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Apollo rolled over, restless. It was too warm out to sleep, or to do anything, really. He glanced across the darkened room toward his younger brother's bed and was unsurprised to see that Zac was also awake. Rather than tossing and turning in a vain attempt to capture a few moments of sleep in the static, stifling Caprican summer heat like Apollo, Zac was nimbly slipping out of his bed, hoping Apollo wouldn’t notice. As always, though, Apollo noticed everything his brother did.
Zac tiptoed across the floor, taking so much care to be silent that even as he turned his eyes away from his brother, Apollo almost felt bad for being so aware of it. Almost, but not quite. Zac approached Apollo’s bed, hoping to find his brother asleep so he could slink out of the room unnoticed. Just as the younger brother reached his destination, Apollo rolled over to face him. “It’s impolite not to make your presence known.”
Jumping back with a start, Zac let out a surprised yelp that made Apollo laugh.
“Go back to bed,” Apollo told him.
Zac froze, realizing Apollo had been awake the whole time. “I can’t sleep,” he complained.
“Of course you can’t. You’re not in bed.”
Zac’s inquisitive eyes scanned Apollo for a moment, trying to come up with an argument. “Well, you’re in bed, but you’re not asleep,” he pointed out.
Apollo almost laughed at that quick thinking, but he caught himself. It wouldn’t help his position as the all-knowing older brother if Zac thought he could be swayed so easily. “How could I sleep when you’re wandering all around the room? Go back to bed, Zac.” He could see the wheels turning in his younger brother’s mind, searching for another flaw in his logic.
Apparently coming up short, Zac sighed heavily. “I’m not tired,” he said finally.
“Well, I am,” Apollo answered, settling back on his pillow.
Zac remained standing by his brother’s bed, fidgeting. Apollo propped himself up on one elbow. “Why aren’t you tired?”
Shrugging, Zac looked away. He was getting too old for this, he thought; he was nearly eight yahren old. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. C’mon, Zac, if you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”
Zac watched his older brother for a moment before he seemed to decide, as he always did, that Apollo was right. “I overheard Mother talking. She’s worried about Father.”
There was a small, ungracious, and thoroughly teenaged part of Apollo that wanted to roll his eyes, but again, he kept his expression mostly impassive, allowing what he hoped was a shadow of sympathy to cross his face. “Of course she’s worried about him. We all worry, Zac; it’s part of being a family.”
Zac’s eyebrows knit together in thoughtful analysis. “Mother never worries.”
“Mother never tells you that she worries. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t worry. Don’t you?”
If Zac was honest, no, he didn’t. It hadn’t occurred to him that he needed to. “Do you?”
Apollo sat up and shifted over. In spite of his bed already being too warm, he nodded at the now empty spot beside him, a silent invitation that Zac accepted without hesitation. Again, a small voice in Zac’s head reminded him he wasn’t a little kid anymore, that he shouldn’t be running to his big brother with every worry that floated into his mind. Apollo didn’t seem to mind, though, so Zac told the little voice to hush.
“Yes, Zac, I worry about Father.”
Zac frowned, puzzled. “What do you worry?”
Exasperation was creeping up on Apollo, but he wouldn’t let his brother know it. “I worry that he’ll…” Apollo couldn’t bring himself to say it. Surely Zac knew what he meant; Athena would’ve, and she wasn’t so much older than Zac. “And I worry about what’ll happen to us if he… Well, we’re at war, Zac. Anything could happen. So, yeah, I worry that Father won’t come home.” That was a more manageable thing to say than die.
Zac nodded slowly. He’d never put those words together in his mind, but now that Apollo had, he felt foolish. He’d never known a time when their father was at home for much more than a secton at a time, and he knew that every time their father returned to the Galactica the Cylons were hot on his heels. But somehow, he’d always taken for granted their father’s eventual return home. Maybe it was because Apollo and Athena and their mother were always standing by, shielding Zac from reality, but it had never occurred to him that the danger Apollo now spoke of was real and worth worrying about.
“Why don’t you ever say that?” Zac demanded of his brother. Why had Zac been allowed to go nearly eight yahren thinking everything was alright and always would be when Apollo clearly knew otherwise? He felt betrayed by this.
Apollo sighed. “Because there’s no point, Zac. If we all stopped everything whenever we were worried, we’d never get anything done.”
Mulling that over in his mind, Zac sat in silence for a while. Apollo put an arm around him, a comforting presence as he grappled with a newfound reality.
“Are you tired yet?” Apollo asked quietly.
“Yes.” Zac was so very exhausted, all of a sudden. His heart and eyelids both felt heavy.
“Then go to sleep,” Apollo whispered.
Zac, analytical as he was, noted his brother’s choice of words. Apollo hadn’t told him to go to bed, to Zac’s own bed, but to go to sleep. Still, not one to act without his brother’s guidance, Zac looked up at Apollo. “Do you want me to go back to my bed?”
Sighing inwardly, Apollo laid back down. “No, Zac, you can stay here if you like.” Sweltering heat be damned. Zac needed him now, and even in his sometimes impatient teenaged state, Apollo would prefer to die than to let his kid brother down.
“Apollo,” Zac mumbled, trying to keep himself from nodding off.
“Yes, Zac?”
“You’re going to be a warrior, too, aren’t you? Even though you worry about Father, you’re going to do the same as him?”
“Yes.” Without a moment’s hesitation, without a shadow of a doubt.
Zac nodded and finally allowed himself to fall asleep. Now it was Apollo’s turn to lie awake and listless, hoping he didn’t disturb his brother. It hadn’t occurred to him that Zac didn’t worry the way the rest of the family did, and he hated that he’d been the one to take away Zac’s idyllic perception of the turbulent times they lived in.
Considering Zac’s final question before he’d fallen asleep, Apollo shuddered. Of course he was going to be a warrior; it was what he’d been raised to do, the only thing he’d ever worked toward as the eldest son. For the first time, though, he thought about what Zac might end up doing. It hadn’t crossed his mind before that Zac, too, might end up flying Vipers into Cylon territory.
Although he wouldn’t want to condemn anyone, least of all his brother, to a lifetime of the waiting game they all endured every time their father left Caprica, Apollo thought he’d rather Zac sit around and worry than get bombed out of the star-studded sky in a Viper, even though Apollo couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have by his side, taking down the Cylons.
Apollo stole a glance at Zac, sleeping soundly next to him. You don’t need to worry, he vowed silently. Not about anything. He prayed the Lords of Kobol would grant him this, his brother’s peace of mind. A lifetime without fear, a lifetime of safety.
His thoughts plagued his mind as the heat beset his body, but Apollo closed his eyes and willed himself into the same fitful sleep as Zac beside him.