This was written 2000/2001. Not updated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Prologue~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Starbuck."
"W..what? Where am I?" the warrior looked around the empty barracks at the call of his name, wondering if he had finally fallen asleep.
"I tried to talk to my sister, but she's still stubborn and independent. I'm hoping that you'll be a bit more receptive given your, uhm, more experimental nature."
"Zac?" Starbuck blurted and looked for the source of the familiar voice.
"Hello, Starbuck," Zac stood wearing a pure, white gown.
He didn't appear a centon older than the last time Starbuck had seen him; not long before Starbuck, by his reckoning, sent him in my place to die.
"Am I dreaming?" he wondered.
"In a manner of speaking," Zac said, an amused smile gracing his youthful face.
"Don't tell me, in a dimension quite apart from my own. Do you mind telling me why, not that I'm not glad to see you kid." Starbuck's voice trailed off and his eyes widened as bent his head to look at himself. When he saw was still fully clothed in his sleep wear he breathed a ragged sigh of relief.
"There's much to be done before you reach Earth and you just keep going in circles. It's quite frustrating to watch," Zac said, his smile still spread across his face.
"What does this have to do with Athena?" Starbuck's fingers twitched for a fumarello.
"I told Athena she had to make a choice, the time has come for her to make it," Zac said.
"What does that have to do with me?" Starbuck asked.
"You have to tell her. She has to make the right choice," Zac said.
"Will she understand this any better than I don't?" his eyebrows raised questioningly.
"I hope so, because if she doesn't then you're all going to lose something precious," Zac said.
"The cryptic gig really suits you kid," Starbuck observed wryly.
"You have a choice to make too, Starbuck," Zac said.
"Choices. I think the Cylons pretty much limited those, kid." Starbuck felt a weight pressing down on his chest.
"Your people have free will and a survivor spirit, you always have choices, some different, some the same," Zac said.
"Yeah, which raider am I going to shoot down," he said around the fumarello he was lighting. It wasn't like there were other sleeping warriors around to complain about the smoke.
"What about Cassiopeia? Was she not your choice? Or your choice to blame yourself for my leaving your reality plane?" Zac asked.
"That's no choice, that's truth," Starbuck said through tight lips.
"My death wasn't your fault, Starbuck. It was my time," Zac said.
"That's magnanimous of you to say." Starbuck shrugged.
"Now, I ask you to make another choice. Go help Athena, and stop blaming yourself for what happened to her," Zac said.
"Another fact, she was my..."
"Stuff it, Lieutenant. Not even I am as all knowing as you're trying to make yourself out to be. The guilt doesn't suit you as well as it does my brother." Zac grinned.
"I never said I was...yeah, I get it. Guilt's a waste of time," Starbuck puffed. "So how am I supposed to help Athena?"
"Tell her to remember what I showed her," Zac said.
"That's it?" Starbuck snorted.
"Leto's team in the next triad play off round," Zac said with a wink before he disappeared.
"Maybe this Lords of Kobol thing isn't so bad," Starbuck smiled. The kid looked good and he had a few cubits burning a hole in the proverbial pocket. Maybe he did have some choices.
"Hey," he suddenly frowned. "Why do you want me to help her?"
There was no answer.