<td> <a name="ch4">Chapter 4 - Dreams and Visions</a>

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// It craved more control. The container of 'spirit water' it swiped from the Red Lightning Tribe had only enough for three or four doses. Enough to give the people of its new home a taste of the havoc it knew how to wreak. But not enough to keep control of its host's body. And it was hungry. Death had a plan. //

Daniel put his hands over his ears and groaned. Was he *ever* going to shut that thing off. The music was driving him nuts.

He found a pair of pants and stumbled into them. He lost his balance and fell heavily against the wall. For a blissful moment, his neighbor turned the song down. But only for a moment.

Wonderful, he thought, pulling on a shirt. First day back and he wasn't going to be awake enough to appreciate it. He passed by the clock on his way to the bathroom. Great, he was late, too. Jack was not going to be pleased.

Almost as soon as he finished thinking the thought, a knock sounded at the door. Daniel glanced at the ceiling, sighed, and went to answer it.

"It's music, Teal'c," Daniel said with a sigh. "And it's okay. He's just been playing it all night."

Probably not, Daniel thought. "I need to finish shaving." He pointed to his face, still half lathered with shaving cream. "Tell Jack I'll be right down."

Daniel finished getting ready and gave his fish a quick smattering of food. It wasn't until he had his key in the door did he realize the music was blissfully silent.

"*Now* you turn it off," he muttered under his breath. He shook his head and started for the elevator.

"Good morning to you, too." Daniel buckled himself in and settled back for the ride to the mountain. He gazed out the window, absently taking in the already busy street. A panhandler, a regular to this area, was talking to a young man on the corner. The doorman held the door for a woman who dashed to the cab behind them. Children were reluctantly boarding the school bus sitting before them.

Jack drummed his hands on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for the red blinking lights to stop flashing so he could pull out. "What took you so long?" he pestered Daniel.

"Didn't sleep well," he responded, deciding now was a good time to complain. "My neighbor turned on his music at about five last night. He didn't turn it off till just now." The bus pulled forward, Jack following. "It was a pretty song," Daniel sighed. "The first two or three times. But he kept playing the same song, over and over and over again."

The meaningful look wasn't lost on Daniel. "Yes," he said emphatically. "That was all." Just an inconsiderate neighbor. His lack of sleep had nothing to do with dreams of any sort, the music kept him up too long to dream at all. He didn't mention the nightmare which woke him up the night before. He was pretty certain it was just a product of the stress of the last couple of weeks, and the anxiety of getting back to work.

After the fiasco at P4J943, the tests for his nightmares had been moved up. The military, he thought wryly, sure knew how to push all the right buttons when they wanted answers in a hurry.

Janet Frasier had given him a complete physical. Again. Not the most pleasant experience in the best of circumstances, less so when she was trying to find a physical cause to dreams he couldn't remember.

And talking to Mackenzie again... Daniel couldn't quite bring himself to trust the man since he fell victim to one of Machello's devices to rid the universe of the Goa'uld. And Jack glared at the doctor every time he came within range. If looks could kill, Mackenzie would have been dead several times over. Daniel was grateful for Jack's presence, which actually had a calming effect on him every time the psychologist came around. It helped that this time even Mackenzie had to admit Daniel seemed to be in perfect health. It was the rest of SG1 who were having problems sleeping.

Aside from being worried, mostly for his team's mental health, and frankly more nervous than he cared to admit, Daniel had the best sleep that week and half than he had had since Sha're had been taken from him. The nightmares did not rear their ugly head once. And though he couldn't actually remember what it was he *had* dreamt, he was left with the feeling they were good dreams.

Now Daniel had to live with Jack's teasing, his mock threats to break out a zat gun if Daniel ever had a nightmare again. That he could handle. He just wanted things to get back to normal. Like 'gating across the galaxy to a planet far, far away. Daniel grinned out the window. Right now, considering Jack's taste in music, he'd settle for a car that deigned to start.

His bad day seemed to take a turn for the better when the briefing went with few complications. SG1 was to visit an uninhabited world with some intriguing structures about a mile from the Stargate. A simple assignment to let SG1 stretch their collective legs after the extended down time.

The day took a turn for the weird when their relatively short mission ended up taking no more than fifteen minutes. General Hammond had nearly had a heart attack at their arrival. Swift returns usually boded ill for the team coming back. They had arrived on the planet only to find themselves surrounded in chest high snow that hadn't been there a mere two hours previous. They would have returned to Earth sooner, except they had a little difficulty wading through the snow to the DHD. With weather extremes like that, it was no wonder the place was deserted.

The mission was postponed pending further analysis, leaving the team to write up rather short reports. Daniel spent the rest of the day fighting back yawns and keeping the coffee industry in business. He was actually pestering Jack to leave for a change.

Jack dropped him off at his apartment building, and the day went downhill from there. He said hi to the doorman, entered the elevator, pressed the button to the proper floor, and leaned wearily against the wall for the ride up. Then he noticed the blood.

// It was all over the floor, a thick pool beneath a crumpled form. Daniel gasped at the sight. He could tell the man was dead. There was too much blood. And his head was tilted in an unnatural angle.

Daniel couldn't take his eyes off of the scene. The man was leaning against the back of a couch. A plant had been knocked over, the soil turning muddy as it mixed with the man's blood. A record lay cracked in two on the turn table. //

The elevator jerked to a stop. Daniel blinked. The scene was gone. Confused, Daniel found only the elevator doors opening, and the quiet hall of his apartment building.

Daniel walked shakily to his apartment, carefully closed the door behind him, and sat heavily on the couch. A few moments later he collected himself enough to stumble to bed, hoping against hope it had been the need to sleep that caused the vision. Maybe he had fallen asleep on his feet and it was merely the product of some awful dream.

The night didn't go any better. He slept fitfully, his dreams laden with disjointed images of blood and bodies. When he woke up the last time, he could remember little, except to say the bodies had been of Sam and Jack. What lingered in his waking hours was the feeling the dream him had. Satisfaction at the sight of the pain on the faces of his friends. And an urge to cause more.

Ignoring his shaking hands, Daniel made himself coffee and tried to loose himself in reading. He waited for Jack to pick him up so he could get his own car from the shop, and hoped the rest of the day would not be as long as this morning.

"Doctor Jackson," Sgt. Ashton started again, his face turning redder than Daniel's. Teal'c chose the moment to enter Daniel's office, interrupting what was promising to become a good shouting match.

Teal'c looked at both of the startled men, one brow raised. He let his gaze rest on the Sgt.

Ashton swallowed and took a step back. "Doctor Jackson," he said again, his voice at a controlled neutral. "We'll discuss this later," he promised, folding up the glasses he was reading with and placing them in his pocket. "When you can see to reason." Sgt. Ashton quickly left the office.

Teal'c followed the man out with his eyes. When the sergeant disappeared he turned his scrutiny on his team mate. "Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel sighed, rubbed at his eyes under his own glasses. "Nothing to worry about Teal'c," he assured his friend. He sat heavily. "We just have a little disagreement about how artifacts should be handled with decontamination."

Daniel absently shuffled papers on his desk. He didn't want to take out his frustrations on Teal'c, but so long as Sgt. Ashton and his so called procedures were on his mind... Two bad days in a row. If this kept up, it was going to be one lousy week indeed.

He uncovered one of his many projects and brightened. "Ah, Teal'c. Glad you're here. I've got three of the seven symbols translated." He held up the paper as if to prove his words. "The language is definitely alien," he said, looking over his notes again. "The spirits Goran spoke of might have been real beings, and they might have helped those people rid their planet of the Goa'uld. And if this is the address of their homeworld..."

"Then perhaps they can help us as well," Teal'c said, finishing the thought for him.

Daniel grinned. "Exactly. The point of origin was easy enough," he said, mumbling into his notes. "But I don't remember the configuration of the DHD to get the last four..."

Daniel looked up, startled from his line of thought. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. He didn't even ask what Teal'c had come for.

Teal'c seemed to realize he finally had Daniel's attention and supplied the information for him. "Major Carter requests our presence in the lab."

"Oh." He jumped up. Sam had called earlier asking for help with a translation on a piece of machinery SG6 had brought back last week. He glanced at the clock. That had been an hour ago.

Daniel followed Teal'c out of his office, shaking his head at himself. Oh yeah, it was going to be one of those weeks where he was better off staying in bed.

Sleep was not so much elusive as intolerable. Still, when he woke up he could remember little more than blood and pained expressions on the faces of his friends. And the remembered feeling of sick enjoyment.

Daniel shivered despite the coffee he held with both hands and the heat he had turned up when he first awoke. He couldn't go back to sleep, that was a given. Try as he might, he couldn't concentrate enough to even fix himself an early breakfast. Suddenly his own apartment had become an uncomfortable place to be.

He snorted at himself in disgust. As if his apartment had ever been the most comfortable place to be. But it didn't usually make his skin crawl to be alone. Right now he wanted to be anywhere but alone.

Daniel put his cup down and grabbed his jacket. He could always find a way to distract himself at the SGC.

Even the mountain was unusually quiet, despite the time of morning. Two teams were on leave, the rest, with the exception of SG1, were off world. SG1 was due to leave again at the end of the week.

Daniel pushed his chair away from his desk. Quiet was usually a good thing. Normally it meant he could get work done without interference. Jack was probably still in bed. Sam was either in bed or in the lab. And Teal'c was doing what ever it was Teal'c did at this time in the morning. But Daniel just could not seem to focus. Daniel took his glasses off and set them on the keyboard. Maybe I need more coffee, he thought, rubbing his eyes. One hand reached for his cup as the other went for his glasses, he froze.

// He saw shattered lenses in a twisted frame resting on the floor, inches from a lax hand. The green clothes were stained black at the collar and waist. He couldn't see the body's face, but Daniel knew he knew this person. //

A gasp and a blink later, the image was gone. All that remained was his glasses sitting whole on the keyboard where he had left them.

Daniel blinked at his notes. The words had begun to meld into one long sentence. A day and half without sleep should not be this big of a problem. He'd gone without before for longer periods of time with more results than this. He had a lot of practice hiding from his dreams. What was different now, he wondered.

He decided he needed more coffee. This week he had had a lot of the brew, even for him. But he couldn't stand the thought of facing those dreams again, even if all he could remember were strange feelings and blood. Blood belonging to his friends.

He shivered. Daniel quickly looked around to see if anyone noticed the motions. He was relieved to find himself alone in the break room. Just him and the coffee. And the food machines. His stomach rumbled at the sight. He couldn't remember when he had last eaten.

He fished in his pockets for loose change. Now that he was actually thinking about it, chocolate sounded good. He would buy stock in the company that finally combined chocolate and coffee in a fashion he liked.

He lounged in one of the foldable chairs. He tore open the green wrapper and took a large bite. Just what he needed. The way his stomach rumbled, he was going to have to find more change. He brought the candy up for another bite, and stopped breathing.

// It was too green. Some voice in the back of his head yammered that only plants should be that green. Not this almost human looking thing which lay before him. It was on its side in the sand, leaking a pale milky green substance he knew was blood. It stared up at him with three lidless yellow eyes. Somehow, Daniel could read the expression on the lax alien face. It was one of incomprehension, utter disbelief at its fate. //

Daniel let his breath go and dragged in another. He looked around frantically. It was an empty break room, just like it had been a moment ago. He was alone. No dying aliens looking at him. No hot sand.

Daniel brought shaking hands up to scrub his face, the half eaten candy bar dropped unnoticed at his feet.

"No," he whispered, surprised at the raggedness of his breath. It's not happening again. It can't be happening again.

There was no Stargate in his closet this time. No desiccated corpses following him around. No voices. No footsteps. So it wasn't happening again.

Only images of brutally murdered people and... alien was just a bad. But they were just that, images. He could tell the difference between those visions and reality. When the flashes disappeared, a little voice in the back of his mind pointed out. Daniel refused to listen to it.

He'd been through a lot in his life. He'd seen his parents die as a child. He's lived through the abduction of his wife by parasitic aliens. He'd lived with the soul eating guilt knowing his curiosity put her in danger to begin with. He had seen many wonderful and horrible things on planets he never even dreamt of only a few short years ago. And he had seen what such things did to other men.

He had survived it all because he knew, if no one else, he could count on himself.

He had somehow lived through those horrible days, those eternal hours, infected by an alien machine and not so alien drugs, when he couldn't tell what was real and what was not. He had somehow survived the short time in that little room, doubting everything he saw and heard, doubting even his sluggish thoughts.

And so he forced the tell tale tremors to subside and calmly walked back to his office. He forced himself to work, to do any of the thousand and one tasks and projects he had planned. To do anything to bury the returning doubts about his own sanity.

Daniel woke with a jerk. He straightened up from the desk and groaned the kink he found in his neck.

This time it had been a sound that woke him from his restless dreams. A sound which was just now repeating itself. Knocking. Mind fogged, Daniel squinted at the clock, then at the door. The knocker gave one more rap then slowly opened the door.

"Hello?" Daniel said to the indistinct form. Where did he put his glasses this time?

His guest cleared his throat. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. But have you seen Sgt. Ashton?"

There they were, underneath a pile of papers he must have pushed aside in his sleep. Daniel put his glasses on and blinked at his visitor. "Uhm," he frowned, his mind not quite as awake as his body. "Not for a couple of days."

Daniel had not received any more damaged artifacts since their last argument, he assumed he had won. No reason for Ashton to be coming around, otherwise.

His visitor frowned and gave a weary sigh. "Thank you sir. Sorry to bother you."

"Sure. Sorry I couldn't be any help." Daniel sympathized. He had done more than his fair share of tracking down errant professors. God only knows how many times *he* had not been where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be.

Alone again in his office, he stood and stretched. Then rubbed warily at his neck. Thinking about artifacts reminded him, he needed to consult with one of the other translators about a certain piece which had been giving him troubles. Now would be the perfect time, assuming she was still in.

He paused outside her door. He thought he heard voices from the other side. He didn't want to disturb her if she was in a meeting. He put a hand up to knock anyway, stopped. No, it wasn't voices he heard. It was music. A familiar song...

// Daniel suddenly found himself somewhere else. His hand raised to knock at a familiar door. But the door opened before he could knock again, revealing a frail looking man, easily in his seventies or eighties, sparse gray hair, and much shorter than him. In the background was music, playing louder than it really needed to be.

He felt his smile slip. This was going to be too easy. He stepped on broken pottery as pushed the man against the back of the couch, then did his work. Too quick. The old one didn't even fight the blade. The most sound he made was a gurgle as his life force left his veins.

Next one will be better, he promised himself. He knelt down and used the man's own shirt to clean the blade and the evidence off of his hands. One more task to do before leaving.

Two steps to the ancient phonograph on the table next to the couch, opposite of the plant. He watched the record turn a couple of times, blaring the lyrics to the same song. He lifted his fist and smashed it down on the record, stopping the turntable in midmotion and cracking the fragile disc in two. //

Daniel stared at his trembling hands, still half immersed in the vision. So much blood, and someone was dead because of him. Somehow he didn't even get the blood on his clothes. The old man bled too neatly.

Daniel blinked up. He was in the hallway again. Empty except for himself and Teal'c. Daniel wasn't sure he believed it.

"Teal'c?" he gasped, only then realizing he was panting. He felt strong hands on his arms as his knees gave out on him. It was a disorienting feeling, knowing he was going to pass out. His last thought was wondering where he was going to wake up.