Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: As It Fell Upon A Day: Part 7
Message-ID: <1junl1INNhph@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
From: aa811@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Terri M. Librande)
Date: 24 Jan 1993 18:37:21 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu
Lines: 62


As it Fell Upon A Day, Part 7

Terri Librande

"Let's get you to Barry
's place."  Al glanced around, feeling trapped.  "Where's your car?"

"Just down the street."  Sam's eyes were still tearing from the gas, but he
could see well enough to find the car.  As he started to get up he heard
Al clear his throat.  His eyes came up to meet his friend's gaze.

"I'm not into personal stuff, Sam."  Al's eyes were downcast.  "But if the
truth be told, I don't think we've had a seventy-two hour period in the
last five years we haven't been together for some length of time."  Al's
mouth opened again, then he seemed to change his mind in the middle of
his 'confession'.  His lips tightened like a clamp on his cigar.  Sam
answered with a wraparound grin, and Al coughed uncomfortably.  "All right,
all right," he said roughly. "Let's get your tail back somewhere safe."

'Safe' was a relative term that night.  The way home was fraught with
obstacles; flares, roadblocks, and armed soldiers.  It took Sam twice as
long to drive to his apartment than it had the night before.  By the time
he arrived, he was too exhausted from the gas, and the day, to do more than
shower and fall into bed.

Al left briefly, but returned after Sam had gone to bed.  He'd ignored the

looks that Gooshie and Beeks had given him and passed on their offer of a
rest and coffee.  There didn't seem to be any progress on what exactly Ziggy
predicted Sam would have to do, and he was anxious to return to his friend.
Sleep would wait.

The apartment Al opened the IC door into the dark. Sam was dead asleep .
Watching his partner sleep wasn't  on his list of big thrills.  Sam had a
tendency to snore--softly at first, later it would be loud enough to kill
dogs.  There was the tiniest, almost imperceptible frown between Sam/Dr.
Barry's eyes.  //He's dreaming--probably not good ones.//  Al remembered
a few nights like this himself, and the dreams that came.  Somehow, they
always seemed to be the one where Sam got stuck between leaps and they
couldn't retrieve or send him.  Hitting the door controls on the link, Al
stepped back to the Imaging Chamber.  Maybe Sam had the right idea.

"AL!"  Sam jolted upright in bed, his face beaded with sweat.  Looking
around in confusion, he realized he was the only one in the room. Pressing
the heels of his hands over burning eyes, he tried to press the nightmare
back.  It was the same old one, dreaming that he'd awakened in his own
bed back at his quarters in the Project.  Half-asleep he'd drag himself
to the bathroom--and view his image in the mirror.  Another, not his own
face, stared back at him, eyes wide with shock.  The fear would cling
to him like rancid sweat, long after jolting awareness cut short the
nightmare.

He pulled somnolence over him like a blanket. It was just a dream, and
it couldn't keep him from getting his rest tonight.

more to come

-- 
"Unscrupulous--but effective!"  Al in "Starcrossed"
Terri Librande aa811@cleveland.Freenet.edu  Assistant Sysop
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Sig--Go SCIFI