Title: Missing
Author: A.j.
Rating: G
Genre: The gen-est of Gen, introspective.

Summary: You don't miss it until it's gone.

***

Of all the things in the universe, she'd never really expected this.

It was stupid. Really, really stupid, and made very little sense.

Sighing slightly, Kara poked through her breakfast cereal (fresh off the 
grain frigate as of that morning) and tried to figure out why this was 
bugging her so much.

Yeah, the Cylons had wiped out the entire twelve colonies, leaving nothing 
but their little rag-tag convoy. A stunning little microcosm of a 
civilization that had been over four billion strong. And no matter how she 
thought about it, or tried to phrase that reality, it still came out sounding 
too trite or small to suit the reality.

It was too big. Too raw.

They were all struggling to survive. Running like hell from an enemy that had 
resoundingly kicked their collective ass, with little in the way of 
resources, no friends, and a rather precariously moderated sense of hope.

And here she was being mopey about this.

*Sigh.*

Kara swished her spoon some more and glared at her bowl. The oatmeal wasn't 
as heinous as the emergency rations, but it was frecking close. Plus, in a 
round about way, it was solely responsible for her mood.

She hated oatmeal. Always had. The only way her mother had been able to force 
it down her throat when she was small was to douse it in dehydrated bananas 
and brown sugar. Even then, she'd pick out the fruit and feed the rest to the 
cat. Or try anyway.

Oh, great. Now she felt even better.

It's not that she really missed many of the things that had been lost. Sure, 
sometimes she really really *really* wanted a good beer, or a trip outside to 
sit in the sun. But living this life, being here on the “Galactica” was the 
life she'd trained for. One she'd chosen, and one that she'd been living 
before the Cylon's first bomb had dropped.

For the most part, she was fine. More so than anyone wanted to really 
believe. She hadn't lost anyone, not really. A few widespread friends, a 
distant cousin. Her instructors at the academy. But no one really... close. 
She had most of her squad and her boys. Maybe it was a little more sparse of 
a life than she'd planned, but it was a life and she was frecking determined 
to remain positive on that score. Even if Tigh was still a massive pain in 
her backside.

Take the bad with the good right?

Right.

So *why* was this bugging her so much?

She poked the cereal again. She missed strawberries. Big, bright red, juicy 
fruit that tanged up your mouth and dripped all over you if they were grown 
right. Colorful, natural food that wasn't cooked or packaged or rehydrated. 
With seeds that got stuck in your teeth and stems that you had gnaw all 
around to get the last of the meat.

Strawberries. Simplest damn food in the world - okay, worlds - and then they 
were gone. Poof. Just like the academy and the tobacco groves and the 
refineries. And wow, was she going to be hurting for the tobacco groves in a 
few months.

It wasn't like she was complaining. The granary was somehow managing to put 
out enough food supplies to last. And what wasn't immediately used was being 
stored for leaner, less certain times. If that was possible. It wasn't like 
there wasn't fruit either. Oranges by the ton were offered to all personnel, 
civilian and military. The doctors going on about how it was the perfect 
fruit or some such.

But. Oranges weren't strawberries. The convoy wasn't the colonies. But 
sometimes, you just had to make due.

Kara chewed another mouthful of oatmeal and made a face. Still. It wouldn't 
be forever, right? Maybe Earth would have strawberries. She snickered and 
scraped the last of the food out of her bowl before dropping her spoon in. It 
was a nice dream. Possibly not even a dream, if Adama's determination wasn't 
just desperate bravado.

Well, she'd just have to see.

***