| Yesterday's
Dream |
DISCLAIMER: Judson Cross(Michael Biehn) and the rest of
the Adventure
Inc cast belong to Tribune and Fireworks. I'm just playing with them.
No copyright infringement intended.
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Yesterday's Dream
By Tarlan
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Grinning broadly, Judson threw the jade artifact up into the air,
deftly catching it as gravity pulled it back down to earth. He might
not be bringing an entire jade altar back to the States but he had
discovered enough to appease the people who had agreed to finance this
expedition. The location of the temple would bring scholars of Mayan
and other ancient South American cultures racing to obtain visas and
permission slips from the Office of Antiquities, perhaps bringing more
wealth into the area.
He stopped to take a long look at the altar, wondering at the
mysterious halo that had appeared when Stefan tried to pull it from
its ancient resting place. No doubt the scientists would find an
explanation for it but Judson held his own belief as he watched Ynez
and her lover walk away hand in hand.
The echo of marching boots filled the cavern and Judson turned to face
a number of soldiers. He froze but they ignored him and his team,
marching over instead to pick up the still dazed remnants of Stefan's
band of mercenaries. One walked up to where Stefan lay still on the
ground close by. He kicked out at the body... and something tore
inside Judson.
Until that moment this had all seemed like something from a dream...
too unreal to make any great impact upon him, but the sight of a
lifeless arm flopping back uselessly to the dusty ground ripped
through him.
This was no dream... and Stefan was not lying there asleep. He was
dead. Stefan was dead.
Judson couldn't recall moving, only regaining his senses as strong
arms pulled him off the shocked soldier, leaving the man bloodied and
dishevelled, sprawled in the dust beside the body.
"Don't touch him!"
"Easy, Judson. Easy."
Judson shrugged off Gabe's hands, leaning over in wide-eyed shock as
he fought to draw breath into his laboring lungs. Realization had hit
him like a punch in the gut, forcing the air from his body. He dropped
down beside the still form of a man who had once been more than an
associate... more than a friend.
Stefan was dead. His lover was dead.
A stifled sob fell from his lips as he realised the small dream he'd
been holding onto had gone forever. How long had he been secretly
hoping that Stefan would come to his senses and return to him? It was
so hard to believe that a small spark of resentment had torn them
apart, bringing them to a moment in time when the man he had lived,
worked, fought and loved with would want him dead.
No. That wasn't true because at the end, with a gun aimed at him at
point blank, Stefan had not pulled the trigger. Something of what they
had shared had still been alive in there. Some small measure of the
love they'd had, of the friendship they'd forged so many years ago,
had still sparked deep inside of Stefan. It had stayed his hand but it
had not been enough to stop him from trying to take the altar... and
dying in the attempt.
Judson closed his eyes tightly, unsuccessful in his attempt to stop
the tears squeezing through and rolling down his cheeks. He reached
out, blinded by hot tears, to touch the still warm face, a single tear
dropping onto the slightly parted lips that used to worship him with
gentle kisses and soft words of endearment.
Movement from across the other side of the body drew his eyes to the
figure slowly kneeling down and he looked into Mac's compassionate
grey blue eyes.
"I'm sorry, Judson."
He nodded once, accepting her small hand and allowing her to draw him
to his feet and away from where Stefan lay. He turned aside, unwilling
to watch as the soldiers removed Stefan's body, and his eyes fell upon
the jade altar that had caused Stefan's death.
The legend said that this ought to have been a place of great
happiness, built to sanctify the marriage between two great kingdoms
but instead, it had become the bride's tomb, tainted by her spilled
blood at the hands of an angry father. He thought of the young couple
possessed by the spirits of two long lost souls who had, finally, been
reunited here after so many centuries apart.
Perhaps it was fitting that the altar should should remain in this
place undisturbed, as a monument to the power of love.
As he walked briskly from the temple, Judson did not look back.
Yesterday's dream had died with Stefan but the seed of a new one had
been planted and perhaps, in a thousand years time, he would return to
this place and find Stefan waiting for him.
THE END