I was running for my life, sprinting for all I was worth. Huge trees towered overhead, throwing monstrous shadows onto the winding path. The ground was rocky and rough. Tree branches whipped across my face, bare roots sticking out of the rough ground threatened to trip me.
I stumbled, regained my balance, and ran on.
I could hear them coming behind me, the pounding of heavy footsteps, louder than the sound of my own ragged, labored breathing.
Out of the forest and into the open, I ran.
It was like running in quicksand. The ground underfoot was slick, shifting. It seemed like I was barely moving.
Lungs heaving, heart pounding, leg muscles burning, sweat running into my eyes, I charged forward, running as hard as I could. Toward safety. Toward… a big thing, a big round glowing ring-thing that I somehow knew would take me safely home.
Behind me came the enemy.
Moving closer with my every stride.
Okay, so I'm not 20 anymore, but crap, I *know* I can run faster than this.
I better.
Bright moonlight illuminated my surroundings now, provided by a pair of huge moons that floated almost directly overhead. I didn't have time to study them, though; I was too busy running across the bare ground, small stones crunching under my boots as I drove my flagging body onward.
I chanced a quick glance back. I could see the pursuing warriors now as they came out of the trees. One quick glimpse was enough to show me that there were a lot of them chasing me, and they were gaining ground with every stride. They were dressed in an odd, primitive sort of armor, carrying long metal staffs that crackled with energy and shot fiery bolts at me and my team. The really scary thing was the man, er, thing, that followed them. It looked like a man, but his eyes glowed and his voice echoed oddly as he screamed, "Stop them."
I assumed he meant us.
My team.
I redoubled my efforts, racing after the others.
They were just ahead of me, a tall, blonde haired woman carrying a flat black automatic weapon; a bespectacled man, his boonie hat flopping over his back on its string; and a massive weightlifter type who turned his head to check on me, revealing a bizarre gold tattoo in the middle of his forehead.
We sprinted onward, seeking safety.
I watched as the first two reach the platform, racing up the four steps from the ground to the base of the ring, and flinging themselves into the blue water in the center of the giant circle.
The big guy in front of me did the same.
I was gasping for air now, my legs leaden weights.
Just a little further, Jack, just a little further and you're home, you're home, you're home…
I wasn't sure my weary legs could do it, but there wasn't time to think about it. I took the steps two at a time, and found myself upon the platform at last. Another stride took me to the huge glowing ring, and like the others in front of me, I launched myself into the blue pool, bellyflop style.
Just a fraction of a second before my outstretched arms touched the shimmering liquid, it disappeared.
I landed on the hard, stone platform with enough force to knock the wind out of me…
I sat bolt upright, gasping for air, panicked. I could feel my heart pumping wildly as I looked around in the darkness, disoriented.
God, where was I? Who had been chasing me? *What* had been chasing me? Where the hell had I been?
Forcing my breathing to steady, I made myself assess the situation. I was *not* on a stone platform. I was in a bed, not on some other planet, but in a bedroom, my bedroom, moonlight from the familiar single moon of Earth pouring in the window, faintly illuminating the room.
Not running.
Dreaming.
Disentangling myself from the sweat soaked sheets, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and paused.
I was still shaking.
Oh god, Special Forces Colonel with the shakes from a dream, for crying out loud! I admonished myself.
Still feeling wobbly, my heart still ratcheting along at breakneck speed, I stood carefully, then headed for the bathroom. I didn't bother to turn on the light, just reached for the faucet and let the cool water run into my hands. I splashed water on my face and neck, once, and again.
It was only a dream.
A scary one, true, but just a dream.
Reality was, no running. No aliens. No shooting. No bellyflopping. No big blue rings.
Dreaming.
Damn, O’Neill, you are getting old.
The dream still gripped me, leaving me ill at ease, my heart still hammering despite my best efforts to dismiss it as just another nightmare.
I didn't think I was going to be able to go back to sleep; in fact, I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep after a whopper of a bad dream like that.
Padding barefoot across the floor, I walked back to the bed, sliding under the covers, hoping I hadn't awakened my wife.
Futile hope, of course.
A soft voice wafted out of the darkness from the other side of the king-size bed. "Jack? You okay?"
"Fine."
I shifted down to snuggle up beside her, and she slid over next to me, her hands reaching up to play with the coarse hair on my chest.
"Jack?" Her voice sounded concerned now. She lifted her blonde head to look up at me, studying me. "I can feel you're trembling." She shifted her hand, laying the warm palm flat across the left side of my chest. "And your heart is racing."
"Probably a heart attack," I quipped.
"That's not funny!" She sat up, her tone even more worried. "Please…"
"Just… a dream…"
"Mighty scary dream to get you worked up like this…"
I shrugged. "Just one of those running from the bad guys and you can't run fast enough and then this whole weird Star Wars alien contraption…" I shook my head. "And these freaky alien guys…"
Her voice sounded relieved. "Jack, that's what you get for watching that damn movie over and over again…"
"It wasn't StarWars. It was some TV show, Star…something, StarGone, StarGuide…"
"Stargate? That's Charlie's favorite show. He loves it. He always says the hero reminds him of you," Sara slid back down to lie next to me, convinced now that I wasn't having a coronary.
I finally fell asleep again.
And dreamed.
This one was worse than the last.
A single gunshot...
Sara screaming...
Racing up the stairs...
Charlie lying on the floor, in a pool of blood...
Charlie's body, in a hospital bed, white and deathly still…
Charlie's body, in a white coffin, being lowered into the cold ground…
I gasped, awakening with a shudder, a feeling of pure dread clutching my heart.
Shit, maybe I really was having a heart attack. That's how it felt. There was a pain centered so deep in my chest, so all pervading, that I *wanted* to curl right up and die…
Charlie...
Throwing the covers back I jumped out of the bed. In three long strides I was out of the bedroom, all but running down the hallway to his door, looking in.
Moonlight poured across his bed, illuminating the reassuring sight of my child sleeping there.
Sleeping.
I could see his chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm, undisturbed, with that peaceful innocence only a child could know.
I swept a trembling hand across my face trying to wipe away that image from the dream, of this room and this boy and the blood, oh God, so much blood.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand touched my arm.
"Jack?" Sara sounded scared now too.
Once again, I scrubbed a hand across my eyes, reassuring myself that *this* was real, my son safe in his bed and my wife there beside me.
All was as it should be.
I shuddered, unable to let go of that nightmare. Turning to Sara, I wrapped my arms around her, needing the reassuring feel of her against my chest, the comforting warmth of her embrace.
"Jack?" Sara's eyes were wide. "You're scaring me."
"I'm okay. Just another… bad… dream."
"Come back to bed."
Looking in once more at Charlie's peaceful face, I turned and walked with her back to our bed. I settled down on my back and she cuddled in under my arm, against my chest, embracing me as much as I was embracing her.
I felt her relax and fall back to sleep.
But I couldn't.
Those dreams, they'd been so vivid, bright technicolor images complete with sounds and smells. I’d never had dreams so real, almost like visions, like premonitions. Or memories.
I couldn't sleep, couldn't let go, something was there, nagging insistently at the back of my brain.
The gunshot.
Charlie.
Sliding out from under Sara's arms, I walked over to the dresser and discovered the upper right hand drawer was unlocked, the one that was *never* supposed to be unlocked, the one where I kept my gun. I locked it, and with a sudden sense of relief, went back to bed, to sleep peacefully and well this time…
<<In that instant, one whole set of possible futures winked out of existence, replaced by another.
<<Far across the galaxy, a small gray alien with huge, oval eyes nodded in satisfaction, as a promise to a friend was fulfilled.
<<And yet, that which is supposed to be, is.
<<Three months later, the night of bad dreams long forgotten, Colonel Jack O’Neill was offered and accepted a new position, one that would allow him to stay at home in Colorado with his family until his retirement came through in a year. It meant working for General West, but it was only a few months, he assured himself.
<<The few months came and went, as did West. Jack didn't retire then either, however, because his best friend, Major Charles Kawalsky, had gone on a mission and never returned…
<<A mission he could never tell Kawalsky’s family about, or discuss with Sara. There was this young scholar, and a woman scientist, together they'd figured out how to use this big, round ring-like thingy with a liquid center… the same thing he'd seen in his dream, the same people he'd seen in his dream. And on one of those alien worlds, he met the glowing eyed alien, and the ebony skinned man with the gold tattoo...
<<Jack O’Neill didn't believe in coincidences, but he didn't believe in dreams, either.
<<And yet…
(((((FINI)))))
Disclaimer:
Author’s Note: Thanks to SS for the beta.
© June 2004 Stargate is owned by all kinds of important folks that don’t include me; I’m just borrowing the characters, and will return them; This story, however, is mine, and may not be posted without my consent.