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DISTANT MEMORIES

By Lingren.

Previously:

Colonel Tobin knew that the Major was dead, he could see the whites of his eyes in the moonlight, which stared blankly back at him. He cursed under his breath and ran into the darkness of the forest.

Chapter 5

He could hear the sound of running feet. The occasional bullet thudded into a tree near him or a salvo peppered the ground under his feet. His heart pounded in his chest and his breath came hard and fast. He just hoped they would give up soon, surely they were nearing the front line now and he would then be safe.

Something agonisingly punched white hot into him high up in the back of his thigh and he stumbled, falling awkwardly to the ground. This time he could almost smell the enemy as they grew nearer and knew his luck had run out, there was no escape for him now. As the enemy approached he rolled onto his back and fired at point blank range, taking down two of his hunters, but more came forward to finish him off.

Then the air around him erupted into a cacophony of gunfire. There were more cries of agony and suddenly he felt someone lifting him up. He looked up into the face of Captain Fraker. It was then he realised it was the rest of his team; they had waited for him. They may have disobeyed his orders but they'd also saved him from a fate worse than death.

They had also brought with them their two prisoners. The scientists who had been working on a special project within the power plant. Fraker and Soary had caught them just where they were supposed to be and had 'persuaded' them that going with the raiders was the right thing to do unless they wanted to die a terrible death.

Tobin grinned through the pain while Fraker bandaged his bleeding wound. All the sounds of pursuit died away and after another minute or two, silence fell over the night once more. That is, until their handiwork with the explosives erupted noisily into the silence, lighting up the night sky and beyond. Even from their position deep in the forest they could see the glow from the fires.

He gave his team a wide grin and everyone congratulated each other on a job well done. Nobody needed to mention their loss. It was all part of the natural cycle. It happened all the time. It was war.

Mission accomplished, Tobin mused; his team or at least most of his team was safe. A little banged up but safe. He thanked his men for saving his life.

When it was time to move on, they supported his weakened frame for the long walk back to base. They each took turns in helping him so that they never grew too tired, while the other one guarded the handcuffed prisoners closely.

It was late afternoon of the next day when they arrived back at base camp and Tobin was barely able to stand, let alone walk. They carried him straight to the infirmary where the Doctors immediately removed the bullet and dressed the wound.

The Colonel was out of it for the rest of that day and the night, but come the morning and already he was arguing with the medical staff. He insisted that he was fine and needed to get up.

They came to a compromise and placed him in the little sun room to catch the sunshine and from where he could look out over the base and watch everything that was going on from behind the privacy of the blinds. Tobin had to reluctantly agree that it was the best offer he was likely to get, seeing as they wouldn't let him walk just yet. He wouldn't admit that if he'd tried, he'd probably have fallen flat on his face.

So there he sat for the whole day, his leg propped up on a stool for comfort. He could see everything from that room. The barracks off to the left. The officer's quarters to the right. The cook house on the far side behind the shower block. And the prison. He could see people milling about inside the entrance. It was a wide, barred enclosure with one doorway leading into it. The inmates were mostly civilians caught up in the war and he wondered what the authorities would do with them. He couldn't for the life of him recall what happened to them. His memory was still hazy though he could now recall most of his life spent fighting for the Opposition forces.

That night he was helped back to the ward proper, but he made them promise him, that first thing in the morning, he would be allowed to return to that room. It was better than sitting around in a vast room with far too many beds and listening to the soft moans and groans from the wounded. He'd never been keen on hospitals anyway, and hated to be confined.

The nursing staff gave in readily and he settled down to sleep quite content.

But while he slept, he dreamed.

Dreams that haunted his sleep and several times he awoke, sweating, yelling something incomprehensible and had shot upright, panting hard. Countless times the nursing staff had coaxed him into going back to sleep, telling him he had a fever and there was nothing to worry about. Often they would give him something that made it virtually impossible for him to stay awake.

The dreams were so real to him, the images so vivid, yet so strange. He recognised nothing and it had him panting with fear as none of it made any sense to him at all. It was almost as if he'd just run a marathon, he felt so tired and exhausted and just a little afraid.

In one dream he'd been running from strange beings with glowing eyes and they had shot at him with odd sticks that spat fire.

There was a blonde headed female that smiled, stirring up his emotions. She constantly kept popping up in the strangest of places. There were others too, none of whom he recognised. Was this his future? or was it buried in the mysterious past that he still couldn't quite recall? Who was she? He had no way of knowing until he could remember everything.

After a restless night, he needed to escape the vast room quickly. The Doctor insisted he remain in the little sun room, and from where he gained a modicum of comfort; thankful for small mercies, he relaxed in the knowledge that at least he was on his own should he fall asleep again. Out there in that room he would have no witnesses to see his distress if he experienced the dreams again.

He resigned himself to sitting there all day watching the world go by.

His eyes drifted aimlessly around the compound but his interest had peaked when he saw a blonde head just inside the prison gates. He'd seen her there yesterday and although it meant nothing to him then, it did today, and now he couldn't take his eyes from her. Somehow she seemed familiar.

He had another visit from General Ornan who congratulated him on a successful mission. Official sources put the disruption to the enemy at 100 and the experts had said that it was going to take longer than they had anticipated because of all the damage done by Tobin and his men. Plus the fact that they had brought back with them the two top government scientists who were working on the secret project, and were now lost to them. Detailed Plans of the special generators had been destroyed. The enemy would have to start to rebuild from scratch without the vital help of the originators of the new technology.

The Colonel dozed a little in the afternoon. He was still tired from the long march to the raid and the painful hobble back again. Then there were the drowsy effects of the anaesthetic, the drugs they'd given him and a restless night; all these things conspired to make him fall asleep after lunch. He slept peacefully for a couple of hours, and when the nurse had discovered him fast asleep, she had closed the door and forbade anyone to disturb him.

Tobin's sleep was eventually troubled, but not by any human or alien influence. He dreamt. He could see the blonde woman; the one from the prison. He was sure he knew her from somewhere. She was standing in front of a huge ring filled with what looked like shimmering water, but he knew that was impossible. Water couldn't stand upright like that. She flashed a broad smile at him and spoke words he didn't recognize. The scene changed, she was standing in front of what looked like a dark chart of some sort, and he saw her grin and shake her head, then she lifted her hands to explain something so that even he would understand at last. Something to do with worms and apples. It still didn't make any sense to him.

His dream included others too. There was a man. Tall, dark skinned with a strange golden tattoo imprinted on his forehead. He was bald. Then there was another bald headed man who also appeared. This time though he was shorter, plumper, and everyone saluted him. He didn't recognise any of them. He couldn't recall an officer like that at base camp at all. Then a bespectacled younger man appeared, he had long hair and light coloured robes that flowed to the floor. There was sand. He was surrounded by great dunes of sand. There was a tall strange looking four sided structure which stood behind him, it's triangular sides tapering to a point at the very top. He'd never seen it's like anywhere on this world before.

Tobin stirred in his sleep as the images played through his mind. There were battles fought, but not like any he recalled. They were different. Weapons of fire that blasted with burning heat and killed instantly. Hands that held strange crystals and burned the very inside of one's brain until it seemed to melt it. Weapons that spat blue static electricity and hurt like hell, stunning their victims. A fleeting glimpse of things disappearing after a third blast from the snake like weapon.

Tobin woke with a start. He was breathless and panting hard from pain. He'd seen the image of himself getting blasted with the fire from the strange weapon and had yelled out in agony. It had seemed so real. So real he could feel the heat of one of those weapons as it ate away at his thigh. The same thigh that was hurting him like crazy now.

The nurse ran into the room and found him sweating and gasping in pain, holding his throbbing leg. He had slept right through the time his medication was due and now he was in terrible pain. She quickly rang for the Doctor who came straight away and injected him with a pain killer. The Colonel relaxed again as the medication swiftly took effect.

"It's okay Doc. Thanks. I'll be fine now," he wheezed as his breathing settled.

"Perhaps we should get you back to the ward now," the Doctor said.

"No! No, I'm fine. It was just a nightmare, and the pain was bad. I'm okay now. Thanks Doc!"

He fell silent, and his mind turned inwards when he experienced a moment of déjà-vu. The expression of 'Thanks Doc', seemed so familiar to him, and he wondered if perhaps he made a habit out of getting hurt during the battles and having to be patched up again. If only he could remember.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah! I'll be alright here. Thanks..." he snapped out of his reflections and was about to repeat the word 'Doc'. It followed on so naturally, but he managed to stop himself I time. "Yeah...Thanks!"

He scrubbed at his face with both hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, then waved the Doctor and the nurse aside. They withdrew, but were still concerned for him.

He once again allowed his eyes to drift towards the blonde sitting by the bars of the prison block. The last rays of the sun lighting her hair and turning it to gold. Unconsciously he smiled at another fleeting memory. One of her again, but now she was standing beside some sort of a machine or whatever it was, he couldn't tell. The room was dark, noisy, and hot and full of sweaty people and steaming boilers, but the flickering firelight from the braziers and the smelters danced over her dirt smudged face and burnished her hair with copper and gold as she flashed him a brilliant smile.

Tobin was determined the first opportunity he got, to go and take a closer look at this woman. His curiosity had been bugging him even more so when he'd seen her turn to talk to someone sitting in the shadows. When that someone had moved closer to her, he saw it was a bespectacled man. He gasped in realisation, it was the young man from his dreams too. He just had to find out what was going on. Why they were in prison.

He had a visit from his team in the afternoon. They sat around the room, joking that he had the nursing staff wrapped round his little finger to be afforded the best suite in the hospital.

Fraker watched his CO closely, knowing he was suffering, but trying his hardest to hide it from them. He observed Tobin's eyes as they repeatedly tracked across the compound to the prison and wondered what the fascination was to be found over there. As a blonde headed woman appeared, Tobin's eyes lit with remembrance and he realised that his CO somehow knew this female, perhaps he even fancied her.

"So, who is she?" he asked grinning.

Tobin glanced up at him puzzled.

"Come on sir. You can't keep your eyes off her. Do you actually know her?"

"No!" he snapped. "At least I don't know. She seems familiar."

"Not that familiar or your wife will surely string you up when she next sees you," he roared, the others joining in the joke.

Tobin didn't laugh. He sat with a frown on his face. Wife? He didn't recall having a wife.

"I don't remember. How the hell could I forget that?" he panicked.

"Hey! It's okay. Calm down Colonel. They said things might still be a little hazy," he squatted on the floor beside his CO and gripped his arm to show his understanding and that it really was okay. "We heard you have a son too," he added hoping that Tobin would begin to remember.

The Colonel closed his eyes, rubbing the heel of his hands against his eyelids, desperate to recall a family he didn't remember. Instead what he saw shocked him rigid. His son, always so full of life, lying lifeless in a pool of blood while his wife screamed at him from behind. He'd heard a single gunshot that echoed round the neighbourhood, and it had changed his life forever.

"Charlie!" Jack muttered. "I...I killed him!" he said numbly as the memory hit him like a bullet between the eyes. Tears rolled from his eyes even as he kept them shut, trying to block them out but he couldn't. The enormity of that day's tragedy was too strong to ignore, and he dropped his head and sobbed softly, letting the heartbreak sweep over him. What sort of man was he to allow that to happen? He wondered.

"Come on guys," Fraker whispered, trying not to disturb Tobin. "I think it's time we left the CO alone for a bit."

The team silently filed out of the room and each one felt an empathy for the man's sorrow.

The next day Tobin limped across the complex, leaning heavily on his crutches, coming to a halt near the barred entrance to the prison, the guard on duty saluted him then ignored the senior office, returning to his given task.

The woman was gone from her usual spot, and he couldn't see her companion either. Feeling disappointed, he turned and limped away, only to be stopped by someone calling to him.

"Jack?" Daniel yelled urgently as he pushed his way to the front near the bars, afraid that this 'reincarnation' of his friend would leave before he'd had chance to see if it was really was Jack. If it was indeed the real Jack O'Neill, then they needed to talk to him.

"Colonel! Is that you ?" Sam asked. It had certainly looked like him, but he wasn't dressed in his usual BDU's, and he'd obviously been wounded at some stage.

Tobin turned slowly, balancing carefully so as not to topple over, despite his ease with the use of the medical apparatus. He was in no doubt now that they had seen him and that somehow they seemed to know him. It haunted him that he might know these people from somewhere if they knew his name.

But from where?

He stepped towards them again, stopping a few feet from the door.

He studied their eager faces. Delight was clearly evident in their features when he turned to face them. The woman gasped in relief and flashed him the biggest smile he'd ever seen and not only did it stir his inner thoughts and memories but surprisingly, his desire too. So who was she?

TBC