The One and Only
By Lisa Zaza
casazaza@shaw.ca

     Sunlight shining down upon his face, a cool breeze rustling
comfortingly through his hair, and the familiar scent of sweetness
tantalising his senses, it awakened him in ways he didn't know was
possible.  Despite knowing from his official records that he was born in
Umbra, a small agro community near the Caprican Thorn Forest, Starbuck
was surprised at the inexplicable array of emotions and memories that
swept over him as he stood there near the berry patch, looking up at the
plump, ripe, juicy goodness that he could taste as surely as though he
was filling his stomach with spoonfuls of his mother's fresh preserves. 
He licked his lips, treasuring a long suppressed memory from a time that
had come to represent more of a mystery to him, than any real history.
     A haunting but bleary image of a beautiful blonde woman drifted into
his mind, filling him with an elusive sense of security that he couldn't
remember ever experiencing before.  Her blue eyes shone like sparkling
jewels, and he felt the backs of his eyes prick, and his throat constrict
as he tried to concentrate, desperately trying to hold onto a vague
memory of a woman that had only ever before visited him in his dreams. 
Then the image began to blur around the edges, becoming even more diffuse
until it disappeared completely, to be replaced by the thorny bushes that
stretched metrons above him.  His abrupt sense of inexplicable loss left
him feeling completely vulnerable.  Naked and exposed.
     "How do they taste?"
     The sound of Apollo's voice stirred him from his reverie.  The
cadets had come to the Thorn Forest for a training exercise, and Starbuck
had been both excited and a little nervous about returning to the place
of his birth and very early childhood.  Would he remember it at all?  Or
would it bring back those largely faded nightmares of the Cylon attack
that had devastated the community, and killed his parents and so many
others?  He glanced back at his fellow cadet, trying to cover the fact
that he was feeling a little out of sorts.  He knew he should have come
alone, but Apollo had insisted...
     "Try one," Starbuck suggested to Apollo, pasting on his trademark
grin, before half-closing his eyes and breathing in the heady scent
again.  
     Apollo raised a suspicious eyebrow at his friend, crossing his arms
over his chest.  "Starbuck, for all your bragging about Wild Thorn
Berries, you haven't tried one yet."
     "Don't you trust me, Apollo?" Starbuck smiled, before plucking a
large, juicy berry from a thorny bush, and popping it into his mouth. 
The juice burst into his mouth, introducing a sweetness that rekindled
memories and sensations that he instinctively knew were all about family,
and by extension of that, an elusive link to his past.  He closed his
eyes, groaning in unadulterated pleasure.  A sudden recollection swept
into his mind, and he could see it almost as though it was happening
before his eyes...
     A wiry man climbed high upon the rocks, avoiding the treacherous
thorns, trying to reach not only any old berry, but the largest,
plumpest, and sweetest for his precious wife.
     "You're going to break your fool neck!" the beautiful blonde shouted
up at the man, her hand covering her mouth in horror as she held the hand
of her toddler son, who giggled at his father's antics.
     "I see it, Gabrielle!" the man shouted back.  "It's the one!  The
one and only.  A berry like that had to be blessed by the Lord Sagan,
himself!"
     "Don't be daft!" she replied, sucking in a breath as he climbed even
higher. "If you fall, you're going to land right in the middle of the
briar patch!"
     "I'm not going to fall!" he replied with a reckless laugh.  "Nothing
but the best for my wife!"
     "Mmm.  They're good, Starbuck.  Sweet and delicious." A soft voice
murmured in his ear.
     Athena.
     Over the yahrens, Starbuck had come to know Apollo's siblings well,
and he had seen Athena blossom from an awkward and shy teenager into the
enchanting, first yahren cadet that stood beside him now.  Her long, dark
hair flowed back over her shoulders in the breeze, and her sparkling blue
eyes seemed to see right through him as he tried to cover for his
momentary lapse.  He took a deep breath, focussing on Athena and allowing
the past to slip back where it belonged.  She had turned into a real
beauty, with a quick wit, an easy smile, and a sincerity that was
somewhat new to him...at least in the female persuasion.  Of late, he had
found himself enjoying her company far too much, considering she was
Commander Adama's only daughter, and he was merely one amongst countless
nameless orphans.  All the same, on such a perfect day, he couldn't help
but wonder if the sweetness of her lips could compare to that of the
berries.
     "Those are just the ones within reach, Athena," he replied to her,
pointing above them.  "Up there is where the best berries always are."
     "A little closer to heaven," she mused with a smile.
     "Well, in my experience, a guy doesn't have to die to get to
heaven," Starbuck returned with a wistful sigh. 
     Athena glanced at him thoughtfully.
     "Well, a guy would have to be a little crazy to climb up there,"
Apollo chuckled, plopping a berry into his mouth.  "Hey, these are good. 
So..." he mumbled around a few more berries, "Is any of this familiar to
you?"
     "Yeah," Starbuck replied quietly, as a sense of d‚j… vu niggled at
his mind, while he looked around some more.  Was his mind playing tricks
on him, or had he actually been here as a youngster?  He felt as though
he was caught in a whirlwind of emotions, intermingled with images that
might or might not be memories.  Lords, he had fantasized most of his
childhood about where he had come from, and who his people were.  Had his
fantasies eclipsed reality, or were the flickering images true memories
that were finally resurfacing?  It left him aching for answers about his
family that he knew he would never find.
      "Do you think you've been here before, Starbuck?" Athena asked,
shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked around.  "This very spot?"
     "Maybe," he conceded.  He closed his eyes, again seeing the wiry man
climbing the rocks as though they were a naturally placed stairway to
epicurean delights.  When he opened them again, the same stones seemed to
be right before him, although they were slightly overgrown by the briar. 
"I think so..." he inserted, tracking a familiar path with his eyes that
his own father had possibly taken yahrens before.  He craned his neck as
he looked up, seeing the perfect berry.  
     The one and only.
     "Funny, I never pictured you in berry patches as a child," Apollo
mused as he stepped aside to let one of the locals go by.  The older
gentleman nodded pleasantly, before passing by.
     "Hard to believe I wasn't raised in a Viper?" Starbuck quipped.
     "I was thinking of a chancery, actually," Apollo returned with a
teasing smile, as he began to wander away picking a few berries, and
obviously enjoying the outing.  "Or maybe a grogshop." 
     Starbuck frowned at his retreating back, the usual witty comeback
eluding him.  Yeah, he was definitely out of sorts when Apollo could 'one
up' him.
     "Don't mind him," Athena inserted, touching Starbuck's hand lightly. 
She was hovering over him in apparent concern, putting him in mind of
Ila, her mother.  "It must be strange to be back.  How does it feel?"
     He smiled at her, touched by her support and obvious interest.  He
thought about how to reply, while picking a berry and offering it to her. 
She glanced alongside at Apollo, by now metrons away, and then opened her
mouth slightly, pointing to it.   Starbuck grinned, his surprise
surpassed by his pleasure.  There was no mistaking that she wanted him to
feed her the berry.  While it could be interpreted as innocent, there was
a certain look in her eyes that turned it into the most erotic interlude
he'd ever had with her.  In fact, Athena as a sensual adult was something
he had to twist his mind around...which seemed to take all of a couple
microns as her teasing blue eyes locked on his, and she licked her lips
in anticipation and invitation.  He placed the berry gently between her
lips, grinning even more at the devilry in her eyes.    
     "Hmm..." he murmured, completely distracted by her beauty, and this
new realization that not only was he attracted to Athena, that evidently
she was attracted to him.  It filled him with an irrational joy meant
more for children during Yule, than for Colonial cadets out on
manoeuvres.
     She laughed then, the sound lyrical to his ears.  "Starbuck!  How
does it feel to be back?" she repeated, her eyes sparkling with delight,
and something more...
     "Oh," he grinned sheepishly.  "Not really sure.  I guess I feel a
bit discombobulated," he admitted, suspecting he was acting like an
idiot, instead of a suave lady's man.  Strangely, Athena seemed to be
enjoying Starbuck the Idiot.  He squeezed her hand as she smiled at him
and licked her lips.  "Was it sweet?" he asked. 
     "Actually," she smiled in wry amusement.  "That one was a bit sour."
     "Well," he glanced upward, once again spotting 'the one and only'. 
"I'll have to make it up to you then."
     Athena giggled and then reached out to grab his arm when he stepped
forward with intent.  "No, don't do it.  You'll break your neck,
Starbuck."
     "It's a rite of passage, Athena," he replied with a grin.  "Besides,
I see it.  It's the perfect berry.  The one and only.  A berry like that
had to be blessed by Lord Sagan himself." He reached upward, using a rock
outcrop to help pull him up.  His feet seemed to find the path
instinctively, as though he was following in his father's footsteps. 
Higher and higher, upward and onward, he kept on going, keeping the
plump, round prize in sight as he scaled the hillside of brambles.
     "What the frack are you doing? " Apollo called from below.  "Are you
out of your mind?"
     "Possibly," Starbuck rejoined with a grin, but his chest was close
to bursting with an inexplicable happiness.  It was as though through
retracing his father's path, he was somehow bonding with the man who was
long dead.  He could almost imagine his father observing from the heavens
above, smiling down on him and shouting proudly, "That's my boy!  Like
father, like son!"
     "Be careful, Starbuck!" Athena called up to him.  
     There was no need.  He felt invincible.  As though his family were
watching over him, a guardian angel on each shoulder that would see him
safely up, and down again.  How many times had he felt this way in his
Viper?   He'd always thought it was a sense of innate confidence,
attributed to his love of flying.  Or a young man's inherent belief in
his own sense of immortality.  Never before had he equated it with his
family acting as celestial guardians.  Never before had he felt like he
had truly found home, if only for a few centons.
     Lord suffering Sagan, it was the biggest damned berry he'd ever
seen!  It was full and firm, shining in the sunlight, offering him the
temptation of sweet succulence, ripe for the picking.  He stretched
forward, clawing at the branch just out of his reach.  Didn't it just
figure...
     With a deep breath, he leaned forward just a little bit more,
standing on the tips of his toes as he tried to close the gap between his
fingertips and 'the one and only'.  The biggest, the best, and just
beyond his reach...it was so typical of life in general.  Just when he
thought he had found his stride, settled into a pattern, there was always
something else that would force him to stretch, to reach that much
further to get what he wanted, or needed.
     Like Athena...
     How long had he squandered his time dating beautiful, empty-headed
women, that had flitted in and out of his life?  Oh sure, a few had tried
to draw him into a long term relationship, but he instinctively sensed
that change in a woman that set off his internal klaxons and told him to
get out of there, full turbos ahead!  More than one woman had informed
him that he had "commitment issues".  They'd conveniently blamed it on
his orphan past, rather than admit that somewhere along the way their
expectations had changed, while his hadn't.
     Maybe it had something to do with this place.  Maybe it was the
sudden onslaught of memories.  Maybe it was just fate.  But for the first
time in his life he realized that he wanted what his parents had found,
before a Cylon strafing run in the dead of the night had ended their
joyous union, and their plans for a future with their toddler son.
     He glanced down, seeing the siblings' eyes trained on him, as well
as a half-dozen locals milling about.  He'd drawn a crowd.  Athena's lips
were parted, her eyes trained on him.  He grinned as he balanced
precariously on the edge of a precipice as people gasped anxiously far
below him.  Finally, he reached 'the one and only'.  The perfect,
luscious berry that surpassed all others.  His fingers settled around his
goal, and he pulled ever so gently, so as not to bruise perfection.  He
held it up in triumph.
     "Got it!" he exclaimed.
     "Atta boy!" a single enthusiastic, male voice called out from below.
     Then Starbuck was retracing his footsteps, letting his instinct
guide him once again, as he slowly, but steadily descended.  He jumped
the final metron down to solid ground, where Apollo and Athena awaited
him.  
     "You forgot your Viper," Apollo mumbled, a little irritably, his
arms crossed over his chest.  Then with a familiar look of resignation,
he blew out a breath, slapped Starbuck on the shoulder, and strode back
down the path.  "Are you ready to go now?" he called back over his
shoulder.
     "Almost," Starbuck returned, turning to offer the berry to Athena
like it was some kind of exotic treasure.  He bit his lip as he looked
down at his meagre offering, which seemed to pale in importance now that
he was back on the ground.  It occurred to him it was only...a berry. 
"This is it," he said lamely.
     "The one and only?" she smiled slightly as she took the gift from
his outstretched hand, holding it gently.  "What on Caprica possessed
you...?  If you'd fallen, you would have cracked your skull and landed
right in the middle of the briar patch."
     "A memory," he replied briefly, realizing the act probably looked
foolhardy to anybody except him...or his deceased parents.  He shrugged
slightly while she studied him, seeming to weigh his words, while he
shifted from foot to foot.  He looked away, uncomfortable beneath her
penetrating stare.  "I had to do it," he explained.  Then he smiled back
at her.  "Besides, there's not much a guy like me could offer a woman
like you..." his voice trailed off as the words tumbled out of his mouth
unbidden, and his eyes dropped to the ground.  By now he was looking like
the King of Idiots.  From Idiotville.  Oh, he could blame this sudden
onslaught of romantic sentimentalism on getting swept away by old
memories, and unexpected emotions, but in reality, he was behaving like
an equine's astrum.  Any micron now, Athena would laugh in his face and
tell him so.
     "Me?" she asked in surprise, touching his face, and gently
redirecting his gaze to her.  "Are you sure, Starbuck?"
     He nodded tentatively, feeling uncharacteristically nervous as those
searching blue eyes scanned him with an intensity that stripped down
every defensive barrier he had ever erected, until all that was left was
a small boy searching for the warm, secure hand that had somehow slipped
out of his own, never to return.  He drew a rasping breath.
     Athena smiled then, popping the berry into her mouth.  Her face
glowed with enjoyment as she savoured it a moment, then with a
clandestine peek down the path at her retreating brother, she tenderly
kissed Starbuck.
     The soft, tentative kiss might have been Athena's first.  For a
brief moment, he selfishly wished it was so, as he cupped her face with a
hand, caressing the soft skin beneath his fingertips ever so gently.  The
soft whisper of her breathing made him realize he had closed his eyes,
and he smiled at her when he opened them again, tilting his forehead
against her, savouring the intimacy.
     "It's very sweet," she told him breathlessly a moment later.
     "The sweetest ever," he agreed, feeling like he was standing on ovum
shells, afraid to move.
     "Are we really going to do this?" she asked, her eyes searching his.
     "Lords, I hope so," he replied fervently.
     She smiled, and he abruptly realized that maybe the idea of a family
wasn't such a lost cause after all.   Two warriors in the Colonial
Service, the obstacles to their relationship would be challenging.  But
if he had truly found his one and only, somehow they'd find a way to make
it work.  He laced his fingers through hers, raising her hand to his lips
and kissing it.  
     "Starbuck!" Apollo's bodiless voice carried back to them from down
the trail, reminding his friend-as he had countless times before-that it
was time to go.
     Together they laughed a little guiltily, and then headed down the
path, nodding at the same older gentlemen as they passed by, but he
appeared to be lost in thought.  
     A moment later, the old man's weary eyes flickered over them, idly
watching their departure, as memories engulfed him.  Every yahren he had
returned here to honour the memory of his dearest wife and tiny son.  Yet
this time, his sense of loss was so severe, it took his breath away. 
Yes, that young man climbing the cliff, as Chameleon had also done as a
younger man, had triggered an emotional miasma.  No wonder he had called
out in encouragement as the boy plucked that berry from dizzying heights. 
It had torn at his heart when he saw the young warrior offer it tenderly
to his young woman centons later, much as Chameleon had done at one time. 
And as strange as it seemed, as he stood there now, the further away the
young couple drew, the more bereft the old man felt...while he stood
there cherishing memories of his one and only.  

The End