I woke screaming again this morning. It's becoming more frequent, too. I dream of not being me... but not in the way you think.
I dream of being me, but having the Soldier in there too.
But... it isn't just us in their, either.
There is someone - something - else in there with us. Something evil. It makes the things I fight every night on the good old Boca del Infierno seem like cuddly 'bunny wabbits' - to coin a phrase.
I wake screaming because I'm me, but at the same time, I'm not me. I'm in the background, crying out for the... whatever it is to stop. To stop the hurting, stop the pain... stop controlling me.
Then the other in my head tells me a name: Snakehead. Goa'uld.
Then I remember his last words: "General, I want you to give the order!"
He's been strapped to the table, sweat dripping with the agony endured, the fight that is occurring when it can't be won.
"I want to wake as me... or not at all."
And that is how I feel.
"Wake as me."
Those are the words that I speak every morning I open my eyes.
I can tell that Soldier isn't too keen on it, either. Kowalsky - that's his name, in case I forgot to tell you earlier - fought and died in the battle against these things. Beings so powerful that they moulded our history - our very way of life - into a vision they saw and liked.
He didn't like being in my head too much.
First, it was because I wasn't cleared to know what he knew. But with everything going through the same synapses, the same neurons, I didn't have much choice but to know what he did. He thought it, and I knew it - it wasn't a sharing, more a forced impression of knowledge. I knew stuff, all of a sudden that I hadn't known before, purely because he had known it, and thought about it.
Then it was because I didn't know what I was doing. He was trained: he was experienced. He had gone into the worse situations in the world, and come back out alive. The way I threw myself at the things I fought - which, interestingly, he didn't believe in until the first time he saw a vampire go <poof> in front of me - was to him suicidal. To me, too. But I wasn't trained, no one had offered, and I had no money to fund any training. So I muddled through. And I learned. I learned well.
The days weren't too bad. He helped me, when I couldn't help myself. While he was never the greatest student, he was better than I was: and being both a Major, and in the StarGate Command, made him have reasons to learn. To better himself, to understand what the hell the geeks were going on about when they started on about the StarGate. He didn't have to, but he had pride: pride in his work, pride in his job, pride in his achievements, and perhaps most importantly, pride in himself. He wasn't going to let himself get stuck working in McDonalds or KFC for the rest of his - I mean, my natural.
But for all the help he was during the day, neither of us could help each other at night. Me and him - both of us - even though the way we had experienced it differently, were scared to close my eyes.
Does this confuse you as much as it does me?
Good.
If I can't understand it, and he can't understand it, I don't see why anyone else should either.
The others never noticed. Amazing, really. Cordy never noticed. Buffy never noticed. Not even Willow, my bestfriend_ ever noticed. Giles? He paid little enough attention to me anyway. His priority was the Slayer. Not some crazy teen desperate to help her.
Sad but true.
And I didn't help: hiding behind the mask of the fool... the comic relief. It was that or go crazy. It was a role I had played for years. I was safe in my mask, and they were happy in their ignorance. So why spoil it? They had too much to worry about already.
So those same words were spoken again.
I had to physically stop myself from calling the SGC many times after Kowalsky became a resident in my head. He wanted to hear the voices of his friends one last time... he knew the numbers to get their personal phones: as long as they weren't out on a mission, he could talk to Jack again. Tell him that he didn't blame him... that he knew he was dead the second they realised that a Goa'uld was in him. In some strange way, he had known it as soon as it happened, but the Goa'uld played tricks on his mind from the moment it was in.
Then he remembers the blades.
Do any of you know how painful it is to have a scalpel cutting into your back when you're not out like a light? The doc couldn't administer any sedatives until he could get to the Goa'uld first. It took all of his will not to scream - but he'd been 'not screaming' for hours, and this pain was only a little worse, really - but that didn't help me very much.
I guess that's why I was never hurt all that badly. After what the rider in my head went through, a broken bone, a vampire bite, being thrown across a room - whatever it was at the time, wasn't such a big thing. Even Angel's slug to the face only almost broke my jaw. Thank God - well, Kowalsky, actually - that he saw it coming and twisted with the blow. Otherwise, I'd have had my jaw wired shut for weeks while it healed.
Y'know, if Willow had ever got wise, she would have exorcised Kowalsky in a minute. Giles and Buffy would have backed her up. Can't have the Zeppo -even Kowalsky got angry at that particular nickname - getting any abilities, can we? No. Kowalsky compared it to fear of the unknown... but I'm not sure he's right. Almost every new demon we fight is an "unknown" until we beat it: even Spike was a big uncertainty. Angel? Well, I'm sorry, but anyone with a whit of sense does actual research into a guy's past when he comes out with the doozy of "I'm a vampire." Its common sense, isn't it? And find a reference to the Scourge of Europe and stop there? Are you mad? Stake the guy! Drop him in a barrel of Holy water! But don't leave him ali - er, undead!
I think it's me. Fear of and fear for me. When they know what I am, or what they think I am, they're happy. But when their little world view gets upset, they get angry.
Buffy called my dislike of Angel jealousy. Yeah, OK, maybe to some degree -initially - it was. But Kowalsky hated vampires because they were parasites just as much as any Goa'uld. And I hated vampires because of Jesse. My best friend.
Our hatred and anger fed on each other. Where before I had merely been opposed, now I refused vehemently. And as I began stepping forward, they began to push me out. I knew that after Graduation, they'd push me out completely: they were at College, and I wasn't. We'd only see each other when it was convenient for them. The biggest sucker punch was that I actually got accepted into UC Sunnydale. But there was no way I'd be able to fund it.
Which is why my Road Trip led me here.
And here I sit.
In a cell in the SGC, after having talked my way onto the base.
Neither Hammond or Jack know what to do with me. Jack doesn't believe I have his friend in my head - and I can't blame him. They scanned me, though, and there is certainly no Goa'uld in me. The Doc's certain of that, if nothing else. She's pretty cute, as it happens. Janet.
So anyway, here I sit. Two Airmen outside, two airmen inside, and Teal'c standing there watching me with what for him must be enthusiastic fascination. Kowalsky didn't really know him - he died too quickly for that - but he's got the opinion that he's an upright man who most importantly does the right thing, no matter how much he personally has to pay for it.
And Jack - he's staring at me though the reinforced glass again.
Both Kowalsky and I are in agreement. We couldn't have gone about this any differently, and neither of us could have stayed away, either.
I smile at him, and wave at him, even with the handcuffs on.
"Come on in, Jack." Kowalsky grins like a loony in my head at the look on the Colonels face, "what do you want to ask me now?"
Yeah, despite everything; I'm glad that I wake as me.
I intended this as a one-shot. But I find that the end leads me to write a sequel. If you like this, please review. :) Whether I do actually continue this (I've got 15 odd fics WIP already) or not is entirely in your hands, people. Thank you. :)