Subject: Athena's Diary
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001
From: ladyrae4@juno.com

Athena's Diary:  A Love Lost...
by Lady Rae

     Dreams.  
     In reality, dreams are very fragile things, as fragile as the
gossamer butterfly's wings.  I miss seeing the beautiful creature that
had gently fluttered through my mother's garden back home.  So delicate
and fragile, beautiful with their bright array of colors in intricate
patterns.  Those gentle creatures wings could be easily damaged or
destroyed.  Not unlike those wings, the gossamer dreams of childhood
can be destroyed or damaged, but those with just an action or a thought
-- or even by something as simple as a word.  
     No matter what anyone says, I feel that words are the most
dangerous weapon man has.  Not lasers, not any biological weapons, not
any man-made creation.  Words can slice deeper than any knife.  Burn
into the mind, heart and soul of a person harsher than any burn from a
laser.  Words can be used to plead, cajole or pacify; to express love,
hope or ask forgiveness; or they can be used to wound, torture or
destroy.  Words can be turned against you just as easily as actions.  I
have been wounded, by words more than actions, by the loss of my dreams
than the stark truth of reality.
     When I was a little girl, I dreamed of living this totally
wonderful life.  A home, children to love and care for, and a man that
would love me as much as I would love him, for the rest of our lives,
for all eternity.  My reason for wishing for that sort of life for
myself was sound for a young child.  
     I had watched my entire life as my mother stayed at home, raising
my brothers and I basically by herself while my father served aboard
various battlestars, until he became Commander of the Galactica.  Yes,
there were times in my life that he was home for maybe several sectons. 
In fact, he was home on Caprica for several yahrens when he accepted
that post with the Colonial Services Military Center, but even then he
kept late centars, so that was just about as bad as his being back on a
battlestar.
     But in my eyes, my mother was the strength of our family for she
showed me she could be a wife and mother, and make decisions on her
own, with the presence of my father.  She kept our home running pretty
smoothly with three kids and later, when we were older, have a highly
visible career of her own, away from my father's.  She made everything
she did seem so easy, so I could see myself being a woman just like my
mother. 
     Now looking back, that was and still is a very old-fashioned view
of life, but as a little girl it was my perfect dream.  As I grew
older, my ideals changed.  Reality intruded upon those dreams and
slapped me right in the face.  Dreams of love and the perfect life
faded to the reality of war, death and destruction.  As I grew older, I
found that I desired to fly through the stars more than I wanted my
feet to stay firmly planted on Caprica with the husband and children I
dreamed of as a little girl.  Instead of following the footsteps and
example of my mother, I ended up following the footsteps of my father,
grandfather and so on, just as my older brother did, as eventually my
younger brother did too.  All three of us gave up our own deepest
darkest dreams and desires to follow in the family tradition, although
I was only the second woman of my family to serve on a battlestar.
     The decision to go to the Academy was not one that I had voiced to
anyone in my family.  I had other plans up until my final yahren at
Caprica City Secondary Institute.  Apollo was in his second yahren at
the Academy and was at the top of his class.  I never dreamed of
following Apollo to the Academy, nor did I ever consider competing
against him in anything since I knew the pressures he was under from
father, grandfather and others.  I knew how many times he just wanted
to just walk away from everything because he felt he had to do what he
was doing.  
     He was my brother, my best friend.  We had no secrets from each
other at that time.  I knew of his desire to become a professional
musician.  He had the ability, the talent and the drive.  He would have
been a fabulous performer and teacher, but he gave up his dreams for
the happiness and approval of our father.  I thought he was crazy when
he did that, but I could also see how proud our father was when Apollo
was accepted to the Academy.  It was then I saw my brother's reasons
for giving up everything he wanted.  I did not completely agree with
it, but I did see it.  
     It was then and there I decided I was not going to make the same
decisions that Apollo did.  I was not going to give up my dreams.  Then
life stepped in and I changed my mind.  
     The greatest influence was that I fell deeply in love with the
handsomest, most charming man I had ever met in my life.  He had swept
into my life over six yahrens earlier, but had never been anything more
than a thorn in my side.  A royal pain that nothing could get rid of. 
I hated him back then.  He teased me, tormented me, and became as
overprotective of me as Apollo was.  I didn't have just one
overprotective, obstinate, older sibling to deal with, now I had his
best friend to contend with who was just as bad, and sometimes even
worse than Apollo.  If the boys were not put off by Apollo's presence,
they suddenly had to contend with Starbuck.  What amazed me at times
was he seemed to be everywhere I was.  I still wish I knew how he did
that!
     I had no delusions about Starbuck's feelings for me back then.  I
was the bratty kid sister he never had.  I found him as annoying and
overbearing as Apollo was.  Over the yahrens of my brother's friendship
with Starbuck, I had the fortune or misfortune of meeting most of the
women who had adorned Starbuck's arm, but none of them seemed to last
very long.  Apollo use to jokingly say he had to keep a scorecard to
keep track of all the women Starbuck wined, dined and romanced, but I
found the revolving wheel of women that gushed and giggled, hanging on
to Starbuck to be rather repulsive.  
     Honestly, Starbuck was everything I did not want in a man.  Smooth
talking, conniving, manipulative, two-timing - a master player of silly
games.  He toyed with women's feelings, then moved on to the next when
he was bored, or another pretty face with the body to match caught his
roving eye, or the woman-of-the-micron started making the sounds of
sealing bells and talking commitment.  He would run faster than a
Nigyra black cheetah.
     I use to think Starbuck was shallow back then because of the fact
he ran so quickly from commitments, went through women faster than I
went through the clothes in my closet.  He was not my dream husband,
nor was he even close!  I found him to be trivial, almost childish in
his attitude towards women and his future.  I remember one time asking
him if he ever thought about marriage, children and a stable home.  It
was his reply that cemented the impressions I had of him.  Starbuck
told me he was never going to get sealed because he didn't want to be
tied to one woman and he would never have children since he did not
want to be bothered.  As for a stable home, he had one -- aboard a
battlestar, on the billet where he laid his head.  
     And what made me even madder was Zac fully agreed and subscribed
to the 'Starbuck Philosophy.'  I wanted to wring Zac's neck when he
started dating and would carelessly go from one girl to another.  When
I confronted Starbuck on the kind of example he was being for my little
brother, he would show his smug smile and tell Zac 'good job.'  Sounded
like a bunch of male bonding garbage to me!
     I even went so far as to tell Apollo on more than one occasion how
I could not understand why he of all people chose to be friends with
someone who was so far removed from Apollo's personality that it was
almost a joke.  Apollo told me many, many times over (till I almost
swore he was blue in the face) I was not seeing Starbuck for the person
he was.  I was only seeing the surface and being unfair to his friend. 
Apollo and I had more than our share of heated discussions...okay,
heated disagreements about Starbuck's character.  In the end though, I
found Apollo was right.  There was really more to Starbuck than met the
eye.  
     It was my third yahren of secondary school that was the turning
point where the 'lecher' I always saw Starbuck as became my friend too. 
It was almost like it happened overnight.  He changed from being my
antagonist, to being a person I could count on, trust, talk to and open
up to.  I became comfortable with him, and that was more than a little
unnerving at the time.  
     I remember the turning point like it was yesterday, and because of
Starbuck's trust in me, I will not reveal any details of it in this
journal entry.  It is a very private, very personal matter and no one
else's concern.  So if I should happen to die unexpectedly, or someone
somehow came across this journal, it would still be a confidence
between just Starbuck, Apollo and I.  That is a promise I will keep to
him, no matter how our relationship has gone in the past or where it
will go in the future.  But it was definitely turning point.  The very
person I thought was so shallow and so vain showed me how deeply he
could feel, how badly he could be hurt, how truly honest he could be. 
That was the night I saw him cry and not be ashamed of his tears or the
honesty of them.  That night he became my friend.  
     And several yahrens later, I discovered I had fallen in love with
my friend Starbuck.  
     It was a discovery I was not even looking for and was very shocked
and surprised when I realized what my feelings were for him.  I thought
my feelings for him were on the same level as the ones I had for my
brothers.  There was the night of my graduation from secondary school,
but I just attributed my actions of that night on too much excitement
and too much ambrosia.  I found out several yahrens later I was denying
what I had felt for Starbuck, but was not consciously aware of those
feelings.  Then came THE night, while I was in the midst of my second
yahren at the Academy, when I made a discovery and made a choice that
changed my relationship with Starbuck forever and put me on an
emotional rollercoaster that I never thought I would survive.  
     I honestly never intended to fall in love with him.  He was my
friend.  He was my brother's trusted friend.  He was as much a fixture
in our home as was Apollo, Zac or my parents.  Then one evening, our
relationship took a turn that neither of us expected, surprised both of
us and changed our relationship forever.  We could never go back to
what we were before, but what we became after affected more than just
us.  It affected our family and our friends.  
     Maybe I should have started this personal diary back then, to get
the true vision and emotional impact of what happened that night and
about the relationship which seemed to have more rocky moments, than
smooth ones.  Apollo did his level best to stay out of what was
happening between Starbuck and I, and now I see the wisdom of that
decision.  Apollo would have ended up being more hurt by one or both of
us than he deserved.  All he ever tried to be was Starbuck's friend and
my older brother.  Zac on the other hand, would say his peace and go
on, but at least his feelings and thoughts about whatever was happening
with Starbuck and I at that micron was out in the open.  That was just
the way Zac was.  
     But in my memories, that night was magical in its importance to
me.  Starbuck had just ended a relationship with a woman who I had
personally never taken a liking to.  Usually I got along sociably with
any woman Starbuck cared to bring home, but Nordeen was one whom even
Apollo could not tolerate.  My older brother took all the women who
Starbuck became involved with in stride, never really liking or
disliking them, although he will admit he remained in contact with a
few of them after Starbuck discarded them.  One, Lt. Lyseria, has
continued to be a friend of Apollo's for almost eight yahrens, but now
I'm getting off track.  
     Nordeen had been making noises how she wanted to settle down with
Starbuck and make a home and life, but that was something Starbuck
definitely didn't want.  He had been trying to think of a nice way to
break off the relationship with her, but she never seemed to get the
message or go away.  Finally it came down to that night, when Starbuck
finally came out and told Nordeen his feelings and wanted to totally
end the relationship.  Nordeen started screaming and made a scene.  She
even went so far as to threaten to ruin Starbuck's career and
unfortunately she could have.  Being Assistant Chancellor Rubic of
Libra's only daughter, she did have a lot of power.  Fortunately in the
end Nordeen had gone away like a bad dream.
     Now that same night, I had broken off a relationship of almost a
yahren with a very handsome and charming young man named Andreas.  The
break had not gone as I had wanted it to go, since I was not even sure
really why I was ending the relationship.  But for some reason, I knew
I could not continue to see Andreas.  Something was not right. 
Something was missing.  I felt guiltier by the day as I continued to
see Andreas and lie to both of us about my feelings.  It was hard to
do, but I did it as gently as I could.  Andreas was visibly hurt by my
words and actions, but one thing he said to me that night got me to
thinking.
     He told me that he wished he were Starbuck, so he could know what
it was to be so loved by me.
     I was shocked.  Stunned.  I couldn't even say anything to refute
what he was saying because I was so stunned, but after he left me
standing there alone in the private gardens of the Caprica Fine Arts
Center, I took a long hard look deep into my own soul.  The realization
stunned me almost as much as Andreas' words.  I realized what Andreas
had said was true.  It was more than just a crush I thought I would get
over with time.  
     I was in love with Starbuck.  
     I was in love with my brother's best friend.
     I was in love with a man who had always been another brother to
me.
     Honestly, I did not know how to react to this realization, but I
knew it was hopeless.  A hopeless love for a man who saw me as nothing
more than a pest, a friend, a little sister he never had.  I knew
Starbuck would never go there with me.  Never enter a relationship
other than a platonic one.  He would not risk everything he had with my
family.  He would not risk his standing with our parents, with my
brother, or with anyone else in our circle.  It was hopeless.  I felt
like some heroine in some classic tragedy.  The girl who kills herself
over the man she could never have.  Who did not see her in the way that
she wanted him to.  
     Sorry.  I was not going to cause some great emotional conflict,
drink poison, or kill myself dramatically with some dagger through the
heart.  So I kept my feelings to myself.  Or at least I thought I did. 

     I think my mother was the first one to figure out my true feelings
for Starbuck.  It was not anything she said, at first, but the looks
she would give me whenever Starbuck was around.  I must have looked to
her like some lovesick schoolgirl who could not keep her emotions in
check.  But I do have to give Mother credit - she never said a word to
Father, nor did she make some big production out of what I was going
through.  Finally she told me if a relationship with Starbuck was meant
to be, it would happen in its own due time.  
     And she was right. 
     The night I graduated from the Academy was the night.  I had had
too much to drink as I went out on the town with my friends, along with
my older brother and his friends.  We celebrated all through the night,
but as the sun was beginning to rise over the Caprican Ocean, many of
the others had left and gone their separate ways.  As the bonfire was
down to almost embers, the only people left were Apollo, Celsenia - the
woman he was seeing at the time, Starbuck and myself.  Finally Apollo
had to take Celsenia home, so he left me, who was highly intoxicated,
in Starbuck's 'trusted' care.  
     After a while, Starbuck tried to help me stand so we could get
home.  He knew, even though Mother and Father knew, we were all going
to go out to celebrate my graduation and acceptance to a battlestar
post.  He knew I had to be taken home eventually to sleep off my
drunken state.  It's funny how I would hear stories from my friends,
even my own brother's about how they could not remember their actions
during a night because they drank too much, but to me, everything about
that night seemed almost crystal clear.  How he had moved over to sit
beside me after Apollo and Celsenia left, how he took my hand in his
and told me what a terrific person I was and how much he cared for me. 
How proud he was of me and was also proud that I had gotten such a
sought after positions on the Columbia.  
     I felt warm all over and it was not the alcohol I had drank.  It
was the fact that this man was telling me he *cared* for me.  In my
mind, that meant he was telling me he loved me, but I caught myself and
suppressed the feelings of happiness and giddiness I felt.  I knew I
had to wait, that I had to hear those words.   As he helped me stand so
we could leave, I found I couldn't even stand on my own two feet and
fell straight into Starbuck's arms.  Everything that happened next is a
little distorted, but what I remember next was my lips were on his. 
After his initial surprise reaction, he relaxed and went along with the
kiss.  It seemed like it went on forever and I'm still unsure how much
longer we stayed there in that secluded spot on the beach. 
     The trip home was a complete blur.  The headache I suffered the
next day was a reminder for me not to drink that much ever again for
this was the payment for such behavior.  But slowly I remembered the
kiss Starbuck and I shared, how I felt afterwards, but what I could not
remember was Starbuck's reaction to what happened between us.  I was
almost afraid to face him.  What if he did not reciprocate my feelings? 
Did he think badly of me for the kiss we shared?  I distinctly
remembered his reaction as he kissed me back.  That he *enjoyed* what
happened.  But did he really or was that some drunken fantasy?
     In the end, Starbuck acted as though nothing had happened between
us.  It took almost another yahren, until my transfer to the Galactica,
for me to find out if there was anything to be read into that special
kiss.  Our relationship (for lack of a better word) began rapidly,
blazed across the stars and died a horrible death when the Colonies
were destroyed.  Trust was not really a factor between us since I had
none for him.  I knew of Starbuck's philandering ways.  I knew about
his affair with Aurora, even though I placed my knowledge into the file
labeled 'denial' in my mind.  I knew I was not the only woman in his
life as well as I knew loyalty and fidelity to one woman would be hard
earned.  I just was not receiving those things from him.  
     I knew when Starbuck proposed to me in the locker room the day
after the destruction he was doing it for all the wrong reasons.  In as
much as I loved him then, and as much as I still love him now, I knew
unless he asked me for the reason he loved me, our future would be
non-existent.  Part of me still believes he proposed because he could
not find any sign of Aurora after the destruction.  I know he went back
to Caprica City to search for her and I accidentally over heard the
idle gossip from his ground crew about how he looked and acted when he
returned.   He went to look for her and hurt more than I care to admit
to myself.  He never loved me like I wanted him to.     
     He proved that by how he turned his affections to Cassie.  In
reality, I don't hate her for what happened between her and Starbuck. 
How quickly he turned his attentions to her showed me in the end the
true depth of his feelings for me.  How he truly felt in his heart when
he proposed to me.  I was and still am hurt by what has happened
between us, but I also know that I have to move on with my life.  I
cannot be the 'other woman' who he turns to when he is angry with
Cassie, or anyone else for that matter.  From what I have seen of their
relationship, Cassie has a lot to deal with regarding Starbuck and
luckily for Starbuck, she has the patience to put up with his little
wanderings and his roving eye.
     I can't help still loving Starbuck.  I feel he was the love of my
life.  Sheba told me the other day there is someone else out there who
I will feel that way about and even more.  She called Starbuck my
'first love' and I cannot argue with that.  Mother told me many times I
would meet many men in my life and how each one would be special, but
always your 'first love' is the most special one of all, because he was
the first.    
     I hope they are both right, because right now, it sure doesn't
feel that way.

-- The End --