bk_forever | Ficlet: In Dreams

Title: In Dreams

Characters: Jack

Rating: G

Spoilers: Adam I suppose.

Summary: Jack dreams sometimes of his long lost family.

Word Count: 405

Written For: slippy’s prompt ‘any, "dreaming of another place and time / where my family's from",’ at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.

Jack claims not to sleep, but he’d have no need of a bed if that were true. He doesn’t need it as much as ordinary humans, but he still sleeps every few days. He’s not sure how much of that is force of habit and how much is because it’s a biological imperative, but he welcomes it nevertheless. Some of the time, anyway.

Sleep brings dreams, and considering everything he’s been though in his life, a lot of those dreams turn out to be nightmares. When the nightmares are bad, he tries to stay awake as much as possible, only sleeping when he can’t avoid it any longer, but sometimes…

Sometimes sleep brings an unexpected blessing, and as he slumbers he finds himself back on Boeshane with his parents and little brother, playing on the wide sandy beaches, splashing at the edge of the turbulent sea, lazing in the sparse shade provided by thorny, twisted Makuk trees or hunting rodents and sand lizards in the dry scrublands the other side of the dunes.

He wakes from these dreams with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. When he’s awake he can’t remember his loved ones’ faces, their voices, or anything but vague, distant images. Only in dreams do the long-buried memories surface and then everything is as clear as if he was actually there. He can feel the hot breeze, smell the tang of ozone in the air, hear his mother singing and his brother laughing; it’s so bittersweet that his heart aches, but such dreams are worth more to him than the greatest treasure in the universe.

He left his home so long ago, but in this time and place Boeshane has yet to be discovered, let alone colonised. The people he misses so much won’t even be born for more than three thousand years. Time travel makes everything so complicated; how can he mourn people who have yet to be born, yet who he can see in living colour in his dreams?

The worst part is that he will still be alive in the 51^st century, and although the urge to visit his home and his family will be overwhelming, he’ll have to resist it; the paradoxes he could cause would be too great a risk. The only safe way to be with his family is in his dreams, and so he’ll cherish them for as long as they last.

The End