The waves crashed against the beaches, causing the hundreds there to run in a panic from the angry storm.
"This way!" She yelled, trying to lead the group to safety.
"It's no use!" The Asian man beside her cried over the storm in his native tongue. "They'll never make it!"
"We have to try!" She yelled as her long, brown curly hair flipped into her face with the turbulent wind, undisturbed by the fact that she'd just understood the foreign tongue.
A sudden mass of screams erupted from behind her. She turned to find a large tidal wave rising itself before it crashed on the sands, killing all that stood in its path. "Please…no…" She whispered as she stared at it in horror.
Grace gasped as she awoke, having experienced the icy hand of suffocation for even a fraction of a second too long. She turned on the light and blinked rapidly in an effort to wake herself from the nightmare that had plagued her.
Sitting up, she tossed her legs over the side of the bed and slipped into a pair of warm slippers as she slipped her heavy robe on over her shoulders.
The nightmares were changing, she realized with a small sigh. She wasn't just seeing the world's disasters, she was experiencing them like they were a part of her own past. They weren't her past, she reminded herself. They were someone else's future.
She'd learned after so many nightmares that it was useless for her to try to go back to sleep immediately afterward. They always haunted her dreams until she awoke in the morning, groggy from a night of tossing and turning. If she was lucky, she'd fall into a dreamless sleep somewhere around four, and her mother, retired Brigadier General Samantha Carter, now an applied science professor at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs and a science consultant with the Stargate Program, would wake her up for school around six.
She padded softly into the kitchen, surprised to find a light on in the dining room.
"Who's there?" She whispered, poking her head around the corner.
Her mother looked up from where she sat at her laptop, her reading glasses dangling from her fingers as she sucked on one end of the plastic frames. "Grace, honey, what are you doing up so early?" She asked, genuinely surprised.
"Couldn't sleep." Grace said with a groan. "What about you?"
"Me either." She said with an ironic smile. "I'm working on some upgrades for the particle beam generator I began modifying a few months ago. So far…I'm at a dead end."
"You'll figure it out, Mom." She said, shrugging as she sat down across from her. "You always do."
Sam offered her daughter a grateful smile as she closed the laptop. Then, with piercing blue eyes, she looked at her thirteen-year-old daughter, carefully studying her. "Another nightmare?"
"Is that anything new?" Grace asked, raising an eyebrow sarcastically.
Sam sighed, sympathetically, as she set her glasses on the table beside her and focused her attention on her growing daughter. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Big tsunami is going to hit the coast of Thailand," she said, fiddling with her mother's pen and cap as she managed to avert her gaze from her mother's all-encompassing eye.
"Tsunami? When?"
"Right about…" She looked at the clock behind her mother's head. "Now."
Sam looked back at the clock before turning back to her daughter with sympathy in her eyes. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"That's my life," Grace shrugged before standing. "I'm going to have some juice and then, I'm going to get working on my English paper."
"Is it due today?"
She shook her head. "It's due next Thursday."
Sam's eyebrows shot up. "And you're almost finished with it now?"
"I've had plenty of time to work on it," Grace said, matter-of-factly.
"Grace, honey, I'm worried about you," Sam said softly, raising an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "I'm okay."
Sam bit the inside of her cheek. "There's got to be something else you can do. Some other way we can help you."
Grace sighed. "Well, there's not. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go finish my paper, and try to catch a few winks before I leave for school."
"Okay, angel," Sam said, watching her daughter leave the dining room with a small sigh. She turned back to her laptop only to close the top, rest her elbows on the kitchen table, interlocked her hands, and pressed her thumbs against her forehead for a few moments.
This parenting thing wasn't for the weak, she decided as she stood, turned out the light and headed back into her bedroom where she gently nudged her husband, retired Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, awake.
"Wha?" He demanded as his head shot up from where he'd stuffed it beneath a pillow.
She chuckled in spite of herself. "Must you always have such a dramatic awakening?"
"Yes," he groaned as he closed his eyes and dropped his head back to the pillow. "Now, what'd you want?"
"To discuss your daughter," she said, soberly.
"My daughter?" He asked, turning his head toward her.
"Yes, your daughter," Sam said, nodding. "You would have said so yourself if you'd seen the attitude she just gave me in the dining room."
Jack's brow furrowed before he turned to the bedside clock, then back to his wife and back to the clock.
"Yes, Jack, it's three-thirty."
"Why in the name of all things holy are you awake at this hour?" He asked, absolutely astounded. "Why am I awake at this hour?"
"I couldn't sleep." Sam sighed. "Neither could Grace. Apparently, she had another nightmare."
"There's nothing new about that, Sam," Jack said, rolling over and turning on the bedside table lamp with a small sigh as he realized he wasn't going back to sleep any time soon.
"Maybe not, but did you know that she's been working on a paper that's not due until next week?"
"Tell me you didn't do the same thing when you were her age." He said, settling the back of his head against the pillows as he looked at his wife.
"I did," Sam said, nodding soberly. "Only I was fifteen, and my mother had just died. And I got into some pretty big trouble that year."
"What kind of trouble?"
"You're changing the subject," Sam said, raising an eyebrow.
"Sam, she's twelve. What kind of trouble is she going to get into?"
"I don't know," Sam said, shaking her head. "But then again, I don't really want to find out. I don't think she's sleeping enough at night, and I know these nightmares are going to take their toll one of these days."
"And," he prompted, gently. "So…but….therefore?"
"I think we should ask Cassandra for a recommendation of a qualified child psychologist."
"A shrink?" Jack asked, sitting up in bed instantly. "I don't think so."
"What?" Sam asked, looking at her husband, soberly. "Why not?"
"I seem to recall a few bad experiences in our lives corresponding with psychiatric help."
"I said psychologist, Jack. Not psychiatrist."
"So, what's the difference?"
"A psychiatrist has the power to administer drugs and admit people to mental hospitals. Psychologists are just licensed therapists who guide people through the process of coming to term with difficult times in their lives."
"She's not crazy."
"I never said she was." She defended.
"We don't even know if she's ahead because she's not sleeping," Jack pointed out.
Sam sighed as she lay down in bed. "All right, all right. I'll drop it. For now."
"Excellent." He said, rolling over.
She looked over at him for a moment, almost wishing that he could see the worry she had in her heart for their daughter.
"What?" He asked, feeling the weight of her gaze on him.
"I don't pull this card very often, Jack," she said, softly. "But…I really think there's something going on. Or maybe it's not here yet, but…"
"Mother's intuition."
She nodded, slowly.
"Okay, we'll keep an eye on her for the next couple of days, and talk…when the sun's up…or maybe even down, but still…a decent hour, okay?"
She smiled softly as she rolled over and kissed his cheek. "I love you, you know that?"
"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say." He teased. "Now, go back to sleep. UCCS won't like it if the mother of wormhole physics is sleeping through her classes."
She smiled softly as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She gently touched a finger to his temple, feathering his hair, growing thoughtful and affectionate before she kissed his shoulder and rested her cheek on it.
"What is it?" He asked, looking over at her, noticing her solemnity.
"Every so often," she began, softly. "I just…remember what it was like to be without you, and I just remember how grateful I am to have you in my life."
He reached for her left hand that lay on his chest and pulled it up to his lips so that he could kiss it before he pulled it back to look at the diamond ring that adorned her hand. "Hey, I didn't just give you this ring so that you could wear it for a couple of years," he said, softly. He kissed it gently as she rested her cheek on his shoulder, cuddling closer to him. "Always isn't an empty promise for me," he said, looking into her eyes.
"I know," she said with a tender smile on her lips and twinkling in her eyes. "And…nine years of marriage is a good start to proving it."
"Not to mention the first ten or so years we knew each other."
"Do you ever miss it?" She asked, softly. "Going out on missions? Saving the world?"
"Sometimes," he admitted, looking up at the ceiling.
"Any regrets?" She asked, looking up at him for a moment.
A small smile grew on his lips before he looked down at the woman he held in his protective embrace. "Never."
He was rewarded with a faint and tender smile on his wife's lips as she inhaled slowly, preparing for sleep. He gently reached over with the other hand and let his fingers entangle themselves in her soft hair. "How could I have regrets when I get to lay like this with you every night?" He whispered, kissing her graying temple, gently.
"Growing old with me," she teased with her eyes closed and an amused smile growing.
"Here's the benefit of being fifteen years your senior," he laughed softly. "I was already old when we got married. Now, I just get to enjoy the view while you catch up."
She flashed that mega-watt smile to him as she opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I love you, Jack O'Neill." She said, fondly.
"I love you too, Samantha Carter."