"There's only one flaw in that theory. You're assuming this is not what I wanted all along."
Daniel awoke with a start. The last words he spoke to Jack were echoing through his mind, Jack's hurt and shocked expression still holding his mind's eye.
His opened eyes took in a completely different picture of his surroundings. Grey walls. Grey ceiling. Soft lights. If he didn't know better, he'd think he was back in the SGC infirmary. But that was impossible. He hadn't stepped foot in Cheyenne Mountain for four months. There was no need to return there after moving relevant operations to his bunker. Yet this all seemed hauntingly familiar, including the blurry figure of Dr. Janet Fraiser coming towards him.
"What happened?" How did he get here? Where was Jack? His staff? His guards?
"I was going to ask you the same thing. You were talking to the boy, and then you suddenly collapsed." Janet repeated the words she had said over a year ago when he had first awoken after Shifu had touched him.
Unlike the first time this happened when everything had switched into crystal clear clarity after a few moments of fuzziness, Janet's features remained blurred. Just like they did when he wasn't wearing his glasses. But he hadn't needed his glasses for months, not since the eye procedure based on Goa'uld healing technology gave him better than 20/20 vision. Actually, what was he doing here? She said he had been talking to the boy. That wasn't right. The last clear memory he had was of Jack's face right after he...oh god oh god Oh God Oh God OH GOD!
Janet was taken by surprise as Daniel suddenly leaned over, head swimming, stomach reeling in nausea. Luckily, Daniel was familiar enough with the infirmary to grab a basin automatically before losing control of his stomach. He could still see the computer screen showing the cold data of the loss of life in Moscow. The millions of lives HE snuffed out in an instant. How had he put it? "It's quick and clean. It's like cutting your enemy's heart out with a scalpel." Like that was so humane. He retched again, but it was nothing but dry heaves. Janet was speaking to him, but her words were mere background noise.
The guilt washed over him, making him shudder. Teal'c was dead. He remembered making the plans. "Make it appear like an accident," his cold voice ordered before sending the assassin through the Stargate after Teal'c. Sam was imprisoned, pleading with Jack to listen to her. Jack had so far escaped his full wrath. But that was only because Daniel had wanted the man to see the results of his year of preparation, to finally see the achievement of their mutual goal of defeating the Goa'uld. Daniel thought Jack deserved that much before punishing him for his betrayal. Sneaking a gun into the bunker was foolhardy. "You never were that bright." God. Jack's betrayal, what a laugh.
Daniel choked back a hysterical sob as he clutched the basin. Daniel had betrayed them all--Jack, Sam, Teal'c, hell the whole planet.
He felt the reassuring hand rubbing his shoulder and the soothing voice in his ear was starting to make sense. "...nel O'Neill back from observation to be with you, or maybe Sam or Teal'c?"
"What?" Daniel's voice was low and confused, but strong. He registered Janet's relieved sigh. He saw her hand holding something out to him, then realized it was his glasses. She knew he always reached for his glasses upon awakening. He placed them on his face and his myopia cleared.
"I said I can call one of your team back to stay with you if you'd like. They're just in the observation room."
"Te...I don't understand." Teal'c was dead. Sam in jail. Jack at the bunker. This was just some strange memory he was reliving. Though he didn't remember vomiting the first time around. He had blacked out at Shifu's touch and woken up here over a year ago, hadn't he?
"Dreams teach."
"Sometimes."
Shifu. It was all a dream. Shifu was trying to show him. Daniel leaned back and heaved a deep sigh. His glance at Janet confirmed his actions were reassuring Dr. Frasier as well. Good. He could do without some of the numerous tests he could tell she was checking off in that quick medical brain of hers. He gave her a small smile of reassurance.
Janet returned the smile. "How do you feel, Daniel?"
"Fine." Her smile turned to a scowl at the automatic response. Her eyes glanced to the basin with a skeptical expression. He rolled his eyes and amended, "well, better now. It was just a reaction to a bad dream."
Janet's skeptical expression remained. "Just a reaction to a dream," she parroted.
"A bad dream." Daniel's blue eyes turned dark at the memory. "A very bad dream." He was interrupted from his reverie by a bright light stabbing his retina. "Hey."
Janet continued her pen light assault while grabbing his wrist to check his pulse. She harrumphed slightly at what he could only assume was his normal heart range. Physically, he felt fine. It was just his emotions that were a wreck. He pushed the dark thoughts aside to focus on the barrage of questions she fired at him. He could almost answer them by rote. Name. Birthdate. Location. Current president. He paused at the query of the current date, and countered with a question of his own. "How long was I out?"
"Several hours." She glanced at the clock. "Going on fourteen actually."
Fourteen hours. He lived through a year and self-inflicted armageddon in fourteen hours. He tuned back in to Janet's prattling as she checked more of his vitals. "...believe you because of the REM state you were in the whole time. I had a hard time convincing the colonel you weren't in a coma." She handed him one of those hated styrofoam cups of water with straw, and he sipped it greedily. The cool water was a refreshing relief from the rawness in his throat.
Still, he couldn't relax completely. The dream was so vivid; it had seemed so real. There was no alien symbiote inside him, yet the darkness of the parasites' genetic memory overwhelmed his soul. And at the time, he hadn't even cared. He remembered actually being annoyed that he had no naquadah in his blood to make the horrific Goa'uld devices work. Now he tried suppressing the memory of how they worked due to his horror, then realized he couldn't remember anyway. All the knowledge and technology of the Goa'uld were mere gibberish on blackboards and computer screens. Fuzzy gibberish fading away in his memory of the dream. Unfortunately, his conversations and actions remained technicolor clear.
How had he explained it to Jack? "We'd be flooding his mind with the thoughts of 1,000 Hitlers." It seemed like only yesterday they had been talking in the briefing room. Come to think of it, it probably was only yesterday. Time was hard to figure out right now, but the lesson of the dream was clear. The knowledge was too strong; the power too seductive. No one could resist the temptation it brought. He remembered feeling at the time that he was working for the most altruistic reasons. He justified every step. It was for efficiency, to help people, to overcome their lack of leadership abilities. Even now, faced with the horror, he realized with that knowledge he would have made the same choices.
That was what Shifu had meant when he explained the evil of the Goa'uld subconscious would be too strong to resist. You can't pick and choose parts of the Goa'uld genetic memory. It was an all or nothing deal. With the knowledge came the power, and no one could resist the corruption it entailed. Daniel couldn't, and an innocent child couldn't. And this child was not just any innocent, but Sha're's child. The one he had sworn to save with his beloved wife's final breath.
When he helped Sha're through childbirth, he had planned to protect them both, even raise and teach the child himself. Instead, Shifu taught him. Oma protected him more than Daniel ever could. That realization brought him both regret and relief. "Dreams teach." Sha're had taught him to forgive Teal'c in her dream. Shifu taught him the danger of Goa'uld knowledge. He had almost subjected that poor child to those horrors. Oma was right. The battle must be denied.
Daniel had not completely hit the basin in his attack of nausea. The front of his white hospital gown was spattered, and he realized Janet was ordering a nurse to find another one. Daniel shook his head and reached to the closet where he knew patients' personal belongings were kept. He just hoped she hadn't cut him out of his uniform this time or thrown his clothes in the hamper. He was in luck. His uniform and boots were stored together.
"Daniel, you've been unconscious for hours, you can't just get dressed and leave."
"Why not? It sounds like I've gotten enough rest," Daniel countered. "You said yourself I was just sleeping."
"Yes, with no response to any stimulant. We couldn't wake you."
"I'm awake now. Janet, I'm fine. I just..." Daniel paused and took a deep breath. "I just need to feel normal. It's just clothing, Janet. Please. You didn't notice anything else wrong, did you?" He knew the answer before her expression confirmed it.
"No." She bit out the words. "But that doesn't mean..." She scowled at his earnest expression, but sighed. He knew from experience she was weakening. "Fine. But you've got to eat something, and I'm not through with the tests."
Daniel raised his hands in submission to the doctor, then pulled his shirt over him. He noticed Janet's studied smile at his quick and sure movements getting dressed. 'See Janet? I'm perfectly fine,' he thought, knowing the error of that assessment.
As he was pulling on his boots, Janet started moving to the phone. "I should contact the isolation room and let them know you're awake."
Daniel tied the bootlace knot taut. "What about the isolation room?" He now remembered her talking about his team observing something.
"They're questioning the boy. He was so circumspect about your collapse, just said he was teaching you. When you wouldn't wake up, they felt it necessary..." Janet started at Daniel grabbing her arm in a tight grip.
"They? They who?" Daniel was frantic, barely noticing her free hand grabbing at the wrist restraining her.
"The Tok'ra. They wanted to make sure with the zatarc detect..." Janet lost her balance as Daniel released his grip suddenly and tore out of the infirmary.
"NO! I have to stop them." Daniel didn't even hear her calling him back as he raced to the isolation labs. He knew which one it would likely be, the same one used when searching for the zatarc assassin.
He heard Dr. Fraiser's quick clipped heels trying to catch up to him, but his long strides outpaced her. They didn't realize the danger. Only he knew, he and Shifu. The child tried to explain that Daniel's search for him was leading him down the wrong path.
"You must release your burden before you find your own way again."
"I chose this path to honor Sha're's strength."
But this path didn't honor Sha're or anyone else. This path only led to the soul's destruction, what Shifu described as sour music. "Sha're, forgive my ignorance. I won't let them hurt your son." Please, let him not be too late.
He rounded the corner and saw his guess was right based on the SFs outside the door. As he skidded to a stop at the doorway, he could hear Shifu's young voice strong and clear. "And that the evil in my subconscious is too strong to resist."
Shifu was not surprised at Daniel's appearance, though noone else had yet noticed him. The child just turned and looked directly at him, expectantly. Daniel responded in a way that would acknowledge he had learned the lesson. "The only way to win is to deny it battle."
Fin
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Dreams Teach
by Aurora NovarumStory Bemerkung:
This was my very first fanfic for Stargate...or really for anything else and was the first dustoff of a very rusty writing muse.Site Navigation
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