AN: Hello again! You all get another chapter on the same day! Yay! I figured it would be kinder to post another chapter after that ambiguous prologue. Again, reviews are appreciated! If you see grammar or spelling mistakes, let me know. I edit after I type but sometimes I miss things.

Disclaimer: I own nada...

Chapter 1

'God, why do I submit myself to this torture every day!' I think as I jog closer to my destination. It's about 6 in the morning, well closer to 7 and I am jogging to the local park so I can meet up with my mate and have our morning jog/bitch/talk session about anyone and everything. As much as I hate running, he insists that I need to keep up my stamina for the day that another alien race comes and ruins Christmas (or maybe Valentine's Day, we like to joke… well wish, is more accurate) and I need to be able to run for the hills and make it there in under an hour. Why he thinks I need to make it there in under an hour, I don't know. 'As if I could run through London and make it to the outskirts in under an hour anyway! That's completely ludicrous!'

As much as I do hate running, I love London this early in the morning. There are very few people about, and this time of the year the sun has only just begun to rise. Even though it is getting colder every day, the sunrise makes the early hour completely worth it. Seeing the orange-red-pink sky reflect off the tall buildings is simply fantastic. And watching the sky slowly turn rose-pink to finally that forget-me-not blue is absolutely breath-taking. If only I could actually see the sun. That would make the picture even better.

I look off at Big Ben, newly rebuilt from the alien ship that crashed into it a few years ago and notice it is five minutes to 7. The city is just beginning to wake up and if I don't put on a burst of speed, I am going to be late. I don't like being late for one simple reason: my mate bitches more than a girl does when someone is late. And I just love hearing it.

Note the sarcasm.

With my added speed, I make it to the park with just under a minute to spare. I see him lounging in the grass staring up at the sky some distance away, looking gorgeous as usual. Brown hair that's long enough to hang in his face, blue eyes to match the sky, and one nice athletic physique. Oh, and when he smiles… I melt. Unfortunately for me, he is off the market with a wonderful guy that I love to death and would rather die than hurt him. Then again, I feel the same about Jeffrey, so it just makes for very good times.

As I run up to him I trip over a slightly elevated mound of earth and fall flat on my face right next to him. Oh, yeah, I'm graceful. (Again, note the sarcasm. In all honesty, I'm surprised I haven't killed myself yet.) I groan into the dirt as Jeffrey bursts out laughing, no doubt clutching his sides and rolling around for added effect.

"Oiy! Stop laughing! It's not funny!" I yell out, sitting up in the process. The one good thing about landing in the grass is that I don't have to worry about skinned body parts. I do rub my nose a little though. Hey, I have to add on the sympathy somehow.

He sees right through me and continues laughing. Now he's pointing at me while laughing. That's it, this means war. I jump onto him straddling his stomach and start tickling his sides. He starts to screech like a girl and twist and turn underneath me trying to get away. Tickle torture is the best way to win any fight.

"Okay! Okay! Uncle! Mercy! Anything! Just stop!" he yells, finally giving in after a couple minutes. I'm impressed he lasted as long as he did. I stop the tickle torture and climb off him to let him catch his breath.

"You think you would learn by now," I say, looking down at him. "I win every time."

"I really should not have told you I was ticklish," he pants. "It leads to bad things."

I laugh and sit down next to him while he continues to lay there. It's moments like these that keep me coming to this silly jogging session every morning. Although, with this fabulous start, I'm not entirely sure we are going to get to the jogging. Not that I mind.

"It's usually a good idea to keep your weaknesses to yourself and not give them away so readily, Mr. Whitmore. Especially to your enemies."

"I wasn't aware at the time that you would become my enemy, Ms. O'Shea. After all, I was ten and at that age you were the perfect image of a quiet young lady. Now look what happened to you!" he says, waving his arms about my person.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" I say indignantly while sticking my tongue out at him.

"You went barmy," he whispers, then shoots up and runs away from me as fast as he could. Good thing he did, because if he had stayed he would be getting a new bruise on his arm for that one.

"You better run! Because when I get ahold of you, you're dead!"

We chase each other around the park for about an hour without stopping, him taunting me about being faster and me threatening bodily harm if I ever catch him. We finally collapse back where we started once we made a couple laps of the grounds, panting hard. I am too tired to actually follow through with my threats. Oh well, there are other times I could do that. With help and the compelling power of surprise on my side.

"So, have you had any more dreams recently?" he asks after we get a chance to catch our breath.

"Yeah, actually. I had a really odd one last night." I sit up to better be able to look him in the eye. "There really wasn't much going on. Actually there was nothing going on. There were no people around me or anything. Just the scenery."

He looks at me for a moment. "That's not normal. Usually you're dreams have people in them."

"Trust me, I know. That's probably why I am so unnerved by it. But there is something else." I pause to collect my thoughts. He leans in closer, as if his very proximity will allow me to spill all my secrets. Well, sometimes it has. "The scenery… it wasn't like anything I have ever seen before."

"What do you mean?"

"It didn't look like any place I've ever seen on Earth."

He looks at me with growing puzzlement. "What did it look like?"

"Well, for one, the sky was orange."

"Orange? Like sunset orange?"

"No, like a dark pumpkin-like orange. And not like when the sun is setting so the sky looks orange momentarily. Orange as in that was the color of the sky. The sun was directly above me, and there was another sun rising above a mountain range in the distance. It was absolutely gorgeous! But that's not all. The meadow I was sitting in had red grass. Can you believe it? Red grass! And the trees were silver, glinting every time the wind moved them. That was all I could really see of the place, but it was so beautiful!"

I must look like a complete and utter nerd at this point, talking about a place that doesn't exist anywhere near London. I'm pretty sure I have an amazed look on my face as I stare up at our mundane blue sky, thinking of the orange one I had only visited last night.

"Sounds beautiful," Jeffrey whispers, staring at me. "But, Lily, are sure this was a dream-dream, or was it just a normal dream? You can have those sometimes too, you know." He pokes me in my side, making me jump a little.

I think about it for a moment before I respond. "In all honesty, Jeff, I've no idea. I've been asking myself the same question since I woke up."

"Weeeellllll," he drawls out, "what is your gut telling you? Your gut is never wrong."

"When it comes to this? Absolutely nothing." I sigh. Usually when I have a dream, I get a feeling with it, a strong sense that what I just dreamed was real or not real. I've come to depend on that. However, the hunch that I have come to rely on just isn't there. I don't know what to make of that yet. "But there is one thing I do know," I say cheekily, looking at him sideways.

"Oh? And what is that, pray tell."

"Something is coming."

"What something?" he ask, slightly panicky. I can't blame him. The last time I said something was coming, London got invaded by a giant, killer, lightening-throwing death star.

"Oh, I don't know. But whatever it is, it's not a bad thing, not entirely at least."

AN2: So, while I was going through and editing this, I noticed that I have three references to past characters on the show in one of the paragraphs. I didn't even notice I did that. And can you guess what the references are and who they are alluding to?