Morning Delivery

Breakaway + 9 yrs, 11 months

Alan awoke to the sounds of little skitterings and whisperings outside his bedroom door.  As he rather doubted that Alpha had had a sudden influx of mice, he suspected his two pint-sized hell-raisers were out of bed and plotting mayhem. 

He squinted at the chronometer on the commpost.  0600 hours.  Of course, they would get up early on the rare day both he and Sandra had off. He rolled over, snuggled in against Sandra's warmth, and firmly closed his eyes. 

An interminable time later, he opened them again.  0615.  He just couldn't fall back to sleep.  He flopped over onto his back staring at the dark ceiling above.

Well, then.  Danae could reach the small pantry where they kept kid snacks to hold them over for an hour or so, and there were picture books and toys enough to entertain them.  He listened carefully; things seemed quiet out there now. 

The door was closed.  He wondered just how asleep Sandra really was.  Alan grinned to himself.  Maybe he could interest her in some early morning calisthenics.  He rolled back over on his side and tested the waters by gently running his hand along the length of her warm body.  Hmm.  Either she truly was asleep or she was playing hard to get.  Either way, he suspected he could get her attention.  He reached a hand around to her front and slipped it under the old, oversized RAAF sweatshirt she slept in.  Gently caressing her breast, he started to kiss her neck.

"Papa?"  The childish voice whispered loudly from the other side of the door. 

Continuing his caresses, he raised his head.  "Yeah, Danae, you should be in bed, love."

"I know, but Richie woke me up.  People really did used to get their mail on pieces of paper, right?"

"Yeah."  Alan hoped the soon to be five-year-old would go back to bed.

"I told you so." 

Alan thought this was probably directed toward the second small body he heard moving around outside the door.

"'Night, Papa." 

"'Night, love."  Alan shrugged to himself.  Experienced enough at parenthood now to let small mysteries go, Alan returned his attentions to Sandra.  He thought he had felt her shiver at a particularly intimate caress that usually got her attention.  He smoothed Sahn's sleep tousled hair away from face and traced the outline of her cheek and lips.  He enjoyed the opportunity to awaken her and anticipated her response.  She could be very sensual first thing in the morning. 

There was a polite tapping on the door.  "Papa?"

"Yeah, Danae." 

"Papa?  Before email there was snail mail, right?"

"That's right."

"See, Richie, I was right.  That's what Uncle John said he sent to his brother back on Earth.  Thanks, Papa."

The footfalls of small feet again padded away. 

He leaned over Sandra and started to kiss her gently on the face, first on her cheek and then slowly moving down to her soft lips.  The nipple of her small breast hardened against his hand encouraging his attentions further.

"Papa?"  The inevitable small tapping followed.  At least she knew not to walk in without permission.

"Yes, Danae.  What is it now?" 

"Is it alright to get some crackers down and feed Richie?  He's hungry."

"Yeah, that sounds good."  And again, the small footsteps padded away.

Alan sighed.  He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Sahn's.  Maybe it was just time to get up and get moving.  He was about to push off the bed when he felt warm hands insinuate themselves around his torso.  Opening his eyes, he found Sandra smiling up at him.

"No," Sandra's whisper was husky with desire, "don't go yet." 

Grinning broadly, he leaned down to kiss her again and continue his interrupted morning plans to a very satisfying conclusion.

"Alan, let me up."  Sandra gently nudged him with a hand against his chest.  "I want to check on the children."

Alan realized the kids had been quiet for a while.  Too long, in fact.  Regretfully acknowledging the prudent nature of Sandra's request, he kissed her one more time and rolled off her, handing her her sleepshirt and untangling himself from the bed linen as he did so.

Pulling on his pants, he followed Sandra out of their bedroom, her laughter brightening an already promising morning.  He walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder toward the rear of their quarters.

There in front of them, passing slowly back and forth between the children's bedroom and the small food prep area, Alan watched the progress of a small plastic ball with ragged spirals drawn on opposite sides.  It looked ridiculously small sitting in a middle of one of the low-friction discs used by the Eagle maintenance techs to move small but heavy parts about easily.  It also served equally well to move furniture.  The small sphere appeared held in place by a largish glob of something very orange.  

Alan looked closer, puzzled by exactly what it was he was seeing.  On the contraption's next passage from kitchen to bedroom, he realized that two small pieces of a bread stick and been glued on with more of what must be orange marmalade.  They jutted up crookedly from one end of the ball that also sported two drawn-on eyes and a cheery, lopsided smile.  And there appeared to be a small piece of old, thin computer paper ‘glued' on top of the sticky contraption with even more of the multi-purpose jam.  The entire thing slid into the kid's bedroom where Alan could hear Richie's delighted toddler giggles.

Alan wrapped his arms around Sandra and nuzzled her hair as he awaited the return passage from bedroom to kitchen.  It took a few minutes, time he put to good use mussing up Sandra's hair, but the anticipated return flight occurred on schedule.  This time the paper was missing from the top, but a half-eaten cookie was in its place.  Danae's cries of ‘eeew' accompanied the cookie's arrival.

His indignant silver-haired daughter stomped out of the food prep area.  "Only whole cookies, Richie!" 

"Sorry."  Richie walked out of the bedroom carrying the small carrysack of cookies Sandra had thought she had put up out of reach. 

"Alright, what are you two hooligans doing?"  Alan laughed at the expressions on the children's faces when they realized they had an audience.  Their guilty glances at the computer terminal caused Alan and Sandra to look in that direction.   Helix aspersa was the legend on the voice-activated terminal's screen, with several examples of what Alan's mum had regarded as garden pests below. 

Still confused as to why his admittedly intelligent and inquisitive daughter had found the need at 0600 to start a tutorial in mollusks, Alan shook his head.  "Danae, love, what are you two doing?"

Danae's expression was a sight to see.  She obviously thought her parents a bit daft not to recognize the obvious.  She looked between Sandra and Alan and then shook her head with what appeared to be a five-year-old's disgust for missing the blatantly obvious.

 "Papa! it's our snail mail."

Sandra broke out in laughter as Alan knelt down and pulled his two jam smeared, cookie becrumbed kids into a tight hug.  He kissed the two messy faces and joined in the laughter. 

"Of course, little love, what else could it be?"

                                                                                          22 March 2006

                                                                                          MDG