Living With Regret
By Lisa Z.
October 23, 2008

     One yahren.
     It had been one yahren since they had lost everything on the way to
a peace conference to sign an Armistice that was in reality the ultimate
Cylon plot to lure na‹ve and willing ovines to the hungry lupus.  Hope
could be a powerful thing, blinding old men who had once understood that
the only way to end a thousand yahren war was through victory or defeat. 
But in retrospect, even Apollo had dared to hope.
     Listen, maybe I ought to go along...Starbuck had offered.  When
Apollo had come across his undressed wingman and younger brother in the
billet, it had taken the strike captain all of about two microns to
figure out from Starbuck's strange behaviour, and Zac's all too obvious
eagerness that between the two of them, they were up to something.
     No, he's going to be just fine.  It's not as if we're at war. 
Right?  Apollo had replied, wanting to give his little brother the chance
that Zac so desperately wanted, to fly this routine patrol before
peacetime became a comfortable way of life.
     Apollo picked up his glass, swirling the amber liquid around one
more time, watching the golden depths as he thought about his mother and
Zac.  With Ila, it had been a little bit easier.  Parsecs away in Caprica
City, there was nothing he could have done, and he knew it.  Besides,
that was his father's burden to bear.
     Apollo's was Zac.
     What does it mean? His brother had asked when they had discovered
the Cylon task force at the old moon.  Lord, he had been so young...too
young.
     It means there isn't going to be any peace.  There may not be much
of anything if we don't warn the Fleet.
     Do it.  I'm short an engine.  You know I won't be able to keep up
with you.
     Zac, I'm not going to leave you.
     You have to.  I'm putting my foot in that turbo.  I'll make it back
ahead of them.  Now go on.  You've got to warn the Fleet.  I'll be all
right.
     You can fly with me anytime, little brother.
     Apollo closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, letting the
memories wash over him as he took a sip of his drink.  He'd been thrilled
when he'd heard the news.  Zac being posted to the Galactica was going to
give them a fresh start.  It had been so many yahrens since he had spent
any appreciable time with his little brother that he had felt that he'd
barely known the man that the mischievous and often annoying boy had
become.  Their time together had been cut short.  It had ended in the
blaze of Cylon guns when Apollo had left his brother to fend for himself,
down one engine.  How many times had he run it over in his mind,
wondering if he could have done something different?  How many times had
he wondered if it would have turned out differently if Starbuck had just
followed orders, and not given in to Zac's all too persuasive
disposition?  If Apollo had had an experienced Colonial Warrior out there
with him, he wouldn't have wasted precious microns coaching Zac on what
to do next.  If he could only get those microns back...
     They're jamming our transmission.  We're not going to make it,
giving them our backs! How many of them can you make out?
    Four.

     When I hit three, you hit your reverse thrusters and maximum
breaking flaps.  We're gonna give them a little surprise.
     That would have been the critical moment.  Starbuck would have known
what to do.  He wouldn't have needed instructions for something they had
done countless times before in combat.  And Starbuck wouldn't have missed
that Cylon Raider.  Starbuck would have made it back.
     Starbuck would have made it back, just like I did.
     "Is this a private sulk, or can anybody join in?"
     It was meant to be flippant, but on this day, of all days, Apollo
wasn't in the mood for Starbuck's off the cuff remarks.  He sighed,
taking another sip of his drink without even looking at his wingman, who
mounted the bar stool next to him undeterred, raising a hand at the
barkeep.  A moment later, a grog was in the lieutenant's hands, and he
busied himself retrieving the inevitable fumarello and lighting it, going
through a ritual that was both familiar and annoying, because it
inevitably meant that smoke would soon be wafting Apollo's way, despite
the air recycling system and no matter where he sat.
     "You get any deeper into that glass, and I'll have to come in after
you," Starbuck told him after another centon had passed in silence.
     "Starbuck, did it ever occur to you that sometimes a guy just wants
to be left alone?" Apollo asked him quietly.  
     "Well, then he should hide in his quarters where I can't find him,
not sit at the bar in the OC," his friend replied, drawing in a deep
breath before blowing the smoke out through his nose.  "Besides, I
thought maybe you'd want some...uh...company today."
     Today.  
     Yeah, his lieutenant knew only too well that Apollo was mourning his
family on the one yahren anniversary of the Destruction, and in true
Starbuck fashion, he thought he could somehow make the situation easier
to bear through his unparalleled companionship.  Normally, Apollo would
appreciate the gesture, and to some extent he did now, after a fashion. 
But there came a time in a man's life where he simply needed to sit
quietly and reflect to get past his bitterness and sorrow.  Had Apollo
ever even taken the precious time to grieve when Zac had been killed? 
No, he'd been too overwhelmed by everything else that had happened.  It
had felt like he had been barely hanging onto his reason, riding wave
after wave of disillusionment and disappointment while what was left of
the once great Colonial Nation tried to scramble into action, and escape
the pursuing Cylons.  In retrospect, there had been no time to surrender
to grief, or to give in to contemplation.  Too many people had needed
him.  
     Father, Athena, Serina, Boxey...
     Starbuck simply didn't understand that.  Self-refection to the
warrior was something distasteful that one did in therapy, not reality. 
There was nothing like a few drinks and a good card game, or a bit of
female companionship to cheer a guy up, and Starbuck was the master of
cheer.  To him it was mandatory.  Real men didn't sit moaning over their
losses; they drank to fallen comrades, recognizing the loss, but quickly
moving past it, while maintaining the high spirits that would propel them
all back into their Vipers when they were called on again.  While Apollo
could certainly understand that, and if fact, practiced that way of life
from day to day, he couldn't maintain the fa‡ade today.       
     Of all days.
     An entire yahren he'd lived with the guilt, wearing it on his
shoulders like an epaulette of shame.  He'd examined every detail, and
had exhausted every tactical possibility.  One decision to replace
Starbuck with Zac might have decided the fate of the Colonial Nation. 
And as much as Apollo realized he couldn't go back and change the past,
those niggling "what if's" still tormented him when he found rare moments
of solitude, and his brother's voice came back to haunt him.
     Hurry, Apollo!
     So how different would it have been if it had been Starbuck, not
Zac, out there?  Would they have made it back to the Fleet in time to
launch their defences?  Would Zac still be alive today?  Oh, he knew that
he should let it go...that nobody else would have obsessed over a
decision that he had made an entire yahren ago now, thoughtlessly and in
mere milli-centons, and yet it had left its mark on Apollo and his family
inexorably.  He should just put it behind him, and turn a page from the
Book of Starbuck...He lifted his drink, taking another sip, as beside him
his friend shifted on his seat.
     "I...uh...I should have gone on that patrol.  It was my
responsibility...I shouldn't have given in." Starbuck murmured quietly,
his hair shielding his face as he leaned forward, studying all too
intently the ash from his fumarello, as it broke off and dropped into the
receptacle.  Softly, he tapped the ashtray with his smoke, rolling the
fumarello between his fingers in contemplation.  He sighed, and cleared
his throat, his voice now surprisingly thick with long repressed emotion. 
"Apollo, if I could go back and change it, I would...I'd gladly trade
places with Zac, and take that patrol.  I just...I just wanted you to
know that."
     And before Apollo could even process the words, so deep was he in
his reverie, the grog was abruptly pushed away.  Starbuck jerked to his
feet, standing for a moment, apparently flustered, and by the looks of
his flushed face, embarrassed.  Then with a wave of his fumarello, he
turned and left the bar as quickly as he had come, leaving Apollo to
stare after him.  Abruptly, the captain realized that he wasn't the only
one living with regret.

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Thanks to Senmut, beta reader extraordinaire.