Life Within a Dream by scifinut (Must be Dreaming challenge)
Title: Life Within a Dream
Author: scifinut
Rating: Everyone
Pairing: None
Warnings/Spoilers: Season One
Summary: A reflection back on the entirety of Season One
Author's notes: I promised last time that I'd bring Radek back. I never said my next fic would be any happier. Thanks to archae_ology and slybrarian for the quick betas. Also thanks to E. A. Poe for the poem, A Dream Within A Dream.
Radek sat on the pier, moonlight the only illumination. The past few days had been pure hell. Yes, the siege was over, but the victory was a bitter one. So many had been lost in the past year, and so many of those in the most recent struggle.
Coming down from the stimulants had been hard, but facing the nightmares was harder. A half remembered phrase had sent Radek to find where it was from and driven him here with a handful of dirt taken from one of the botany labs.
The wind, as though reading Radek's mind, picked up. He smiled into the breeze and held the dirt as tightly as he could. He walked closer to the edge of the pier and sprinkled the dirt slowly, in memory of those they had lost.
Sumner.
Abrams.
Gaul.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
Dumais.
Grodin.
So many countless others.
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
A partial list of those gone forever, lost to the enemy, to foolish mistakes, and to various other calamities. But more survived. It had been so long since he'd gotten enough sleep, the world was a haze. But his peace had been made with the dead. Maybe the nightmares would stay away, at least for the night. Semi-conscious, he floated all the way back to his quarters.
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Author: scifinut
Rating: Everyone
Pairing: None
Warnings/Spoilers: Season One
Summary: A reflection back on the entirety of Season One
Author's notes: I promised last time that I'd bring Radek back. I never said my next fic would be any happier. Thanks to archae_ology and slybrarian for the quick betas. Also thanks to E. A. Poe for the poem, A Dream Within A Dream.
Radek sat on the pier, moonlight the only illumination. The past few days had been pure hell. Yes, the siege was over, but the victory was a bitter one. So many had been lost in the past year, and so many of those in the most recent struggle.
Coming down from the stimulants had been hard, but facing the nightmares was harder. A half remembered phrase had sent Radek to find where it was from and driven him here with a handful of dirt taken from one of the botany labs.
The wind, as though reading Radek's mind, picked up. He smiled into the breeze and held the dirt as tightly as he could. He walked closer to the edge of the pier and sprinkled the dirt slowly, in memory of those they had lost.
Sumner.
Abrams.
Gaul.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
Dumais.
Grodin.
So many countless others.
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
A partial list of those gone forever, lost to the enemy, to foolish mistakes, and to various other calamities. But more survived. It had been so long since he'd gotten enough sleep, the world was a haze. But his peace had been made with the dead. Maybe the nightmares would stay away, at least for the night. Semi-conscious, he floated all the way back to his quarters.
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?