Hera's shoulder. "This is my new Vice Vice President of Children's Affairs and Raptors," he said, seriously. "And I'd thank you to speak to her with respect."

Sharon blinked, and then shook her head. "It's creative, I'll give you that. Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Tom said. "I'm Vice President of the Colonies and I served twenty years in a jail cell. One three year old is hardly the end of the world."

Sharon chuckled, and held out her arms. Hera came running, and she picked her up. "Well, thank you. I appreciate it."

"We managed," Tom said. "Tell me something, though. What do you do with her all day?"

"There's a nursery on Galactica, and she has a few toys. We read her flight manuals, and she watches what's going on. Children are very adaptable."

"I see. Well, thank you, Madame Vice Vice President."

"What do you say to Mr. Zarek?" Sharon asked Hera.

"Thank you?" Hera asked.

"That's right. Thank you again, sir. We'll let you get on with your work." Hera waved goodbye, and Tom waved back.

As they left, he collapsed into his chair and closed his eyes. He'd had full days before, but not one as physically exhausting as this. But there was something more… something that tugged on his mind. He groaned, pulled himself back to sitting, and straightened his tie. Then he picked up the phone.

"Hello, Tory? This is the Vice President. I want to set up a meeting with Terry Alexander about creating a childrens' program in the Fleet. Can you give her the message? Yes, I know I've been… fine. Tell Laura. I'll say I was wrong if I have to, but let's get this off the ground. What changed my mind? Let's just say a Raptor ride."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

daybreak777.livejournal.com

Awww! Sounds exhausting but fun! Little Hera getting hardened Tom to soften up.

"Why didn't you meet the right woman?"
Does your three-year-old ask such grown-up questions? If so, then Toby was definitely the right name for him. :-)

I liked that Tom was thinking about a children's program at the end. Hera should have talked to more adults! :-)

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FIC: Raptor Rides

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