Definition of Family
Breakaway + 10 years 10 months
“Are you in labor?”
John asked the question quietly, casually, leaning against the computer banks to one side of Command Center.
Annette Fraser glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “No, I’m not.” She moved her hand from her lower back where she had been rubbing away yet another ache. “I have another two weeks before the due date and we’ve already scheduled a c-section. Getting a bit anxious, Commander? Bob says she’s just fine.”
John gave a sheepish smile. “I’m sure you have everything under control, Annette. Just concerned.”
The computer spit out the slip Annette had been waiting for. “I’m fine. We both are.” She patted her protruding belly.
With a nod, the two headed back to their respective desks. But John noticed Sandra watching them and the petite brunette gave him a supportive smile. So maybe it hadn’t been his imagination. After living with Helena through four pregnancies and births he was no novice in recognizing the signs of a woman in the early stages of labor. Annette had been more restless than usual all morning long, and her back was obviously hurting.
Annette Fraser’s last two pregnancies had ended with scheduled caesarian sections and she anticipated the same with this baby. Her first two children were by her husband, Bill. The third child, a healthy little girl from all tests, was the result of artificial insemination using sperm donated by John. Annette and Helena had made all the arrangements for this, and although John understood the need for the greatest possible genetic diversity, he still wasn’t quite comfortable with the concept.
Once their wives made the arrangements, he had arranged to discuss the situation in private over a bottle of halfway decent – and very potent – homegrown wine with Bill. By halfway through the bottle they had decided that the whole situation was bloody weird, from trying to survive on an airless moonbase to having their wives have kids with whomever they chose. At three quarters of the bottle they were in agreement that this was something they never wanted to explain to their mothers back on Earth, so maybe living lost in the universe on Moonbase Alpha wasn’t quite so bad. By the end of the bottle they had come to the conclusion the situation must make them family of some damn sort, and since they couldn’t quite figure out how, they decided they must be brothers. Then since John wasn’t quite sure he could make it home with the floor swaying and tilting as it was, he did what he always did when he was in trouble. He called Helena. She and Annette soon arrived to find their husbands sitting together trying to remember the words to the old Paul Anka song, “Having My Baby” and filling in the missing words with off-key humming. Their wives led their wayward husbands home, and fairly soon afterwards, Annette was expecting a baby.
Sandra appeared at his elbow to jog him back from his reverie. She held a clipboard in her hand but she wasn’t looking for his signature. “Bill is on a training flight. Shall I call him back?” she asked softly.
John looked toward Annette, sitting at the front the room and shifting awkwardly in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “You think so too?”
Sandra nodded.
“Do it quietly. Without alarming him, or letting Annie know.”
Sandra nodded and slipped quietly back to her seat.
John turned to his own work, but it wasn’t long before Annette appeared at his desk.
“Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am in labor.”
John stood and took her arm, not giving the folder on his desk another glance. “Then let’s go to Medical Center.” He turned to Sandra as he opened the door with his commlock. “Sahn, let Bill know, if you would please.”
“Yes, Commander,” was Sandra’s precise reply as the doors closed behind them.
“It’s too early,” Annette said, gripping his arm tightly.
“Not that early. She’ll be fine,” John assured her.
“How did you know?”
“Oh, I’ve seen the signs a time or two,” John said with a smile.
“I suppose you have.” Annette gasped and gripped his arm tighter.
John touched the elevator button and put his arms around her. “Lean back against me. Go ahead and start your breathing exercises. It’ll pass shortly.”
They stood still while the pain waxed and waned. The elevator arrived just as the pain subsided and John helped her step into the elevator.
“Almost there.”
She nodded. “Bill’s flying today.”
“He’ll be here as soon as he can.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“Of course,” John assured her.
The elevator doors opened and they started to step out. Annette gasped and grabbed the door jam.
“Another contraction?”
“No – something – “
“Breathe through it, Annie. Tell me afterward.” John guided her back to her breathing. He again moved behind her and put his arms protectively around her while she gasped. “Deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth,” he coached.
Her breathing steadied and the pain passed. Helena and Bob happened upon the pair at that point as they returned from the pharmaceutical lab.
“Annie?” Helena asked as she hurried forward.
Annette let out a sob. “I think my water broke.”
“I think you’re right.” Bob agreed. “Let’s get you to Medical.
Bob took one arm and John the other. Helena rushed ahead to use her commlock to open the doors. They cut through Medical Center like an invading army, heading direction to the section now used as a maternity ward.
Annette turned to Bob as he ordered the birthing room readied. “Aren’t we going to surgery?”
“Annette, I want to take a look, but this is happening fast. I think you’re going to have this baby before we can get you in the OR.”
Her eyes grew wide with fear and she clutched tightly to John’s hand. “But… but…”
Helena hurried up to her friend. “Annette, it’ll be just fine. It’ll be over very quickly. And if there are any problems, of course we’ll do a c-section.”
Another pain hit and John steadied her again. When he began to guide her breathing again she shouted, “I don’t know how to breathe. I didn’t pay attention in those silly classes. I’d rather be knocked out!”
Helena and John exchanged glances. Without a hysterical woman between them, they might have smiled or laughed. Even with this situation, it was a near thing.
“I don’t want to do this!” Annette sobbed.
“Well,” Helena said in her most calming voice. “We’ll let Bob make a determination once we get you settled. “A nurse was laying out a set of hospital pajamas and Helena gestured her over.
She glanced at John, as if suddenly realizing there was a man in the room. “I want Bill.”
Helena looked at John, asking without speaking.
“He should be landing his Eagle about now.”
“Let’s let John step outside while we get you ready. If Bill doesn’t get here, John can come back until he does. John’s a very good coach.”
Annette gave a reluctant nod. John gave her hand a final squeeze, exchanged a grateful look with his wife and beat a fast retreat.
In another part of Alpha a door buzzed. Maisey was curled up on the sofa in her quarters. She reached for her commlock, looked at the tiny screen and struggled to sit up. “Jack?”
Jack moved into the room and set a tray on the table in the corner. “How’re you feeling, Maisey?”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked, confused.
“Lunch break,” he explained. “Juanita told me you weren’t feeling well and asked me to bring by something for you.”
“She did?”
He poured a cup of tea from the pitcher on the tray and brought it over to the sofa. “How do you feel?”
Maisey shifted her ungainly weight and finally reached a position where she could take the cup. “My back just hurts like the dickens. Like I been kicked.” She took a sip of tea. “It kept me up most of the night. I was s’posed to go to Medical Center this morning, but I drifted off, I guess. I didn’t realize it was lunchtime.”
Jack smiled at her. It was probably the most she’d ever said to him at one time. Maisey was so quiet she just seemed to fade into the background. And when Juanita was around, she always just let her friend do the talking for them both.
“Well, why don’t you eat the lunch Juanita sent and then I’ll walk you down there.”
“There ain’t no call for that. You prob’ly need to get on back to work.”
“The boss knows where I am. He’ll understand.”
Maisey nodded. She understood bosses. She tried to stand to move to the table, but her efforts looked like a turtle on its back. Jack came over, took the cup he had just given her, then took her hands and pulled her to her feet. She padded over to the table and looked at it forlornly.
“I can’t sit there.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t fit.”
The table was molded plastic with attached seats. Each set of personal quarters on Alpha had one of these tables, all from the same mold with a tabletop and four fixed seats. Jack was a big man, with broad shoulders from the heavy lifting he did, and he could just squeeze into one. With her baby-enhanced abdomen she could no longer slide between the tabletop and the back of the chair.
Thinking quickly, Jack said, “I’ll be right back.” He dashed out the door and down to the elevator landing. There was a conversation pit with Alpha’s ubiquitous molded plastic chairs. He grabbed a chair and returned.
Maisey, standing by the table nibbling a carrot stick, looked at him with wide eyes.
“You took a chair?”
“We’ll put it back when you can sit at the table again.” He set the chair behind her and she lowered herself gingerly into it.
She ate quietly, but eagerly, while Jack carried on a cheerful narration of his day and his lunch with Juanita. Jack had never been at a loss for words, and it was a good thing, with Maisey so darn quiet. He had to admit thought, he preferred a woman who could hold up her end of the conversation, like Juanita. She could joke and banter with him and they frequently got so caught up in each other Maisey just faded into the background. That’s what had happened that night Maisey got pregnant, and now that Maisey said she didn’t want to know who did it, the doctors said it was a matter of confidentiality and they wouldn’t rat the jerk out.
“Jack?” Maisey pushed back from the table, interrupting him.
“What is it Maisey?” It wasn’t like her to cut him off.
She gasped and clutched the table with both hands.
“Are you all right?”
She began to take deep breaths like they had been taught in the childbirth classes Jack had attended with her and Juanita. Jack as Juanita’s coach, Juanita as Maisey’s, but now Jack was just grateful for the training. “A labor pain?”
Maisey continued to breathe and nodded her head frantically.
“Okay, you’ve been doing good. Once you get past this pain we’ll head for medical center.”
She nodded again, breathing easier as the pain subsided. She began to stack the lunch dishes, but Jack was anxious to get moving. “I’ll come back for these. Let’s get going.”
“I don’t have any shoes on.”
“Where are your boots?”
“In the closet, but they don’t fit so good any more. It takes forever to get them on.” She said forlornly.
“What else you got?” Jack cast around the small but exceedingly neat quarters. Other than an old and faded quilt on the bed, there were no personal items to be seen.
“In the closet...”
“I’ll get them.” Jack opened the closet doors to find two uniforms, a blue jacket, two colorful blouses and two pair of jeans hanging with military precision. Below was a soldierly line of boots, two pair, a faded pair of black Converse “Chucks”, and a pair of plastic flipflops, well-worn in a faded pink with yellow plastic flowers on top. He grabbed the sandals and helped her slide her feet into them, then he hurried her out the door.
Jack had called ahead and Dr. Russell met them at the travel tube with a nurse and a wheel chair. It was obvious that Maisey was happy to see the doctor. Jack knew that the CMO had taken an interest in Maisey, helped her prepare for the birth, and let her get some experience taking care of babies by helping with her own children. Of course, the doc had four kids, so she kind of needed Maisey’s help. But Maisey seemed to enjoy it.
Medical Center seemed bursting with activity, people moving back and forth purposefully, carrying trays of stuff or pulling equipment on wheels. He followed in the wake of Maisey’s chair to a treatment room at the end of the hall. There was a shriek from the room next door and Maisey’s eyes went wide. Jack felt startled too, and Maisey reached for his hand and he held it in both of his, giving her a comforting pat.
The doctor put a hand on her shoulder. “Annette Fraser is in labor too. She was supposed to have a C-section again, but her labor advanced so quickly it will be easier for her to have the baby naturally. She’s going to be just fine, but she wasn’t my best student in childbirth classes. Is Jack going to be your coach?”
“Juanita’s s’posed to be, Ma’am,” Maisey said.
Dr. Russell looked at Jack. “I called her. She needs to finish up lunch at the landing pad cafeteria before she can come. I’ll stay with Maisey until she gets here.”
The doctor nodded. “Well, I know you were at every class with them. Jack will be a good stand-in, won’t he Maisey?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Jack, why don’t you step out in the hall while we get her changed?”
With relief Jack nodded and left. He stood awkwardly in the hall, trying to stay out of the way. Pulling the commlock from his belt he let his supervisor know what was going on and received permission to stay with Maisey for the rest of the shift. Then Juanita and Bill Fraser dashed up. They must have ridden in on the same travel tube. Jack was able to point out the correct room for each and then the hallway was quiet again.
Moments later, Commander Koenig came out of the room Fraser disappeared into.
He grinned and nodded. “Jack.”
“Commander.”
“I promised Annie I’d stay until Bill arrived. Those rooms are pretty small. Not enough room for both of us there.”
“I was here with Maisey until Juanita arrived.”
“Is Maisey doing okay?”
There was another shriek from the Fraser’s room. “Better than Annette, I’d say.”
“She’s used to C-sections, but Bob says she’s doing fine.” He clapped his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Come on, we’ll wait in Helena’s office for news.”
The CMO’s office was small; desk, chairs and a sofa filled the small space. There was a bag of toys underneath the end table. John claimed the office chair and waved Jack to the sofa. He excused himself and called Command Center and spoke to Mrs. Carter, letting her know that Annette was fine and Bill with her. He added that Maisey was in labor too and promised to let her know when both babies were born.
Jack looked around the small office, already feeling cramped. He knew he was lucky he wasn’t stuck standing in the hallway. He had an overwhelming urge to pace. To his surprise, the Commander opened a drawer in his wife’s desk and removed a battered deck of cards. Somehow he had never thought of the doctor as the card-playing type.
Koenig grinned. “I keep them here to entertain the boys when we’re waiting for their Mom,” he explained. “You play gin?”
“Sure,” Jack replied. He slid the end table around in between them and the commander dealt the cards.
The game began. Jack asked. “You teach the boys to play Gin?”
Koenig gave a short laugh. “Not yet, although Stephen has been watching us play poker on occasion and picking it up pretty quick. He’s already a killer at ‘Go Fish’ and ‘Crazy Eights.’”
Jack smiled, remembering the games from childhood. They played in silence through two hands, not bothering to keep score, both glancing at the door at the slightest motion through the window.
As Jack dealt the third hand he said, “Commander, I was wondering.”
“Mmm?” John listened, arranging his cards.
“Juanita and I have been talking about applying for couple’s quarters, but they’re at a premium right now.”
“That’s true.” Couple’s quarters had been designed for Alpha from the beginning, but had seldom been filled to capacity prior to Breakaway. Competition for positions on Alpha had been too fierce to take marriage into account, but there had been a few married couples. It was well after Breakway when people in the small community began pairing off that couple’s quarters had begun to fill up.
“Juanita and Maisy’s quarters were right next door to each other. Now Juanita has moved in with me over in “C” dormitory. “It’s not too crowded now, but with a baby coming, and Juanita already talking about him not being an only child, I’ve been thinking.”
“I can understand that.” The Koenig’s four were still small, but the nursery that had been added to the Commander’s spacious apartment wouldn’t hold them much longer.
“Juanita’s old quarters are still vacant, and there’s another singles apartment right next to it. If we was to move into that one, and cut a door into the other one, we could make Juanita’s old place into a nursery. In fact, we could join up Maisey’s place the same way and the kids could both use the nursery.” Jack began drawing it out with his finger on the table. John reached into Helena’s desk and brought out one of the red plastic reuseable note pads and Jack made quick work of drawing it out. The three quarters became a larger suite of rooms, with privacy for Jack and Juanita on one side and Maisey on the other and a commons area with a nursery behind it in the middle. Jack showed how they could make a few additional changes and make another bedroom or two as the children grew, or additional children came along.
“Maisey’s baby needs a Daddy.” Jack said earnestly. “I understand why she don’t want to know who did this. And she might even decide to have another kid herself now that she understands that the docs here could do that for her. She and Juanita are close as sisters, and she’s part of the family, her and the new baby both. This would sure make it easier for me to be a real Dad to her kid.”
“I think you’re right Jack. We’ll talk to Tony about getting those quarters assigned to you and the modifications made.”
“Some of my buddies and I could do it in just a few days with the supplies authorized.”
John laid down his cards and Jack counted his points as John considered this plan. He and Helena had long shared child care duty with the Verdeschis, Carters and Frasers. For safety’s sake, the command staff’s quarters were spread around the base, but the Frasers were just around the corner from his own and with just a little shifting, perhaps they could work out something similar. This new baby could grow up surrounded by her Koenig siblings as well as her Fraser siblings. He grinned as Jack shuffled the cards. “Do a good job and you might find yourself with more assignments from others needing the same thing. Including me.”
Jack returned his grin. “We’d be happy to.”
At that moment the door opened. Bill Fraser stood in the doorway holding a small bundle and practically glowing.
“John, come look.”
John and Jack both stood. A tiny round face peered out of Bill’s bundle, brilliant blue eyes still learning about light scanned without focusing. A head of thick dark hair was still damp from the recent ordeal. “Meet Jacqueline Fraser-Koenig.”
John reached out a finger and touched the baby’s tiny hand. The hand immediately grasped tightly.
Behind Bill, Helena stepped up and smiled tenderly at the newborn. “Jack, Maisey is asking for you.”
“She is?”
“She and Juanita want you there for the birth. They said the baby’s new Daddy should be there to cut the cord.”
Jack lit up and headed down the hall with a slap on the back from John to get him started.
“And Annette is going to want her daughter back soon, gentlemen.”
“We’ll take her back right now,” Bill said.
“We were just welcoming her to the family.” John added. The baby was still clinging to his finger so Bill passed the entire bundle to him. “Come on you two,” Koenig led the way urging Bill and Helena to follow. He knew what they needed to do, but would need to confer with all the members of the family. “Jack has given me an idea and we need to discuss it with Annie.”
September, 2006
ECL