Word Count:
Date: 4/16/05
Series:
Rating: K+
Category: Character
Pairing/Focus: Kara
Warnings: angst, references character death (Zak's)
Summary: Starbuck thinks about the loves of her life, and what they meant to
each other
Spoilers/Disclaimers: none / Don't own them. Don't sue. K? Thanks!
It still seemed wrong to her, somehow, that Zak never had a call sign. He hadn't been flying long enough to earn one, really. She knew the nuggets these days would be lucky if they even made it as long as Zak had. It was one of the reasons she gave them all their call signs before they ever stepped foot into a Viper. There was just something wrong, in Starbuck's mind, about a pilot, any pilot, dying without a call sign, like a child dying without a name.
At Zak's funeral, as her dead lover's father gently held her hand, she'd thought of him as Icarus, the young man who so desperately wanted to fly but soared too high and paid the price for his ambitions.
Zak had always felt the need to live up to his own interpretations of everyone else's expectations: her's, Lee's, his father's, his mother's. She'd realized, at some point, that she was as much a part of his desire to fulfill his mother's dreams for him as flying was his desperate attempt to please his father. His mother had always said he'd find a nice girl at college. Starbuck figured Zak had at least been able to halfway fulfill his mom's wishes. Kara had never exactly been nice.
She'd loved him anyhow. He was nice, ambitious, funny, and affectionate. All of those qualities had been absent in her life before she'd met Zak, but until she'd met him, she'd never known they were missing. She'd thought her life was complete with Zak. Then, she'd met his older brother and everything had changed.
When she met Lee, for the first time she really truly understood Zak. It wasn't so much that his parents had wanted him to be this faceless, picture-perfect son. They wanted him to be like Lee. They'd wanted him to be Lee. And Zak, more than anything, wanted to live up to his brother's image.
Lee had finished at the top of his class. He flew like he was born in a Viper. And his oh-so-sweet, beautiful, brilliant, civilian girlfriend, who Kara quickly learned to hate, was every mother's dream for her son.
It was easy to see why Zak wanted to be just like his brother. It was easier to see why Kara fell for him. He was Zak, but better. He was everything that Zak had tried to be, but only marginally succeeded.
In the great scrolls, Icarus flew too high and his wings of wax were melted by the sun. Apollo, the sun god, soared far beyond his reach. Zak hadn't been built to fly. He hadn't been his brother, though not for lack of trying.
And, in the end, with the worlds burning, Starbuck wasn't sure what upset her the most. That Lee somehow made Zak's memory pale in comparison or that she no longer cared.
~~~Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.~~~
~~~Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
~~~ -Ralph Vaull Starr
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Life is eternal and love is immortal,and death is only a horizon... And a horizon is nothing, save the limit of our sight.
-Anon