Author: Sapphire (e-mail: telcontar@dunedain-of-the-north.de)

Title: Sleepless

How come I love to write plotless stories? No idea, but it happened again. The story is set directly after 'Enemy Within'.

Contains Spoilers for: 'Stargate: The Movie', 'Children of the Gods' and 'Enemy Within'

Legal stuff: Stargate SG-1 doesn't belong to me. *Sigh*. I think it belongs to Double Secret Production and Gekko Production and possible to some other guys. I don't intent to make money with this (no idea how I should achieve this, anyway). It's just for fun.

Comments are welcome at telcontar@dunedain-of-the-north.de

SLEEPLESS

by Sapphire

He couldn't sleep. For hours now he had starred at the ceiling, watching the patterns made by the shadows of the trees outside.

Trees. There where no trees on Abydos. At least in all his time there, he had never seen any.

/Don't think of Abydos/, he chided himself. /If you think of Abydos you'll think of ... /

/No!/

/Don't think!/

But this was easier said than done. He just couldn't stop thinking.

If he only could go to sleep. It wasn't that he wasn't tired. But he knew when he would go to sleep, he would dream. And he would dream of her...

The woman he loved.

The woman he had wed and with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

The woman who had been taken away from him, changed, made their enemy.

No!

He could never think of her as 'the enemy'. Never!

He closed his eyes, tried to force himself to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come.

When he had last seen her, she hadn't recognized him. Instead of coming to him, the man she loved, she had stood at the side of the man -- no, that creature disguised to look like a man -- as if she belonged there. In her lovely eyes there was nothing of what he had loved her for. No compassion for the people who were picked out of the crowd, dragged away screaming on the top of their lungs; no spark of rebellion when Apophis ordered her with a slight gesture to follow him; no love when he hurled himself down begging to be taken as well, just to be with her; no sorrow when he was rejected; no anger when Skaara had been picked instead.

It had hurt, it still did hurt.

But, what could he have done? What could he do now?

Teal'c had said, nothing of the host would survive. And he should know. After all, hadn't the former Jaffa been in the service of that parasites, the Goa'ulds, for a long time?

Of course, Teal'c could be telling lies, to keep them from following his former masters, protecting them somehow. But then he knew that Teal'c was telling what he thought was the truth. He only could hope that the truth Teal'c knew was not the absolute truth; that Sha're was still there somehow, her beautiful mind not destroyed, but in ... hiding maybe.

He *had* to find her. And he would, if it was the last thing he'd do in his life.

He knew Sam and Teal'c and Jack would help him. And with them he felt there was a chance.

It might be a small chance, but it was better than nothing.

With that thought he fell asleep.

**********

He couldn't sleep. On her side of the bed Martha was sleeping deeply, but he couldn't find the rest he needed. Without disturbing his wife, he got up and went into his private office. He switched on the desk light then he settled down in the big leather chair his kids had given him when he had made general.

/Can you really do it? Can you just gather up your things now, and go?/

He was less than a month away from retirement. The StarGate project was supposed to be the last project he worked on, the dismantling of it the last official act he finished.

He had been looking forward to retirement. Finally he would be able to give Martha the time she deserved, the time he hadn't been able to give her while he had been with the military. He already had contacted a travel agency to check into cruises. It was supposed to be a surprise for her when he finally came home.

The kids where old enough to take care of themselves. Hell, Arthur had made him a grandfather twice already. And only last week Ellen had called to tell him that he would get another grandchild in eight months. They were good kids.

For a moment his eyes wandered to the pictures of his family, displayed prominently on his desk. The one taken last Christmas, when the whole family had been celebrating together. The one from Ellen's wedding. The one of Martha from last year's too short vacation trip.

Martha had been the one who had suffered the most. When they had been younger and he had been away on this or that mission for months on end, she had stayed behind, took care of the kids and herself, afraid that one day there would be a telegram that he wouldn't come back. She never complained, she was too proud for that and for that he loved her, but sometimes, when they were sleeping together, she had muttered in her dreams, calling out his name, holding him with a desperation and a hunger that spoke of loneliness and fear.

It had been better when he rose up in the ranks, but then other things happened. Like when he was entrusted with secrets he couldn't share with her, though she knew from the look in his eyes that there were things that bothered him. He knew she'd been hurt that he wasn't allowed to entrust her with these things.

Secrets.

And now, the biggest secret of all.

The StarGate!

He had been fascinated with the concept of the 'gate. And he had felt sorrow that something so intriguing was to be buried forever.

But then it had opened again without their doing.

And instead of fascination he felt fear. Fear of the unknown, fear for the planet Earth, fear for his people.

Three people had died on the two missions to Abydos and Chulak. And then the terrible thing that happened to Major Kawalsky. Though there had been nothing he could have done to prevent these deaths, their lives weighted heavily on his soul. They had been *his* people and it was *his* task to protect them.

The needs of the many. The safety of Earth (no, it wasn't just America this time; this time it was bigger).

But it didn't make writing these letters to their families any easier.

He just couldn't walk away. Martha would understand.

He hoped.

Tiredly he rose and went back to the bedroom. The moonlight played over Martha's face. He slipped back beside her, stoking a strand of hair out of her face. She stirred for a moment, then settled back to deep sleep.

It took a while, but then he finally found sleep as well.

**********

He couldn't sleep. The bed they had given him was too soft and too short and it smelled strange, not like home.

/You are not at home. And most likely you will never ever be able to get home again. Even if you do get home, your masters and your comrades would kill you the moment they see you./

No, they were no longer his masters. And they were no longer his comrades. He had left that behind.

He might feel regret for the few friends he had left behind, and he felt a pang of sorrow for his wife and his son. But he didn't regret abandoning his masters.

Gods! He snorted. They might call themselves 'gods', but now he knew that they weren't. They might have magic and power, but that didn't made them gods.

For a long time now he had begun to doubt what he had learned growing up. Too often had he seen the Goa'ulds doing things nobody who cared for anything but themselves would do.

Gods where supposed to be there for the people, protect them, help them.

Not exploit them, suck them dry and knuckle them under. And gods shouldn't 'harvest' people, like cattle, disregarding that they are living, thinking people, just so that they could live.

For a long time he had helped the false gods. At first he had been overjoyed that he had been chosen to work as a Serpent Guard. He had made his family proud as he had risen through the ranks, out-maneuvering, out-smarting and out-fighting everyone who got in his way. All for the praise of Apophis.

However, when he began to see what was behind the facade, he began to doubt. Out of this doubt grew distaste. And out of distaste grew hate.

Hate for his masters, and hate for himself.

How he could do all those things he did in the name of his masters.

He started to help a little bit here, a little bit there. Getting food to those who suffered the most, telling those who didn't know about the fate of their daughter or son that she or he was dead, so they wouldn't have to suffer the knowledge that their child had been taken over by a monster.

It was not easy, for if he had been found out, he would have be killed in the most terrible fashion. They would remove his Goa'uld larva, the thing he hated almost as much as Apophis, but at the same time was the only thing which kept him alive.

For a moment he stroke the pouch where the larva stirred restlessly. Though it had some sort of self-awareness, it was still too young to have a mind of its own. He hated being dependent of that creature, but there was little he could do about it. Maybe one day ...

For a long time he had thought there was little he could do to oppose his masters. Some people have come and said they could do something, but they had been killed very soon after that.

Until he met Jack O'Neill.

He couldn't say what it was what made him believe O'Neill was the one. Something in the way he looked at him, the alien Jaffa who was ready to kill him. Something in his voice, maybe.

He just believed him.

And O'Neill didn't let him down. Together they fought that other Jaffas, one warrior beside the other. And a bond formed then and there, a bond that hadn't unraveled yet. They got the prisoners out of the dungeon that had been supposed to be their grave and brought them, against heavy opposition, to the gate and to safety.

Now he was here, on this foreign planet, alone. But he was still alive, thought he had thought the moment he had stepped through the gate, they would kill him. If the people here had been at all like the Goa'uld they would have done exactly that. But they didn't.

Instead, though they took his weapons and they put him in this cell, they treated him with respect, as if he still had some basic rights, though he was technically a prisoner.

Strange people.

Good people?

He hoped so.

Because he was here now, and there was no way for him to get back. Maybe ... they even might give him a chance to fight the Goa'uld and repent for some of the sins he had done before.

Thinking about this he fell asleep.

**********

She couldn't sleep. She had tried every possible position, laying on her back, on her left side, on her right side, even on her stomach. But still, sleep eluded her.

/If he wouldn't look so damn good, all this wouldn't be a problem. Not to forget that he is also your superior. Be still my beating heart./

By all rights she should be pissed off by Colonel O'Neill. The way he had treated her in the beginning, had been down right insulting. Sure, he could claim all the time it had nothing to do with her being a woman. 'I like women'. Geez, she had felt like a piece of flesh in that moment.

She had wanted to slap him right there and then. And then kiss him senseless.

Not a good idea.

Not at all.

Besides, hadn't she just left behind a rather disastrous relationship with another military man? And she was glad she got out of it just in time before she did something she would regret deeply later on. Janos Hanson had been a disaster.

She looked at the night stand where Janos' picture use to stay.

Of course, in the beginning she hadn't thought so. When her brother had brought Janos home one day two years ago, her first thought had been 'wow!'. Not only damn good looking, but also military, what made many things a lot easier. Okay, they worked far apart and they got to see each other only ever other week, but the relationship developed quite nicely. Jason was charming and smart and if he had some weird ideas about women in the military that wasn't too bad. Her stint at the StarGate project was supposed to be over in a short while anyway -- or so she thought until a few days ago. She would find a teaching job in the private sector, or another science project. No problem.

But then he changed. He got demanding, telling her, she should leave SGC prematurely, stating that there was no future in the project. Though she didn't totally disagree -- after all, what use was a gate, that went nowhere -- she didn't listen to him. She wanted to finish what she had started.

He didn't see it her way. A big fight had broken out and then she had seen his real face. He had said things, she had never before heard him saying. She realized that all he wanted was to control her, possess her. But she was nobody's possession!

When he began calling her names, she simply took off his ring, placed it on the counter of his kitchen and walked out.

That had been four months ago, and she hadn't seen hide nor hair of him since them. She dove into her work, and slowly but steadily she managed to forget him.

And now this Colonel Jack O'Neill walked in.

Again her very first impulse had been to think 'wow!'. And the next moment she was in a verbal battle with that man she had known about only by reputation.

At least she had been able to prove to him that she could hold her own in battle. When they had come back from Chulak there had been something like respect in his eyes.

No, a relationship with him was out of the question.

Still, a girl was allowed to dream once in a while.

With that thought she finally found a position that felt comfortable.

And she slept.

**********

He couldn't sleep. He had been pacing in his bedroom, and when this hadn't helped he had gone down into his living room. He pulled out a book out of the shelve, but he didn't even open it.

/Why can't these idiots see it? Why can't they accept that my way is the best way? They will pull us down into disaster./

Colonel 'Smart Remark' O'Neill. Mr. 'They could be blowing their noses right now'. All he could see was the adventure, the chance to shine, while he himself and the others who stayed behind, did all the dirty work.

Why didn't they see that burying the 'gate was the only logical solution?

'The glass is half empty over here!'

Indeed, it was half empty. But who's fault was it?

He had worked for StarGate Command for three years now. At first it had been kinda interesting. This 'riddle' of unknown proportion. Nobody had a real idea what it was, the only knew it was something alien and it might be a weapon. A 'Doorway to Heaven' ... this could have meant anything.

He remembered clearly the day a year ago, when Dr. Langford brought in Dr. Jackson. He hadn't been in the room with the coverstone when Jackson ripped apart Meyer's translations, but one of the people there had told him anything about it.

However he had been present when the decision had been made to bring in Col. O'Neill. He had done the research on him for General West and he had been very impressed by the Colonel's file. An excellent soldier, it was a shame about his son.

Nobody had been more surprised than himself when O'Neill *did* come back from the mission to Abydos. If he had been the betting type he could have lost a lot of money over that.

But then everything fell quiet. O'Neill had said the Abydos StarGate had been destroyed and there was no reason to work on the project any more. O'Neill retired, West moved on to other projects and Hammond came in. He stayed, as the man who knew the most about the StarGate, beside the scientists of course. He should have moved on as well, but, as usual, they ignored his request for transfer and he was stuck.

But then the 'gate opened again.

For the first time he felt fear of what might be coming now. He saw the tapes of the attack on the embarkation room. The Serpent Guards ... they looked dangerous. So far they had been something in a report, something not quite ... real. But now ...

Why was he the only one who saw the danger? The *real* danger.

To eliminate the threat they should bury the StarGate. This way they wouldn't be any more Serpent Guards, any more dangers to Earth.

Of course, O'Neill had to say something about this as well. 'They know what we are, how far we have come. We are a threat to them. They got ships, general ...'

They might have ships as big as the pyramids, but if they stayed low for now, didn't poke any more in that wasp nest, they would ignore Earth. If we don't bother them, they wouldn't bother us.

He was sure of that.

He had to find a way to shut the 'gate down, even if the president himself was for a continuing of the mission. He would stay low for now, watching, collecting data. And then he would find other people who thought like him and then the StarGate would be shut down for good.

With that resolution in mind he went back up to his bedroom and into his bed.

And slept like a baby.

**********

He couldn't sleep. After what had seemed to be like hours fruitlessly tossing and turning, he finally got up and went to the kitchen. Maybe a glass of milk would help him to sleep. Sara had always told him ...

/Stop it! Don't think about her. She isn't there for you anymore. She left you./

Did she? Wasn't it rather, he had left her when he set out to Abydos so shortly after Charlie's death? He knew he had had no intention of coming back then, if he had to be honest with himself. There had been no reason to come back. Not when it had been his fault that Charlie ...

He leaned his head against the cold surface of the fridge.

What had he told Daniel two days ago? He would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done. Sometimes, maybe, if he was lucky, he would forget for a few hours, not think about it. But that was not true, not really. He was thinking about his son, day and night, every hour when he was awake, and also when he was asleep, in his dreams.

And now ... he had done it again. Another son of his was gone.

Strange for him to think about Skaara as his son, but he couldn't deny he was exactly doing that. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the young Abydonian freedom fighter had been the only person who hadn't been afraid of him when they met on the desert planet. He was sure Skaara had seen, like the others, this invisible 'Do Not Disturb' sign that doubled as his face. But Sha're's brother had ignored it and had come to speak to him, not minding the language, cultural and age barriers that separated them. And the boy had shown him and all the men with him a courage and an ability to lead, that astounded him.

And now he was gone, turned into one of the enemies, his mind most likely destroyed like a nut cracked under the boot of a Serpent Guard.

No, he couldn't accept that!

Not another son of his!

He would go out there, together with Teal'c, the former Jaffa, Sam, the female scientist and Daniel, the geek. And together with this unlikely team he would bring back Skaara and Sha're and free them of their Goa'ulds.

With a slight smile on his lips he turned away from the kitchen, without ever opening the refrigerator and getting the milk. He knew that now he would be able to sleep.

And he did.

The End