FIC: Heliocentrisis [SGA, gen]
Title: Heliocentrisis
Author: SA
Artist: Anna Luna
Notes: This story was written for artword's Challenge 009, which was an appallingly long time ago. However, Anna and I had still done work for this challenge, and I figured better to post it than not, yes? This story is John gen, no particular spoilers.
Normally, John didn't remember his dreams.
This wasn't to say he didn't have them--he did. There were brief flashes of sense memory when he woke in the morning, a fist tightening over something that wasn't there, or a feeling that he really shouldn't do something. Though, always, the thing he shouldn't do was never something he could recall.
This changed recently, and John thinks he knows why. It's so easy to blame every odd thing and strange occurrence on the many planets he and his team visit, but they blame them for a reason. More often than not, whatever stupid and annoying thing John experiences when he gets back to Atlantis is a result of drinking the water, or some crazy ritual, or accidental encounters with flower specimens.
John has come to terms with the fact that four-fifths of his job is making sure he and his team don't get whacked off by some random alien thing. The other fifth is keeping Atlantis from blowing up.
Still, it's strange to wake up in the morning with perfect recollection of a dream he knows he's never had before--like someone else's subconscious shoehorned into his own. It's the same dream every time: a woman in Ancient clothing mouths some words at him that he can't understand, waves a stick at him, and then walks off into the distance. John tries to follow her in his sleep, but loses her around a corner. There are no sounds, no smells. Just this crystal-clear image, every night, that he remembers with utter clarity when he wakes up.
It's unsettling.
So he goes to Carson and asks for something to get through the night; but Carson won't give him drugs because he points out that John is actually getting more rest than he has in a long time. Maybe this is just a way for your mind to cycle down, Carson suggests, and John snorts noncommittally. If he really wanted something he'd be able to get it, but it's not disturbing enough to warrant stealing. At least not yet.
This happens every night, and John racks his brain for reasons why he might be having the dream. He doesn't remember anyone looking like the woman in his dreams on any of the planets they've visited recently, and none of the team recalls someone matching her description. He pores over his memories, trying to place her, but nothing comes.
It's three in the morning on the leap day that comes up every couple of months on Atlantis when his head thuds down gently onto his desk and he slips into the dream again. The times when he can't sleep, he reads until his eyes are red and blotchy, until unconsciousness claims him whether he wills it or not. This is one of those nights, a product of too many difficult recoveries in the field and too little real rest.
He sees the woman, she waves the object--which looks kind of like an old, fancy doorknob, he thinks randomly--and she walks away.
This time, however, she stops. She looks back, pierces him with her stare, and makes a significant stride towards the nearest door. Dream-John doesn't hesitate, just follows, while observing-John wonders why this time it changed. He doesn't have time to think before he's through the door and following her down a corridor. This is farther than he ever got before, and when he turns the corner he sees one of the semi-mobile labs their predecessors were so fond of set up and humming in the corner. The woman is nowhere to be seen, but the screen is jumping with images.
John watches the interplay of tiny dots and blinking clusters of lights and doesn't hear the footfall behind him until the woman is already standing next to him, clutching the object in her hand.
The moment she speaks John recognizes her as his grandmother, the grandmother he saw a handful of times but remembers perfectly because of the hard set of her mouth and the warm scent of her skin. "John," she says, and dream-John doesn't move but observing-John recoils in astonishment and more than a little horror.
His grandmother has been dead for twenty years.
But she's standing right before him as if she hasn't changed at all in that time.
She says his name again and gives him that faded smile he remembers so well from visits to Mississippi in the summertime. He doesn't listen as she says something about what they're looking at; observing-John thinks frantically that surely this dream will happen again tomorrow night. He will see her again tomorrow night. He will hear the words from her lips again.
Now, he feasts his eyes on the woman who sent him cards and notes unfailingly until the time of her death, the woman who made him cookies and let him care for her cat when he was lonely, the woman who loved him with room to spare.
He doesn't think about the probability that this is a simulacrum, that some damned Ancient program has hijacked the image of his grandmother from his brain and is using her to convey something he doesn't want to hear anyway. He doesn't think he will be able to bear it if she isn't real. The loss is suddenly so fresh and real again in his mind that now he fears waking, where before he feared sleeping. He wishes he never needed to wake up again.
She says his name one final time and raises her hand to cup his chin. He leans into the touch, his unloved skin meeting hers, and when he looks up into her eyes he gasps, because they are the bright green of his grandmother's, yes; but there is also the weight of galaxies behind them, knowledge she shouldn't have beyond the pain she carried with her always, knowledge of the way stars worked. This time when she says his name, he knows suddenly that this is both his grandmother and not his grandmother, and he is bitterly disappointed while still aching for the grace of her touch.
She whispers instructions in his ear, and he nods blindly, overcome with grief again for the first time in two decades. As the dream fades he feels the object being pressed into his hands, oddly angular and warm to the touch.
He wakes with the object in his hand and a profound loss in his heart.
He rests his head against his desk once more and dreams of dreaming one last time.
Author: SA
Artist: Anna Luna
Notes: This story was written for artword's Challenge 009, which was an appallingly long time ago. However, Anna and I had still done work for this challenge, and I figured better to post it than not, yes? This story is John gen, no particular spoilers.
Normally, John didn't remember his dreams.
This wasn't to say he didn't have them--he did. There were brief flashes of sense memory when he woke in the morning, a fist tightening over something that wasn't there, or a feeling that he really shouldn't do something. Though, always, the thing he shouldn't do was never something he could recall.
This changed recently, and John thinks he knows why. It's so easy to blame every odd thing and strange occurrence on the many planets he and his team visit, but they blame them for a reason. More often than not, whatever stupid and annoying thing John experiences when he gets back to Atlantis is a result of drinking the water, or some crazy ritual, or accidental encounters with flower specimens.
John has come to terms with the fact that four-fifths of his job is making sure he and his team don't get whacked off by some random alien thing. The other fifth is keeping Atlantis from blowing up.
Still, it's strange to wake up in the morning with perfect recollection of a dream he knows he's never had before--like someone else's subconscious shoehorned into his own. It's the same dream every time: a woman in Ancient clothing mouths some words at him that he can't understand, waves a stick at him, and then walks off into the distance. John tries to follow her in his sleep, but loses her around a corner. There are no sounds, no smells. Just this crystal-clear image, every night, that he remembers with utter clarity when he wakes up.
It's unsettling.
So he goes to Carson and asks for something to get through the night; but Carson won't give him drugs because he points out that John is actually getting more rest than he has in a long time. Maybe this is just a way for your mind to cycle down, Carson suggests, and John snorts noncommittally. If he really wanted something he'd be able to get it, but it's not disturbing enough to warrant stealing. At least not yet.
This happens every night, and John racks his brain for reasons why he might be having the dream. He doesn't remember anyone looking like the woman in his dreams on any of the planets they've visited recently, and none of the team recalls someone matching her description. He pores over his memories, trying to place her, but nothing comes.
It's three in the morning on the leap day that comes up every couple of months on Atlantis when his head thuds down gently onto his desk and he slips into the dream again. The times when he can't sleep, he reads until his eyes are red and blotchy, until unconsciousness claims him whether he wills it or not. This is one of those nights, a product of too many difficult recoveries in the field and too little real rest.
He sees the woman, she waves the object--which looks kind of like an old, fancy doorknob, he thinks randomly--and she walks away.
This time, however, she stops. She looks back, pierces him with her stare, and makes a significant stride towards the nearest door. Dream-John doesn't hesitate, just follows, while observing-John wonders why this time it changed. He doesn't have time to think before he's through the door and following her down a corridor. This is farther than he ever got before, and when he turns the corner he sees one of the semi-mobile labs their predecessors were so fond of set up and humming in the corner. The woman is nowhere to be seen, but the screen is jumping with images.
John watches the interplay of tiny dots and blinking clusters of lights and doesn't hear the footfall behind him until the woman is already standing next to him, clutching the object in her hand.
The moment she speaks John recognizes her as his grandmother, the grandmother he saw a handful of times but remembers perfectly because of the hard set of her mouth and the warm scent of her skin. "John," she says, and dream-John doesn't move but observing-John recoils in astonishment and more than a little horror.
His grandmother has been dead for twenty years.
But she's standing right before him as if she hasn't changed at all in that time.
She says his name again and gives him that faded smile he remembers so well from visits to Mississippi in the summertime. He doesn't listen as she says something about what they're looking at; observing-John thinks frantically that surely this dream will happen again tomorrow night. He will see her again tomorrow night. He will hear the words from her lips again.
Now, he feasts his eyes on the woman who sent him cards and notes unfailingly until the time of her death, the woman who made him cookies and let him care for her cat when he was lonely, the woman who loved him with room to spare.
He doesn't think about the probability that this is a simulacrum, that some damned Ancient program has hijacked the image of his grandmother from his brain and is using her to convey something he doesn't want to hear anyway. He doesn't think he will be able to bear it if she isn't real. The loss is suddenly so fresh and real again in his mind that now he fears waking, where before he feared sleeping. He wishes he never needed to wake up again.
She says his name one final time and raises her hand to cup his chin. He leans into the touch, his unloved skin meeting hers, and when he looks up into her eyes he gasps, because they are the bright green of his grandmother's, yes; but there is also the weight of galaxies behind them, knowledge she shouldn't have beyond the pain she carried with her always, knowledge of the way stars worked. This time when she says his name, he knows suddenly that this is both his grandmother and not his grandmother, and he is bitterly disappointed while still aching for the grace of her touch.
She whispers instructions in his ear, and he nods blindly, overcome with grief again for the first time in two decades. As the dream fades he feels the object being pressed into his hands, oddly angular and warm to the touch.
He wakes with the object in his hand and a profound loss in his heart.
He rests his head against his desk once more and dreams of dreaming one last time.