"Jack

"Jack?"

Colonel O'Neill could hear a very distant voice in his sleep. Someone was calling for him. A woman. It was a familiar voice, but he couldn't place it. He could hear another voice too, this one was male.

"Colonel O'Neill! Can you hear us?"

Jack wanted to answer, but something stopped him from doing so. He couldn't form the words with his mouth. It was like he was in the middle of one of those nightmares where you suddenly lose your ability to make sounds or scream. He felt like he was trapped inside his own head.

The voices kept on calling for him, but now he could barely hear them anymore. Instead his other senses had started working. What was that smell? He recognized it so well. Could it possibly be…? Blueberry pancakes? That had been his favourite meal in the whole wide world as a little boy. His mother used to make them for him whenever he felt sad or upset. Jack slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He was lying in between soft white sheets in a huge bed with a wooden frame. The bed was placed in a room that looked like it was ripped out of one of those old western movies that Jack used to watch as a teenager. Except for one important thing. The room had no windows. Not a single one. Yet the room appeared to bathe in sunlight. Something felt extremely wrong with this place.

All of a sudden, Jack felt a cold breath in his ear and heard a soft voice that made all of the little hairs on his arms stand straight up, but not in a nice way. He felt all cold and empty inside.

"Are you feeling any better, Jack?"

Jack looked to his right and found himself looking straight into Daniel Jackson's eyes. They were not at all sparkling with fascination like they normally did. Instead they were cold and grey and pierced Jack's eyes like a knife.

"Daniel…? What have they… done to you? What's happened to you, mate? You look brainwashed or something?"

Daniel put a hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Jack. I think you are just a little confused. You took a nasty fall earlier. I'm the same person I've always been?"

Jack pushed Daniel's hand away.

"The hell you are! A nasty fall you say? I can't remember any fall?"

"Sweetheart… Of course you don't remember falling. You fell and hit your head, and I think you might have a concussion? So you'd better not move?"

Daniel placed his hand on top of Jack's head and all of a sudden he felt an extreme throbbing pain in his head. It hurt so much that he had to scream out loud. It felt like his entire head was about to burst open. Like someone was hitting it over and over again with a hammer.

Suddenly, the pain was gone. It disappeared as quickly as if it had never even been there in the first place. Jack could not move for a while, but when he finally was able to lift his head, he found himself staring into those horrible cold grey eyes again.

"Who…are you"?

"I'm Daniel, sweetheart. I'm just saying that you'd better stay where you are. So nothing else like that has to happen again?"

Jack was feeling furious now.

"Cut the sweetheart crap! What's this all about!?"

"Jack. You're making me very sad right now. You love me, don't you? I'm your Daniel?"

Jack knew that this man could not be the real Daniel Jackson. Those cold grey eyes, it didn't make any sense. The Daniel Jackson that he knew had blue eyes. Or to be more precise: blue eyes with a little touch of green. He knew that. He had been staring into those eyes innumerable times longing for the day when they would look at him the same way. The Daniel Jackson he knew was beautiful. This was someone… or something else.

"You are not Daniel."

"How could you say that? Am I not your space monkey any longer?"

The fake Daniel looked like he was about to cry.

"How do you know that I call him that? Who the hell ARE you!?"

"Does that really matter, Jack? This is your dream, and now I'm here. Aren't you happy? Don't you like our house? We can take a trip with the fishing boat when you feel better? And bring some blueberry pancakes? Wouldn't you like that sweetheart? Wouldn't you?"

Jack ignored everything that the stranger said and started to crawl out of the bed. He had to do this slowly, since he was still a bit in chock after the attack earlier. The Daniel Jackson copy seemed to panic a bit when he noticed that Jack was on his way out. He raised his voice even more.

"We could go to baseball together! Watch the Simpsons all night! I'd do anything! Don't leave!"

Jack was starting to feel very intimidated by the fact that this strange person seemed to know almost everything about him. He started walking towards the door.

"Goodbye, freak."

The moment Jack said these words he could see the Daniel Jackson copy do a strange gesture with his arms. Something happened inside Jack. He felt a tingling feeling in his legs and fell to the ground. Something was so extremely wrong, but he couldn't really tell what had just happened. The Daniel copy kneeled down beside him.

"I told you that you shouldn't try to leave. You are not well, darling. As I said before. You really had one nasty fall…"

He stroke Jack's cheek with one of his ice cold hands and stared at him with those piercing grey eyes.

Jack suddenly noticed what was wrong. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. Not his toes, not his feet, not any part of his lower body.

The Daniel copy tried to smile at him, but failed miserably. It looked more like an evil grin.

"I will get you those blueberry pancakes, don't worry. Just stay here and don't move, sweetheart. Oh sorry. I guess you don't have a choice there, now do you?"

With that comment the Daniel look-alike opened the door and left.