Loxias. By Ayelet H. Lushkov "He who does not have a single friend, is unworthy of living" Demokritos. For those who don't know us, we stand as complete opposites. He's serious and quiet, the pride and joy of one of Caprica's most ancient families. I'm reckless and outgoing, an orphan of war with no place to really call home. We're different as different can be. But in a way, he's the closest thing to a brother I've ever had. Brothers not born of the same womb, not fathered by the same father, yet brothers to the hardest core of our being. Why is it that for the ones you care most about, love and loss are always bound together? Like two divine forces, forever entwined. Do you know what it feels like to lose someone you love senselessly? To know they died without a purpose, only to serve a whim of some divine force? I do, all too well. And I never wished it on anyone. But I still had to see him go through it. I'm probably the last person you'd want to ask about matters of the heart, but I do know one thing. When you find someone you love, you don't want to let them go. Ever. But sometimes you just have to. You have to go on with your life, or else, it will crush you. It's a funny thing, really. The things that make you hurt the most, usually look so fragile, so helpless. Like a flower. It's so easy to kill a flower, isn't it? How many times have you walked across a blooming field, not even noticing the trail of run-over flowers behind you? How easy it is to demolish the things we thrive on. And the worst part, the worst part is, that you never know how much you need it, until it's gone. But, you know, those fragile things, they're strong. We're the weak ones. The fields back home are probably covered with flowers now. It's us who are not there to appreciate them. And that, my friend, is why I keep living that day in my worst nightmares. The day when his love's flower went up in smoke, and I witnessed his eyes change. Forever. After that horrible day, his eyes were never quite the same. Forever touched by a cosmic finger. And even I, as much as I wished it, could not drive the clouds away. The eyes that have witnessed the loss of a loved one will never be the same, as if scarred by the sight. As if pieces of the shattered heart slashed through them, causing a never-healing wound. Sometimes you can hide it. Never let anyone look deep enough, or long enough to notice. But someday, someone will hold your gaze for just that long. And when it won't hurt anymore, that's when the scars can start to heal. I think someone is finally starting to do just that. She's a warrior, and maybe that's just what he needs. Someone who won't put up with his obsession with the past. Someone who wouldn't let him drop his gaze and avoid the subject again. One thing I will say for him, though, he's putting up a good fight. I've never seen anyone taking these things as slow as he is doing now. And, if I may add, he treading very dangerous waters. The lady he's taking with him isn't known for being long-tempered. If he doesn't watch it, she might actually finish up what she started and blow him out of the heavens, and that would be such a waste, wouldn't it? In all our yahrens together, we played just about every role in each other's life. The one thing we still haven't gotten around to is being each other's best man. Well, in my case, I don't really think he should hold his breath. It would give the concept of Blue Leader a whole new meaning. Not that there's no-one to consider getting sealed to, there is- the prettiest med-tech in the fleet. I just think that the notion of me as a sealed man would shake the fleet to its core. The universe isn't ready for that yet, and frankly, neither am I. Besides, she deserves a lot better than anything I can give her right now. But I'm working on it. Just give me a few more dozens of yahrens or so. Now, in his case, it's not that he didn't give me the chance, it's just that their timing left somewhat to be desired. A guy gets captured by the Cylons once, and his bestest buddy goes off and gets married. How rude. All jokes aside, though, they did have their reasons that time, and it's a good thing they did, because if they had waited for me...well, let's just not press that one anymore, okay? It's not exactly one of my cherished memories. But, since I did miss the first time around, I do hope I'll get to serve as his best man the second time. If she doesn't decide to push him out the airlock first, that is. That's all nice and well, I guess, but at the time, I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was the difference in him. All I knew was that on that awful morning when he lost his wife, I looked into his green eyes and saw through to his heart. And it was scattered and bleeding. Today, when I look back, I know what it was. It was his innocence lost. He was as innocent as I was street-wise. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a childish innocence. It was a remarkable ability to look at the world, and even when the odds were all but at our favor, still find some glimmer of light, or hope, or beauty. Me, I always saw the worst possible scenario. How things could have gotten wrong, how people could turn their backs on me, or simply disappear. I never let anyone know that, putting up a carefree image, but I lived accordingly. Never allowing anyone to get close enough to count. Not him, though. He still had faith. Faith in the future. Warriors get to see the worst of the worst. It goes with the territory, and you learn that on the first day of the Academy. You lose people on the way. Your friends, your squadron mates, your wingmen. You can't let that break you. But we all have different ways of handling it. Like I said, I keep them at a distance. If you keep them far enough, it doesn't hurt as much when they go away. Let me tell you, it's a load of felger, but you gotta believe in something. He keeps them at a distance, too. But he doesn't do it on purpose like me. It's just harder for him to get personal with anyone. But when he does, you know it's for good. So what does he do when he loses them? Before, he dealt with it, and moved on. Now, he shuts us all out. He doesn't want to let it go, yet. And it will be the end of him someday. And by the looks of things, the end of me, too. Not that I wouldn't have given my life for him. I would. In a heart beat. I just like to think that my demise wouldn't be because of my best friend's suicidal streak. Can't let that hang on his conscience. Besides, who's gonna make sure he actually leads a life if I'm gone? That is, if we don't go out together. I remember a drunken conversation we once had. We promised we'd go down together, fighting as wingmen, battlefield heroes. I had an opportunity to keep my promise before. I saw him die. At least, I think I did. One moment he was lying on the ground, pale, cold and dead, and the next thing we both remember is him being alive and well. We tried to excuse it as a million other things, but as time goes on I'm more and more convinced that I did see him die. I don't think I really want to face that possibility, though. It's too horrible to even consider. I know I should be able to get over friends' deaths by now, but in this case, I don't think I can. He's so much than just a friend to me, that his death would leave a space to big to fill, no matter how much I'd try. To tell the truth, his death would probably be the one that will bring on my break down. All deaths hurt, but this one is one too many for me to handle. The very thought of it hurts, and I'm tired of hurting. I never had much in life, I still don't. He always had what I didn't, what I always craved for. He had a family, a past and a future. He can trace his ancestors back as far as the escape from Kobol, and he walks the halls knowing that every corner on the Galactica bears some story about one of his family members. Say he just joined the family business, and you wouldn't too far off from the truth. I always envied that. I could live without fame, or adulation, or money, but having a family of my own was the one thing I'd trade anything for. I said it before, and I'll say it again, he's like a brother to me. His family accepted me almost from the get-go, his parents considered me the third son. They did everything, short of actually signing the papers and adopting me officially. It's kind of weird, when I think about it, but the subject never came up. I never asked, and they never offered, and I think we all preferred it this way. It's probably because that by the time I grew up, I didn't need it anymore, and before, it would have seemed like charity. If there's one thing I detest, it's charity. People think it's noble and all that, but I'm an orphan, not a beggar. The Cylons took my parents, not my pride. I don't mind help along the way, but I'll always pay it back. I am where I am because I worked hard for it, not because someone paid my way through. So I grew up being the unofficial member of the family, for better and for worse. The better is obvious- it gave me the sense of family I never had before. The worse comes from it- it also showed me what I was missing. I remember him and his siblings coming up with the most long-winded lists of solstice presents, without even recognizing how lucky they were for being able to do that. After all, it was their God-given right. I would usually make myself scarce around their house those times of the year. Solstice is about family, and my family was all gone. I didn't need someone else's family rubbed in my face, even if he was my best friend. In the Academy it got worse-he'd come home on our vacations, and tell his parents all about his classes, his grades, anything at all, and I could see their faces glowing with pride. I'm sure they were proud of me, too, but it never felt the same. While he was following his father's footsteps, I was chasing a dream. And then, then came graduation day- All my life I kindled a hope that one of my parents was still alive, and was looking for me ever since the raid. Somewhere deep down inside, I was hoping that they would show up on graduation day to see me get my ranks. Needless to say, they didn't, and even though I knew it was a false hope all along, it still hurt. That moment, when the Academy commander shook my hand and pinned the ranks on my uniform, and I searched the audience and all I found was my best friend's family- that was the moment when any hope I ever had of finding my own family again died within me. Every other cadet was overjoyed that night, I was angry. I didn't know at whom- at me, at my parents, whoever they were, or at the world in general. It just wasn't fair. When the ceremony ended, and all the hand-shaking was over, I sneaked up to my room. Well, we shared it, of course, but he did have a family to spend the evening with. I sat there brooding for a while. I was already beyond crying, I finished crying for my family when I was 12. That night, I was just angry, and disappointed, and alone. And then there was a knock on the door, and his father stepped in. He took one look at the room, one look at me, and said, "Come on, we're all waiting for you down there." I was about to shake my head and come up with an excuse, but he never even let me start. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. That's a direct order, Ensign." I never loved him more than I did that moment. I couldn't argue with a superior officer on my first day of commission, could I? So I got up and joined them. We sat around the table in the best restaurant in town, and his father made a toast. He said that on that night he considered himself lucky, for having not one son, but two, graduating the Academy. I would have cried that moment, if my buddy hadn't saved me, and we made our own toast, "To the two finest troublemakers to ever grace the Colonial Service." That never stopped either one from putting me on report more times than I care to remember, but that night, it was still a distant future. I felt that I belonged then, and I still do. My own family may be long dead and forgotten, but no-one could even replace them in my heart. I didn't know my father, or my mother, but like every other son, I do love them. And the reason I can do that in a clear conscience, is that I have another family, one that would never take the place of the one I lost, but they're doing their best. And that's all I ever asked for. Me and my best buddy- together, nothing can faze us. Just let 'em try. I honestly can't even begin to count the number of times we saved each other's life. The number of times we shared boyish secrets. Nothing ever came between us. Not jealousy, not competition, not the love of a woman. For a reason I'll never understand, we both dropped our defenses with each other. Even now, I still ask myself, why did he chose me as a friend. He's shy, quiet, your typical goodie-two-shoes boy that the upper classes of Caprica City produce every so often. I'm the complete opposite. Yet somehow, we knew that we were cut of the same cloth. That this friendship would last forever. It took two lonely boys, and brought a new brightness to their lives. It brought out the best of the two of us, even if I do say so myself. I dare say, that for what it's worth, I wouldn't be half the man I am today, if it wasn't for him. And if you tell him I said that, I'll deny it with every breath I have left. Written June-July '98. Note: 'Loxias' is an epithet of the Greek God Apollo. It roughly translates "The Oblique", and it has to do with prophecy, obscurity, and revelation. Also, Apollo Loxias is the God which no mourner comes near to.