Chapter 4

Gibbs brought up his gun, although it seemed like a pitiful weapon against this large black thing.

"What is wrong with Darkness?"

Tony looked at Gibbs and then back.

"Wait, Boss."

"What?"

"Are you real?" Tony asked, forcing himself to look at the thing without flinching.

The red eyes blinked...and then the darkness turned away and flew (if that was what it was really doing) off.

"Um...this is going to sound crazy, but I think we should follow it."

"Why?"

"Because it didn't attack us. Most bad things attack...at least in my experience. The ones that don't..."

"Lead on," Gibbs said, gesturing. "I'm just the Watcher, remember."

Tony smiled.

"Are you going to get in trouble?"

"Well, I don't know how to get out of this. So I'm going to Watch what happens."

Gibbs managed to stay completely serious while he spoke. Tony was impressed.

"Okay. Let's go, then."

Tony started after the darkness. As he walked, he looked around. Maybe this wasn't all real, but some of it must be. The forest could be real...but the lake? He just didn't feel like that should be there. When he looked up at the sky, it seemed wrong, too, although he couldn't explain why he was so sure of that.

They walked in silence, always keeping the Darkness in sight.

"So...why you, Tony? Why did he pick you?"

"Because he didn't have any other option and then, when we survived it...I couldn't let him deal with all this stuff by himself...even if I don't have a clue what I'm doing and sometimes regret that I know this world exists..."

"That's why my job exists, you know."

"What?"

"To make sure no one has to deal with this but the people who can handle it."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know exactly. People who are immersed in this world who need eyes around the world to point out when some of this stuff bleeds into the normal world."

"Why you?"

"Because I saw something I shouldn't have seen and I didn't want to forget it."

Tony smiled. "Me, too."

Then, they heard a cry of pain.

"That's Tim."

Tony started to run, but Gibbs held him back.

"Or someone who sounds like him. Slow down, Tony."

"No, that is Tim, Boss."

Tony wrenched his arm away and ran toward the sound. When he got to the clearing, he saw the large thing that had declared itself to be Darkness hovering over something on the ground. It was blocking Tony's view and he couldn't see what it was.

"Is that Tim?" he asked the thing.

That shapeless Darkness looked at Tony with the red eyes.

"Is that the knower...or is it the dreamer?"

"Is it one or the other? Or is it both?"

The voice had not come from the Darkness. Tony whipped around and couldn't see Gibbs anymore. It was like he was suddenly trapped in a miasma of fog.

"Boss!" he shouted.

Then, through the fog stepped a man. Even with all he'd seen, Tony wanted to scream and recoil in terror.

...because it was Tim walking toward him, only it wasn't. It was Tim without eyes. It was Tim with fog coming out of the space where eyes should be. It was Tim if he had been created by someone who just didn't quite get what a human being should look like. He backed away from the approaching figure, feeling Darkness behind him and hearing strange whispers.

There was a flurry of motion behind him, and Tony spun around in time to see Tim burst through the Darkness, his hand outstretched, his eyes bright green and almost glowing, his face in a rictus of pain. At the same time, Tony felt himself grow suddenly weaker. He fell to the ground but kept watching as Tim pressed his hand on the chest of the horror-movie Tim. The other Tim laughed, screamed and then vanished.

...and the other Tim fell to the ground, screaming in pain. The weakness vanished and Tony ran over and turned Tim onto his back.

"What are you doing here, Tony?" Tim ground out. "Why are you here?"

"What's wrong, Tim?"

"Get it out! Get it out!" he screamed.

"Get what out?"

"Get it out of my back! I can't stand it anymore!" He screamed again.

"Tim, look at me!" Tony said.

Tim's eyes opened and they were real eyes...thank goodness.

"You have to tell me what's going on, Tim, because I don't have a clue."

"The knife...the knife. Get it out of my back! He...stabbed me and...I can't find it!"

Tony rolled Tim back onto his stomach and stared as hard as he could...to no avail.

"I don't see a knife there, Tim."

"It's there! Get it out!"

Tony felt helpless. He could see that Tim was in absolute agony, but he couldn't see anything that would cause it.

If it's a dream...would I see it with my eyes open? Tony thought to himself.

Well, it was worth a shot. He couldn't see anything with his eyes open. Nothing here made any sense. He closed his eyes tightly and then reached out and rubbed his hands over Tim's back, searching for a knife.

...and then, suddenly, he found it. When he touched it, Tim whimpered.

"Will pulling it out kill you, Tim?"

"I don't care! Just take it out!"

Tony kept his eyes closed, grasped the knife firmly and yanked, hoping against hope that this wasn't going to kill Tim. Tim reared back and screamed again. Tony opened his eyes and looked at his hand. He was holding a bloody knife. He looked at Tim's back. It was covered with blood. Was it real blood or dream blood? He'd seen Tim bleed without having a real wound before.

Tony decided that it didn't matter. He dropped the knife onto the ground and pressed his hands over the wound. Tim had gone limp, his respiration fast and uneven. Tony spared a moment and looked at Tim's hand. His tattooed hand was clenched into a tight fist that belied the lack of tension in the rest of his body.

"Tim? Can you hear me? ...did I kill you?"

There was no sound for a few moments and then Tim groaned. His eyelids fluttered and he looked at Tony.

"What are you doing here?"

"Saving your butt. What do you think?"

"No...here...right now..."

Tony furrowed his brow.

"What do you mean, McGee?"

"Timing...it's wrong."

"I don't get it."

Tim pushed himself up on shaking arms, forcing Tony to move back, and then sat looking around.

"Neither do I. Nothing here makes sense. I'm not calling the shots, here, Tony. He is...but I don't know why he is. Why are dreams taking precedence over reality? That doesn't make sense!"

"You feeling any better?"

"Yeah. Fine."

Tim wasn't really paying attention, though. He was more than a little disconnected. He seemed completely unsettled by what was going on.

"Tim, why did you come here alone?"

"Because I had to."

"Why?"

"I knew it was the right thing to do...but it doesn't feel wrong that you're here now...but why now? Why not before? Why not later? Why now? Tony, I don't know! I don't understand what's going on, why I'm supposed to be here, what's supposed to come of this. Greta showed up again and they kept saying all these things to me and I just don't get it!"

Then, Tony realized that Tim wasn't unsettled. He was scared. Terrified.

"What's to get? You fight off the creepy version of you and..."

"What do you mean?" Tim asked, looking around.

"That creepy you with no eyes."

Tim looked up at the sky.

"I thought I'd imagined him," he whispered. "I thought it was..." Then, he laughed.

"What?"

"A dream. ...but nothing is what it seems in dreams. Why would the dreamer be looking like me?"

"That's the dreamer?"

"Yes. Why? Why would it be that..." Tim rammed his clenched fist into the ground. "Why don't I know?"

Tim actually seemed a little unbalanced, Tony thought. It would make sense if he had been, but...

Tim suddenly got to his feet and turned around in a circle. That gave Tony a chance to see the bleeding wound on his back, something that appeared to be nothing but was not going away...like his hand had been before...which had had some effect even if it wasn't physical.

"Hey, Tim..." Tony said, reaching out to stop his movements.

Tim whirled around, he looked more than off balance. He looked crazy.

"Something's going on! I don't know what it is! But he's here and he's not going away. I'm not going away! I'm not going away!"

Suddenly, Tim punched Tony as hard as he could in the face and then ran off screeching that he wasn't going away.

Tony fell to the ground, more than a little dazed.

"Tony! What happened?"

Tony looked around. Darkness was gone. The fog was gone.

Tim was gone.

Gibbs was leaning over him.

"What happened?" Tony echoed.

"You disappeared and then you reappeared."

"Did you ever see Tim?"

"No. Was he there?"

"Yes...I thought he was...something's happened. Something went wrong."

"Where is he?"

Tony looked into the forest.

"In there...somewhere..."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim couldn't describe the assault on his senses. It was like the demon world had been only a million times more difficult to comprehend. Constant whispers kept him off balance. Changing scenes made him dizzy. Every step, he was both flying and plummeting to his death. He was struggling to get out of this miasma of chaos that had gripped him, but he couldn't find a way out. He was just running in the hopes of finding an exit.

...like in a dream.

That thought finally brought him to a stop. He closed his eyes against all the sensations. The chaos driving him insane. He couldn't stop hearing the whispers, but he could stop seeing what he saw and feeling those horrible moments.

Breathing heavily, he stopped and sat down on the ground, trying to think. What was going on? What was happening to him? This had started when Tony had pulled the knife out of his back...and he had started to bleed. Clearly, it wasn't a physical wound.

Something was draining out of him, though.

Tim put his hand over the place where the dreamer had stabbed him. He felt the blood. He pressed his hand tightly over the wound. Almost instantly, the whispers faded in intensity. He laughed a little.

"So my sanity is draining out of me? 'Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.'" Tim shook his head. T. S. Eliot was eloquent but he figured that, with the way his life had been, Melville was better. "'Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.'" How many people would say that he was completely and utterly insane if they knew what he knew?

As he sat very still, thinking, he became more calm, and the bleeding was lessened. But then, what was a dream if not the acting out of the illogical and, yes, insane parts of one's mind?

Tim's mind started leading him places he wasn't sure he wanted to go, but if he had to know this, then he would know it.

Tony had seen the dreamer as Tim himself...without eyes. Tim had seen him that way, as well. Everything he had done had been a manipulation of power, a use of it that Tim himself would not do but, if he were honest, was something he might wish he could try if he weren't so responsible.

Greta had said that dreams were real and that the dreamer himself didn't know why he was there.

...and then, what was that quote she had used? Goya.

"'Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.'"

If that was advice, then, Tim was officially terrified...and how would he manage this? ...and when had he abandoned fantasy?

"When reality became so frightening that fantasizing about anything seemed to be a bad way to go."

The longer he kept his hand pressed over his wound, the more calm, the more clear he felt...but being sane didn't help him feel any better about what he might have to do. He could almost wish for the insanity because it would cover up the decision he had to make. In fact, it would make his decision impossible.

He wouldn't move until he felt sure that he was no longer bleeding...whatever he was bleeding.

If I'm in a dream, then, knower or not, I should be able to have some control over what is around me.

Tim had never tried this before. He had never tried to control his dreams. He had tried to create reality, but not dreams, not like this. He kept his eyes closed and focused all of his being on making an impenetrable sanctuary, one secure from any intruder, even the dreamer. The confrontation would have to come, but not yet.

Suddenly, an image popped up in his head. Tim was certain that Tony would tease him mercilessly about it, and it wasn't even a Road picture.

Tim moved himself into a cross-legged pose, although with his hand still covering that injury. Then, he noticed that his other hand was clenched tightly over his tattoo. Perhaps, it was time to try to use that to help himself. He had let himself panic before, but now, with this increasing calm, he felt that this was the time to use his dragons to seal something other than a portal to the demon world. He just wasn't sure how it would feel.

He took a breath and unclenched his fist. His tattoo shivered in reaction. He was pulling his power in and getting ready to release it. They were always ready to be released. Slowly, he moved his hand to his back and then quickly switched hands. He took another breath and let it out in a whisper, a calling.

"Three into one."

As he exhaled he willed the power he held to seal up that wound.

It was like cautery, and it hurt...a lot. Still, Tim persisted until he felt as though it was no longer an open wound. Carefully, he lifted his hand off the wound and waited for any sensation to tell him that he was bleeding.

Nothing.

The seal was likely fragile, but he could now take the time he needed to take. He took another breath and held his hands out in front of him, imagining holding the world safe there. Then, he extended the image to hold himself...

...sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, separated from the dreamer's creations.

He didn't know how long he could stay here, but he knew it would be long enough for him to regain his perspective and prepare to face the dreamer...

...for the last time.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony looked around and noticed that everything was suddenly frozen.

"Boss, do you see–?"

He broke off when he realized that Gibbs was part of this.

Someone had stopped time.

"Tim?" he whispered. "Oh, I hope this is you."