Bad moon on the rise… by Roo1965
Summary: How can you tell the difference between waking and sleeping, between what is real and what is not
Jack O'Neill exited the wormhole and clomped loudly down the ramp as the shimmering blue puddle snapped shut behind him.
Home sweet home. SF's at the ready, guns trained on him. Nice to be missed.
General Hammond ordered "Stand down!" as he bustled in to the gate room to meet his 2IC.
"Well I'm back," announced Jack, adjusting the lumpy sack on his shoulder.
"Colonel, where's the rest of SG1?"
"Right here sir. We're all here," replied Jack looking puzzled.
"Colonel?" the General asked, looking around in vain. Were they invisible, shrunk or what? he wondered.
"They're okay. I've got them. Look," Jack swung the bag off his shoulder and undoing a knot at the corner, tipped the contents out. A clutter of bones fell to the floor, a skull rolling to land at the General's feet...
Jack rolled over in bed feeling uneasy and disorientated. What just happened…?
Maybe if he got up and wandered around for a bit…
He sat up and realised the bed felt lumpy, put out a hand and looked down.
Shit.
He was sleeping on a pile of Godamn bones! The pile began to slide as he scrambled off in horror. The hollow clinking made him gag and rush for the bathroom.
Jesus, it couldn't be real, could it? This was his house the last time he looked. He turned at the bathroom doorway and looked back into the bedroom.
No bones, just a very rumpled bed. But it had felt real….
He breathed a sigh of relief. The nausea abated. Just a dream. A bad dream, that's all. He'd had plenty of those in his lifetime. This was just another one cluttering up his psyche, taking up unwanted residence.
He went back to bed, restraining the urge to pat or feel the bed once more.
Jack woke up breathing hard, his mouth was dry. His head and chest ached. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought he could still hear the echo of a scream in the room.
His scream.
Colonels didn't scream. At least, this one didn't. Okay, he might have done back in Club Med. But that was years ago now. Done and dealt with.
Cautiously he felt the bed. It felt like a normal bed. Okay then. No bones. He relaxed.
Whoopee for you Colonel O'Neill. What are you -a man or a mouse? If your team could see you now…but why did that innocent thought make him shudder?
Well, like it or not, he was a semi awake now. Needed to pee and have a glass of water. In that order.
Once more, he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Half asleep he turned the light on, lifted the lid, squinted and aimed. Yawned, as his water tinkled into the bowl, waited. All done. Shake. Flush. Wash hands.
Slightly more awake now he reached for the glass, filled it and raised it his lips as he looked into the mirror….
The glass smashed into the sink…..
O'Neill was looking at himself in the mirror….No…no…this wasn't happening! Could not be real!
He was looking at a skull and bones with no skin, just a skeleton. Like a ghoulish Invisible Man, the water had splashed out of the non mouth…..
"Colonel? Calm down! We're not going to hurt you!" said a female voice firmly into his ear. She (whoever it was) was so close he could feel her hair tickle his cheek. The hands holding him down did not relax their grip, even though Jack relaxed onto the bed.
Where the heck was he now?
He had the distinct impression once again that, yes, he'd been yelling (sounded better than screaming…) his head off.
Hands at his wrists, chest and legs confirmed what his senses told him- he was being restrained with the leather straps and buckled in. Well, that was just peachy. Wait a minute. Did that mean…?
He finally opened his eyes. Infirmary, check. But not the main ward. No, this was…this was…isolation?! Or was it the psychiatric ward?
Despite knowing he was restrained he struggled to get up and look around. Just in time to see the Doc return with a big honking needle.
"Hey!" he shouted. Crap, he really was in the nut house. But there were no white padded walls like when he'd visited Daniel that time after Machello and the invading thingies.
"No!" he shouted again as she came up to him.
"This will help you Colonel. You need to sleep off the effects from the last planet you were on. Do you remember what happened?"
"No, it won't help! You fill me full of that shit and I'll see even more crazy stuff than I already have been! What planet?! I don't remember!" he replied angrily.
"We're so sorry- it took time to work out the correct dosage." Dr Fraiser said as she injected him even thought he tried to get away, forcing a nurse to push his shoulders into the bed.
"Where's my team?" he asked his voice thick as the medication surged through his body making him feel woozy.
"Shhh, Later, Colonel. Rest now," Soothed the Doc.
"No! NOW! Get them! I need to see…I need to…I need….seeee," Still struggling feebly at the thick restraints and cursing under his breath, he slipped into the grey and then darkness that lurked at the edge of his vision. His last remaining thought was a line from a Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gentle into that good night...rage, rage against the dying of the light".
end...?