Rebecca lay on her side her hand laying on Milo’s chest,  left leg draped over him. “That was wonderful,” she said running her fingers over his mustache.  

Milo chuckled, “We should do this more often.”

Rebecca playfully slapped his chest, “Hard to do when separated by a few hundred light-years.”

Milo stretched his muscles quivering under the strain,  “I reckon so, but I missed you.”

“Me too,” Rebecca replied and kissed him.

Just as she and Milo were about to start a second round of lovemaking the door swished open and the twins ran into the room and leaped onto the bed. 

“Mommy!” They squealed in delight. 

“Somebody forgot to lock the door,” Rebecca said with an ironic laugh.

“I was distracted last night,” Milo grinned sheepishly. 

“We’re hungry and Ethan won’t get out of bed,” Aimee said ignoring the conversation between the adults. 

Rebecca kissed Milo their lips lingering as she pulled away and slid out of bed wrapping a robe around her. Milo for his part grab the girls in a  headlock and they screamed in delight and giggles as he roughhoused them.

Rebecca shook her head amused. “What do you two want for breakfast?”

“Pancakes!” They shouted in unison between fits of giggles.

Walking into the common room Ethan was sitting on the sofa still half asleep. He was wearing a pair of shorts and judging by the wrinkles and food stains yesterday’s tee shirt. “Hey, Ethan.”

“Hey Mom,” he said with a sleepy grin.

“The girls said you were sleeping.”

“I was,” he grumbled. “Hard to sleep with two six-year-olds bouncing on your bed.”

Rebecca gave her stepson a knowing smile,  “They do have that way of getting you out of bed that’s for sure. What do you want for breakfast?” She asked as she readied the coffee pot and pressed the brew button. 

“How about biscuits and gravy and black coffee?”

“When did you start drinking coffee?” She asked going to the replicator.

Ethan shrugged,  “Don’t know.”

Rebecca chuckled.  Typical teenager: why answer a question with full sentences when one or two words would do? Entering commands into the replicator she made a large stack of pancakes,  a plate of bacon, an order of biscuits and gravy for Milo and Ethan, and a plate of scrambled eggs along with a pitcher of orange juice.

“Come and Eat,’ Rebecca shouted and the family began to find their seats.  Rebecca beamed from ear to ear. She was lucky to have them in her life. Many starship captains couldn’t hold their families together or in the case of captains like Jean-Luc Picard found even starting one difficult or impossible.

Pouring the coffee cups for Milo, Ethan, herself while Milo filled the girl’s orange juice she was the last to sit and took a single Pancake from the stack and two strips of bacon.

“I was thinking,” she started, “that the kids could come with me on the Denver today for the training exercise. Starfleet Intelligence is convinced that we’re too far from supply lines for the Dominion to be a threat.”

“Oh, could we!” Livvy squealed.  

“Yeah, that would be fun. Can we sit on the bridge?”

“We’ll see,” Rebecca replied with a smile. “Ethan you can come too.”

“No thanks. I have plans with Trinity.”

“He’s got a girlfriend!” Livvy teased.

“She’s just a friend,” he replied a little too defensively.

Rebecca gave Milo a knowing raise of the eyebrow and Milo chuckled nodding his head in agreement. “It’s your day off tomorrow. Too bad you can’t come with us.”

Milo sat back in his chair sipping his coffee, “Yeah. But you have your work and I have mine.  I got those weapons tests scheduled,  but changeling drills for this afternoon.  I’m still trying to get Starfleet to upgrade the orbital defenses. They are horribly out of date, but we’re a ‘low priority’. Beurocratic bull… bull crap is what that is.”

Rebecca nodded. This wasn’t the first time she had heard that gripe.  All he could do was upgrade the station’s weapons and lobby the people in charge of planetary defenses to do the same.

“Well what are you going to do with yourself tomorrow with us out and you off duty?”

Milo considered that for a moment,  “Well, there’s a cowboy shooting club on Betazed.  Figure I could go down there and see what it’s all about.”

“Cowboy shooting club?” Rebecca asked surprised. 

“Yeah, apparently there’s a small but dedicated group of Betazoids dedicated to the old west. Somebody probably saw an old John Wayne movie and got a wild hair,” Milo said with a chuckle.

“Now that is funny,” she said.

Suddenly the door chimed and the conversation stalled. “You expecting anyone?”

Milo shook his head and moved to get up before Rebecca stopped him. “Finish eating,” she said walking to the door.