A/N: So when I moved my LJ over to DW I discovered some I-Man shorts I only vaguely recall writing and decided, after a little cleanup, to post them. This one takes place several years after the end of Multiple Choice.

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Sweet Dreams

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Ben stared at the ceiling in the darkened bedroom. Beside him his wife, Bethany, continued to sleep, undisturbed by his wakefulness, which he remained thankful of. He had been dreaming of his mom again; the same damn dream for two weeks straight.

Not that dreaming of her hadn't been normal, but it had been maybe once or twice a month and always some memory varying from childhood to adult, never anything new. And these dreams were most certainly new. The details burned in his mind for hours after waking in the morning. The weirdest part? The dream always ended with her saying wake up and him always doing so to stare at his ceiling for several long minutes before attempting to go back to sleep.

Tonight felt different and while he really wanted to go back to sleep, as he had an early day coming, he instead slid out from under the covers to stand on the cool stone floor. He ran his hands through his hair making it stand up awkwardly.

Intending to head to the kitchen for a drink in hopes of settling the odd sensation churning in his gut, he saw lights in the living room and, wondering what he had left on, made his way there instead. He stopped dead mere steps into the room; a holographic image of his mother standing before him a smile on her lips.

*You are a pain in the ass to contact. Why haven't you been keeping in practice?*

Ben twitched and responded without thinking about the words first. "Because I don't really need it in my job."

She huffed at him. *Not a good enough excuse,* she informed him with a shake of her head. *You have someone who is going to need some serious training sooner rather than later.*

Ben closed his eyes and rubbed his face in his hands, stubble scratchy against his palms. "This has got to be the weirdest dream ever."

*Benny, this is the furthest thing from a dream,* she told him.

His eyes snapped open and he stared at her shaking his head. "It has to be."

*No, it doesn't.*

He sighed heavily. "Mom, you're dead and I miss you. Of course, it's a dream. My mind combining what I know about you with what I wish to hear."

*Then why a holographic projection? Why not me real and solid?*

"How about because I know what became of your body? I have part of you I wear on a chain," he explained; that small bit of ash all he physically had of his mother's body. For the first year, he hadn't even looked at it. The two years after he'd worn it non-stop.

*Yes, and you only stopped wearing it when Michele kept trying to stuff it in her mouth.*

He started for a second, wanting to believe, then his far more rational side kicked in. "Which you would know because I do. Crap, I need sleep."

*Ben, I'm sorry, but this can't wait.*

"It'll have to since this isn't real."

*Not real,* she chided. *This doesn't get much more real.* And with that, every loose item in the room lifted into the air and floated towards him. None touched him, but they swirled about him, twisting and undulating in a pattern that felt oddly familiar to him. He shook it off then reached out to grab the small sculpture that drifted past. A small model of the statue he'd created and erected in her honor. This had been a rough copy, the final so much more realistic, but he'd kept every version, shared them with his siblings so that all of them would remember. *I may not be alive in the conventional sense of the word, but this is real,* she assured him.

The items stopped moving and returned to their places, except the one he still held, hand wrapping tightly about the base. "I can't do this," he whispered.

*Can't do what?*

"Lose you again."

*You won't. Hell, you never have.* She shook her head at him. *You have always felt me. You more than any of your siblings, for which I am sorry.*

He wanted to turn away, wanted to wake up to the obnoxious buzzing of his alarm and have this be nothing more than yet another strange dream.

But part of him also, desperately wanted this to be real. "This isn't real," he repeated.

*Let me prove it is.*

"How?" he asked, tone snide. "Any secret between the two of us would be useless in this situation."

*That's why it'll be something only I could know.* Her image stepped towards him, beyond the normal range of the holographic projector, right hand reaching up to set imaginary fingers against his temple. A tingle of electricity against his skin and instantly the room vanished and he found himself elsewhere. A place he had tried to forget as it had been the beginning of the end for her.

He grasped at his head, fingernails digging into the skin near his temples in a vain effort to get at the all-consuming pain in his mind. Another mind sifting through his, pouring over every moment of his existence in minute detail until another voice intruded.

*You're killing her, stop please.*

But it had been his voice he heard, young and wavering, echoing through the other's mind and into his... hers.

Ben froze, the one in the here and now, as he realized what precisely he currently experienced... and in that instant, he believed.

"Mom?" he asked over the excruciating pain in his mind.

The images cut off instantly. *Yes.*

"You're really here?"

She nodded apparently understanding that this was a difficult moment for him.

"How did this happen?" he questioned of the universe as much as her, stumbling over to the nearest chair and all but collapsed into it.

She shrugged. *Wasn't planned, that's for certain. My system, my weird adaptive system found a way. My body could not be saved, too much damage, but me, my mind? How many computers was I hooked up to at the end? And all of them connected to the Agency's systems. I found a way.*

Ben's mind whirled as the implication of her words rattled about in his brain. "You escaped into the computer systems."

*So it would appear. Took me a while to realize what had happened and by the time I did you all had moved on, much as you could anyway.* She paced away from him. *I thought it would hurt more if you saw me than just watching from afar, but this can't wait. She's about to come into her full powers and if they find her…* She shook I head. *Then I died for nothing.*

Ben felt confused. "She? Who are you talking about?"

*They are always twins,* she stated as if she had a thousand time before. *The boy in China, he has a sister and she is just as powerful, if not more so.*

Ben rubbed his face in his hands. "Dad showed me that video after your memorial service, but he never mentioned that... that mission again."

*Because by the time he was ready to start looking Bethany was pregnant and he would not take you away from her for any reason.*

"So he did nothing." Ben did not sound thrilled with that but could understand; family had become so very important to his father. Alyx had given him one and shown him that one did anything for family, including die.

*Not nothing. He's been tracking her for years, but did not want to pull you from your family, from the life you had made away from the Agency, and spies and saving the world. He did not want to drag you back into that without a damn good reason.*

"He protected me," Ben realized quickly.

*Of course he did. You had gotten out, made a wonderful life for yourself, the last thing he wanted to do was ruin it.*

Ben shook his head. Appreciating all his father had gone through to allow Ben and his family some peace in this changed world. "He's family too." He got up and began pacing the room, brushing past the hologram, past his mother, whom he could practically feel as he passed. And he knew that feeling, though not as strong. She was right, she had been here all along, a hum in the back of his mind, not intrusive, but there, offering comfort when needed, being his strength when he thought he had no more to give, offering insight when he could see no clear path. He stopped and spun about to look at her. "I've missed you, mom."

*I know. But I'm here now and won't leave unless you want me to.*

"How much time do we have to find her?"

*Months at most. First, you have to convince your father it is time.*

"I'll need a pretense."

*You'll have it,* she assured him.

"And you, will you be coming along?" He did not think they could pull this off without her.

She nodded. *But Darien cannot know it's me. It would be too hard for him.*

Ben shook his head. "He misses you, more than I do."

*I know, but he's too fragile. He'll think he went over the edge into madness. No, he will not know I'm there.*

"And how are we going to manage that?" Ben questioned, not very thrilled with lying to his father, no matter how necessary it might be.

"I'll be the fancy AI in your handheld that should arrive later today. A present from your cousin Jason."

Ben sighed, running a hand through his hair. "He'll recognize your voice."

*No, he won't,* she assured him, sounding completely different, sounding far more like the typical interface. *You'll have all my expertise and skills, plus anything you want from the web at your disposal.*

"Including your gifts?" She nodded. "Mom, I think you might be more dangerous now than you were when alive."

She laughed, sounding real and happy and loved.

"I wish I could hug you right now."

Her happiness faded a bit. *Me too. Now get some sleep, you have a very busy day ahead of you tomorrow.*

The light went out, the hologram disappearing, but he could still feel her in the air about him and in his mind and heart. She would never leave until he wanted her to, he knew that, she had promised that many times in her life and even when her body had no longer been able to sustain her, she had survived and been there the only way she knew how.

He'd told little Michelle many a time that she had a guardian angel watching over her, and now he knew he had not been lying, his mother, his child's namesake had been there for her since before she'd even been born.

"Thanks, mom."

finis