Author Notes: This is the prologue of my new story about the three awesome shows Journeyman, Grey's Anatomy and Rome, inspired by the big birthday yesterday. Feel free to share your opinions, thought and suggestions in the reviews!

The room was black, pitch-black – though he wasn't sure if it was a room. It was more like space. It was endless, limitless, completely black and most certainly not real. But if it wasn't real, how come he was there? Or was he? He couldn't feel a thing, he couldn't hear a thing. There was nothing to feel or to hear. The only thing that was there was his mind. He could think – did that mean that he existed?

Before he had the time to start pondering this question, something emerged from the solid darkness. It was far away (or at least so it seemed; it was difficult to figure distances in a place that had no real dimensions) but he could tell that it was a human figure. A woman dressed in a red dress. As he focused his attention to the woman, she slowly turned around, revealing her face.

"Dan", Livia said and her voice echoed in the weird space. She was looking at him, her expression totally blank. Her eyes were lifeless, as if she had been under some sort of hypnosis.

"Livia?" It had been a thought but it came out loud like a spoken word.

"Dan", Livia said with a monotonous voice. "You have to save us."

"What?" He was pretty sure that if he had had a body in that weird place, he would've felt chills going down his spine. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"He's after us", she stated, her voice suddenly desperate. "He wants to get to him through us. He wants to stop him from existing."

"What are you talking about? Who's after us? Who is he trying to get to?"

Livia looked him in the eye. "To Zack."

Suddenly the scene started to fade away. Livia began to flutter like a mirage and disappeared to the shadows, her voice becoming nothing more than whispers in the wind.

"Livia!"

"Dan…"

"Dan?"

"Dan…"

"Dan? Dan!"

He woke up, light and forms flooding his eyes. No blackness. No Livia. Just the four walls of his bedroom and Katie, who was smiling at his bedside. "What?" he asked, a bit confused.

"I was starting to wonder if you were going to wake up at all today", his wife said. "I know it's your day-off but it's almost ten."

"Aha." Dan sat up, his eyes wondering around the room. Katie frowned. "Everything okay?"

"Yea. I just… had a nightmare."

Katie smiled. "That's what you get from oversleeping. I've got breakfast ready."

"Thanks, I'll be down in a few."

Katie left the room. Dan stared into space, thinking about the dream. He rarely had nightmares, and this hadn't felt like a typical dream. It had felt… strange. Not quite real, but not like a dream, either. Many strange and paranormal things had happened to him in the past six months, but never had he experienced anything similar to this. He remembered the phantomlike apparition of Livia, speaking to him with a cold, dead voice. You have to save us. He wants to get to him through us. To Zack.

With a strange, ominous feeling in his gut, Dan got up and headed to the shower.

When he came to the kitchen, Katie was busy baking. "There's coffee in the maker and pancakes on the table. You might want to warm them up a little. Leave some coffee to Jack and Theresa; they're bringing Zack home soon."

"Thanks", Dan said and took a cup from the cupboard. "What are you baking?"

"Brownies for Zack's birthday."

Dan turned to look at his wife. "Didn't you already make some sort of pastries yesterday?"

"Those were cupcakes", Katie replied without raising her eyes from the cookbook.

"Same difference", Dan said, then put his hands around her waist and gently pulled her closer. "The birthday's still a week away. Relax a little bit."

Katie chuckled and though Dan couldn't see her face, he was sure that she was rolling her eyes. "You know I can't relax. In a week this house is going to be full of hungry kids, they need a lot to eat and I have to do everything myself."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do. Theresa's got so much going on in her own life, you can't help because of your journeys, Jack's horrible in the kitchen and Zack's currently so excited that he'd do more harm than good if he helped. So yea, I'm pretty much on my own."

"Well, I'm here now", Dan tried. Katie turned around and gave him a sugared smile. She wore a white apron and had brownie dough on her cheek. "Honey, last week you tried to make oatmeal and you travelled, leaving the pot on the stove. By the time I got to the kitchen the oatmeal was burned, black and stuck to the pot. So no, I don't trust you around my brownies." She leaned forward and gave him a kiss. "But thanks for the offer."

Dan smiled. He was happy that the problems – both those in their relationship and those in their family – had finally gone away. At last, things were normal again – or at least as normal as they could be considering the fact that he was now a time traveler. Though things could never return to normal, to the way they were before his traveling begun, this was pretty close. Things had truly taken a turn for the better after his traveling stopped being a secret. With that, Jack had stopped interfering with their private life, giving Dan, Katie and Zack the peace they needed. Of course there were still people who didn't know about the traveling – Theresa, Dan and Jack's mother Barbara, Katie's sister Annette, Hugh – but after Zack and Jack had found out, the constant pressure of lying had been lifted, easing the burden that Katie bore. She finally seemed to be okay with her husband's vanishing act. No doubt, this was partially caused by the news of Livia getting married in the past.

Thinking about Livia made Dan remember his dream, and his expression darkened. He hadn't seen her in quite a while now, not since they had worked with the time traveler Evan Pattison. She had mentioned that they'd probably see each other less and less from that moment on, but he hadn't expected her to vanish completely. And though she had crossed his mind every now and then, he hadn't really even thought of her that much – until now.

"Dan? Earth to Dan Vasser!"

He snapped out of his thoughts. Katie was looking at him with her brows furrowed. "Dan, what's going on?"

He shook his head. "It's nothing. It's…" He was interrupted by the creaking of the front door as it flung open as Zack entered the house, followed by Jack and Theresa. "Mom!" he shouted and ran across the hallway to the kitchen, beaming with enthusiasm.

"Hey, honey", Katie greeted him as he gave her a hug. "Did you have fun with uncle Jack and aunt Theresa?"

"Yea! We played Monopoly and I won, and then uncle Jack showed me his badge", the boy narrated before looking at his father. "Hi dad, you're home!"

"Of course I'm home, buddy", Dan said with a smile and ruffled his son's hair. "Did uncle Jack lose and throw the board across the room?"

"He lost", Zack stated, like it had been a foregone conclusion, "but he didn't throw the board. He said he lost on purpose so that I wouldn't feel bad."

"I did lose on purpose", Jack exclaimed as he entered the kitchen, carrying Zack's sleepover-bag. Next to him, Theresa was smiling and rolling her eyes. She looked extremely happy, resting one hand on top of her small baby bump. "Why can't you just admit that you're terrible at Monopoly?"

"Because I'm not", Jack said.

"It's not just Monopoly", Dan said. "It's also Trivial Pursuit, Cluedo, Scrabble, any board game. Right, Zack?"

"Right", Zack said and high-fived his father.

"Oh come on, Zack", Jack exclaimed. "At least I have a badge you can play with."

"Okay, let's move on before you two start bickering about who he likes more", Katie said with a laugh. "Zack, go unpack your sleepover-bag. Jack, Theresa, there's coffee in the maker if you'd like."

"No thanks, we need to get going", Theresa said. "We're having an ultrasound today."

"Aw, that's so sweet. I remember how exciting the ultra was."

"What's an ultrasound?" Zack asked as he took the sleepover-bag from his uncle. The adults looked at each other, their expression saying: Well, who wants to do the explaining on this one?

The warm San Francisco sun felt good on Dan's face as he relaxed on the deckchair on the revised patio. After he had dug up the patio six months ago, he and Katie had decided to replace the old brick tiles with new stone tiles. They had, however, left a little hole in the tiling as a reminder of that night. It was hidden under the table, but it was there.

I'll always come home. Dan remembered saying those words on that night like it had been yesterday. And since then he had made sure that he stayed true to his word. He wouldn't allow anything to separate him from his family. Not an earthquake, not a bunch of fanatics with guns, not falling from a scarp, not even a bomb was going to keep him away from his family. He had promised to always return, and he was going to keep that promise.

He's after us.

No, he thought. It had been just a nightmare. A meaningless dream. Livia's job had been helping him get started, mentoring him and teaching him the ways of the time travelers, which had been the reason she had accompanied him in his journeys. Now that he knew all the tricks and rules of the traveling, her guidance was no longer needed. She had been his teacher and he had graduated, and she was now probably doing her own job somewhere. There was no reason to worry. She was safe, Zack was safe, they were all safe.

With that thought as comfort, Dan could feel himself dozing off. His thoughts sank, hovering just above that sea that was sleep, almost touching the still surface of the water. He held his breath, relaxed and prepared to dunk his head to the water, when suddenly the surface of the water started to ripple. He realized that the ripples were caused by the pain he felt in his head. The headache made the still surface of the water billow, and before Dan could even open his eyes, a flash of blue light pierced his shut eyelids and the world fell into nothingness.

When he came to, the first thing he felt was the immense heat that torched the back of his neck like a flame. He opened his eyes and was greeted by a sight of pure desolation: nothing more than sand and the blue sky without a single cloud. As he lifted his head, he could feel the ground burning his arms, legs and body. He looked down and saw that he was lying on burning-hot desert sand, heated by the blistering sun. A desert, he realized as he got up.

What the hell am I supposed to do here? he though. He didn't even know where he was. What was this desert? Death Valley? Sonoran Desert? Kalahari? Sahara? What was he doing in a desert? There were no people anywhere to be seen. Whose life could he possibly alter in the middle of nowhere in circumstances that were close to what hell must've been like?

As he looked around in the burning heat, he suddenly heard noise coming from the other side of a dune behind him. To his surprise he realized that the noise was human talk. Curious, he walked around the dune and peaked over a thorny bush that grew on the side of the dune. What he saw was a plain surrounded by tall rocks and boulders, covered by sand-colored tents. On the side of the tent camp, just five meters away from Dan's hiding place, a group of people were playing soccer in the shadow of the dune. They were all wearing beige t-shirts and sandy camouflage pants and they all wore dog tags around their necks. Dan watched as one of the players, a tall woman who had her blond hair on a ponytail, dodged another player, a big black guy, and scored a goal. This caused the group to burst into exclamations of victory and defeat, and the blonde who had scored the goal ran to one of her teammates, who then gave her a piggyback ride around the field. As they passed the dune, Dan got a clear view of the man carrying the blonde woman and as he saw his face, his jaw dropped.

The man was him. He had red hair instead of blond, a scruffy beard, and he appeared rugged and more muscular than Dan, but still without a doubt, the man was him. He had the same eyes, the same features – he even had the same scar between his eyebrows. Dan couldn't understand how, but this man was like another version of him. This man wasn't someone like him, like an identical twin. This man was him.

Many strange and paranormal things had happened to him in the past six months, but never had he experienced anything similar to this.