Chapter seven
The cool night air brushed her face as she looked up at the sky; she sighed and tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear restlessly. She did this a lot, just sat on the windowsill and stared upwards for hours on end; of course, since she'd found out what went bump in the night the activity had become less popular to her.
The redheaded teenager jumped suddenly as she heard a car door slam breaking the silence for a moment, she looked down and saw a cat padding across the sidewalk; she brought her jean-clad knees to her chest and hugged them as she resumed her staring.
When she'd looked up at the sky a month ago she'd seen- well, just a sky that was so polluted no stars were ever seen, but now; she saw something completely different. She saw another threat to the world, another fight, another war; the scariest thing was that she knew there was a huge fight going on beyond everyone's sight but she couldn't DO anything about it- she couldn't help fight it and she didn't know when the world was going to end next. She knew that saving the world against the supernatural meant nothing if the Goa'uld landed on Earth and started an invasion or a meteorite ended up smashing them all to Hell.
She was half glad that she wasn't alone in her worrying, glad that she wasn't the only one who knew how much shit they were all in; she wasn't the only one that had gotten the extremely-unwanted memories from Halloween night.
"Will?" she turned and saw her best friend of thirteen years looking back at her with slightly darkened eyes, she swallowed the lump that came into her throat; the dark-haired buddy had gotten the worst of the memories, if you didn't consider Jolinar. He had told her that he remembered the life of the soldier that he'd been possessed by, a soldier called Jack O'Neill, leader of SG1, the cynical, sarcastic, stubborn guy who'd lost a lot of loved ones.
"Still can't sleep, Xan?" she asked him already knowing the answer. They'd gotten closer in the last month after what had happened; they talked a lot and knew what the other was going through. The memories of two Black Ops soldiers, soldiers that had killed people, granted not in cold blood, but nonetheless had slaughtered human beings; they remembered their loved ones dying.
Her mom- no, SAM'S mom not hers; she remembered the look on her- Sam's- dad's face just before he said the words that broke her- Sam's- heart into a millions little pieces, the words that told her she'd never speak or laugh with her- Sam's- mom ever again.
Xander remembered Jack's worst memory; the sound of a gun going off, the sounds of Sara's screaming, the dread and pain restricting his breathing and tearing at his heart, the sight of his son- no Jack's son lying on his side as still as a statue, blood streaming down his pale- almost lifeless face. The gun still in his small limp hand; he remembered yelling at Sara to call an ambulance, remembered turning back to his boy and trying carefully to stop the flow of blood.
And that's when Xander had to try as hard as he could to stop the memories, to push them away and the emotions away with it.
"Xander?" the teenager jumped and blinked back tears, dammit! He'd remembered again, it was bad enough that his dreams wouldn't let him forget; now he remembered them when he was awake. And he'd just zoned out, swell.
"Sorry, Willow," he muttered looking at her concerned face. She gave him a knowing look, he could never hide anything from her- especially now. They needed each other; they understood what the other was going through because they were going through it themselves. They hadn't wanted to tell the others, there was no point. All it would do would burden them with the knowledge that what they were doing to keep their world safe may not be enough. Then there was the other horrifying thought of the demon community finding out about the SGC, would the demons attack the complex? It was best not to think about it, it was best for everyone if they kept that information to themselves.
Hence, the closeness.
Willow smiled at him, "S'okay, Xand," she turned back to the sky and looked up thoughtfully. "I wonder what they're doing now."
Maybe SG1 was saving the world or another Planet that wasn't in their known Universe, maybe they were now stepping through the Stargate back home to Earth after exploring either a Goa'uld-infested world, or a world inhabited by Earth-descendants or beings without any human physiology at all.
Willow wished she knew, they both did.
Jack O'Neill jerked awake and looked around his bedroom feeling disoriented, he was breathing hard and tried to make the echoes of his bad dream go away, he sighed and ripped the covers off him before throwing his legs over the side of his bed. He stood up and paced around the room for a few minutes, he knew that he wouldn't sleep after that dream; neither his thoughts nor his dreams let him rest.
He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep since the Replicators' attempted invasion, but it wasn't because of the bugs or that they had almost been killed.
No, he couldn't sleep because he couldn't stop thinking about those children, the little redheaded Carter Junior and the goofy boy who made jokes, the same kids who were fighting those, um…demons. Christ, if Hammond could read his mind at the moment he knew that he would be sent to Dr. MacKenzie to have his head examined! Then the inevitable white padded cell with the side-order of straitjacket.
Sweet.
He could hardly believe what his mind and memories were telling him; he had the memories of a dark-haired boy with crappy parents who met a sweet little redheaded girl who was four years old in the first day of Kindergarten; the girl that was deep and caring despite the cold, neglective and distant parents that she was burdened with. He could remember playing with the same girl in first grade in the playground, he could remember pushing down a pretty but cold little brunette child called Cordelia after she shoved the boy's friend to the ground.
He remembered the boy's angry drunken father yelling at him after he accidentally smashed a plate, he was seven at the time and had ran out of the house to Wil…Willow's house to get away from him. He remembered the feeling of safety...well, the boy's safety of sleeping over at Willow's house and not having to worry about his parent's yelling and the fights they had with each other.
But where did those memories come from? That was what he'd asked himself after he woke up with the memories a month earlier, he had been asleep as normal dreaming of Teal'c asking him for dance lessons and of Daniel coming out of the bathroom complaining about the Tok'ra's lack of ability in Baseball, then the dream had changed completely into…well, he wasn't sure if he was dreaming or not but he'd been surrounded by demons and people that he didn't know. Then there was the whole fiasco of some guy called Giles and another guy called Ethan and then there was the vampire guy who looked like a Billy Idol wannabe.
After he'd remembered that Carter had been in the dream he'd gone to her as soon as he could and asked her, of course just in case he was the only one in on it he had been vague but the blonde had caught on almost immediately.
Carter, he had discovered, had been working on a project - big surprise there – and had fallen asleep for no reason. She had been sitting at her desk, in her lab, wide awake and eagerly looking over some of her notes when everything had gone black. That was when she'd seen those creepy demon dudes running around before she'd caught up with him. Carter had told him what happened and they came to the obvious conclusion that they'd been in the same dream…if it was a dream.
After the dream had ended she had had her head in her arms which were on the desk; she just looked to anyone else as if she had just woken up from a weird dream after working too hard.
They had gone over to his place the next day and had talked about what happened and what they remembered, she of course had been skeptical of what had just happened and had thought that they both might have been infected with a virus, it wouldn't have been the first time. She had suggested going to see Janet and getting checked over just in case.
Jack had grudgingly agreed but only because they wouldn't divulge any information about the reason of their concerns. The results were clear; they were not infected by anything as far as the doc could say. But Jack had already known that they weren't infected by anything, they went back to Sam's lab afterwards and had talked for a long time.
They knew about another threat to the planet, a threat that was being fought by children in a small, seemingly peaceful town of Sunnydale which was situated in California. Sam had grabbed a laptop and looked at any information on Sunnydale, while she was doing that he had thought about telling Daniel and Teal'c about what happened.
After a little thinking he had decided to tell them, then he'd thought of telling Hammond; but he had backed away from that idea. It wasn't that he couldn't trust the guy because he knew he could but he wanted to keep it quiet for a while until they all got their heads around the information.
He'd tell Hammond eventually, he doubted that the General would call the President though, but he couldn't be sure. He didn't want Kinsey and his NID goons going after the kids; he didn't want them messing around in the supernatural business either. The military and supernatural were a bad mix, but the military, supernatural, politicians AND the NID would be…well, the shit would keep hitting the fan for eternity and beyond.
Carter had found a lot of information on Sunnydale, a lot of very odd information. Wild dogs eating the High school Principle, the constant disappearances of the Sunnydale population, the massacres of several students in late 1997; the dead kids were found by Willow Rosenberg and Cordelia Chase. Then there was the fact that the town had the most Cemeteries in it, the town was tiny but it had more Cemeteries in it than other places that were ten times bigger and more populated.
There was definitely something strange going on in that town- and they knew what it was.
Jack looked at his door silently and then walked to it and walked out of his bedroom and down the stairs, he walked through the lounge and then into the kitchen; he went to the sink after rubbing the sleep from his eyes and then grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the tap. After gulping down the contents of the glass he leant against the counter and wondered what those kids were doing.
He growled, those kids shouldn't have to risk their lives like that, not like…soldiers. Why did the kids choose to fight? They should be worrying about their school grades and dating not when the world was going to end for crying out loud!
Jack wondered, not for the first time, if the memories went both ways. Would the kids have their memories? God, he hoped not. He wouldn't wish his memories on anyone- well, maybe the Goa'uld or Kinsey.
A sick feeling grew in him, the redheaded girl had Carter's memories; if she had the blonde's memories than that meant that she had the memories of Jolinar and the Goa'uld. Carter hadn't been able to handle a lot of the memories, how would a teenage girl handle them?
He put his glass on the counter and rubbed his face with his hands, he could feel a headache coming right behind his eyes, he had a bad feeling and it wasn't the headache.
He had a feeling that this would all blow up in their faces. The kids' included.
