The one wherin things become even more complicated

There are times in your life when you look at a recent action, and say to yourself "what the hell have I just gotten myself into?" I've experienced that feeling more times in the two years I've been on the Rim than I did in my entire career in the Military. Most of those moments have been since I followed Speaker out to Hale's.

I felt very much alone in the aftermath of the trial. I doubt more than a handful of people saw the pain behind the calm exterior, though there were a few who understood what this trial was doing to those of us forced to pursue it. Most of the rest probably blamed me directly for Lily being on trial. I could understand them thinking that too, even if I'd been trying to derail it from the start without making it obvious.

It was hours later when Td showed up at Wave Equation with a bottle of single malt, and by then I was more than ready for the company. Wasn't sure we had much to celebrate, seeing as how the entire trial had been a farce and folk were blaming me for letting it happen, but Lily was free again and didn't have to suffer the guilt of thinking she'd killed Gallagher.

Eventually 'Brina got back from her off-world job and Imrhien too came to join us. Immi was hurting though. More than I was, even. The trial had brought other issues to the forefront that had nothing to do with Lily, and it took all three of us to convince her that going back to the Monastery or the Wastes wasn't the best idea.

Immi, hun, I know what it feels like to feel utterly alone in a crowd of people.

The conversation wandered, like they so often do when friends are together sharing the effort of forgetting their troubles. Though I don't know how many friends talk about building orbital crowbars to dig killer robots out from under half a kilometer of rock.

Then there was Lily.

I was glad when she came to join us. Felt like having my whole family together in the same place at the same time. Then she told us she wanted to be adopted or become a ward, and that's when things got a little strange.

When it looked like the trial was going to happen, I drew up some papers to make her a ward of the court if I had to deal with some kind of sentence. Even before that there'd been talk of someone adopting her as their own. I know a couple of folks who'd have done it and I'd have trusted to raise her right, but none of that happened. Now though, it seemed we were going to adopt her as our own. Not just Td and Immi or me and 'Brina. But all four of us. One big happy family.

When the hell did I sign up to be a mom?

I could just see the faces in Legal back home when I asked them to draw up adoption paperwork for a group of four parents, who weren't married to each other, at least not yet, and one 'child' who only had legal standing because of a Mayorial decleration on some backwater mining colony. The folks would understand me and 'Brina getting engaged. But this?

Heck with it. Giving Lily some real legal family was the right thing to do. Making her a Ward and having the whole colony ultimately responsible for her well being might have been easier from a legal standpoint, and it was certainly less complicated personally than wrapping four people into a family around her. But I was good with it. We all were.

But damn . . . what the hell have I gotten myself into?