Author's Note: Sorry this one took so long, I have been having more homework than normal so I've been a bit preoccupied. But, it's done and up now so you can enjoy.

Summary: When the two "dreams" clash, which is the real one? And which will Jack and Daniel decide on?

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Paradise

Chapter Three:

The Dream?

**Infirmary, Monday at 1413 Hours**

Janet had merely sat there and watched Jack for five minutes. She could think of nothing that would explain why he had woken up. Nor could see understand why he thought he was this other personality.

The doctor sighed and decided that she had spent enough time with Jack. She turned her attention toward the other monitors. The one her eyes landed on happened to belong to none other than Dr. Daniel Jackson.

She watched his brainwaves and noticed something strange. The brainwaves would suggest that he had entered a deep sleep but that was impossible considering that he was already in that state.

Slowly, Daniel began to groan and blink his eyes opened. Janet stood and rushed to his side. Looking at his monitor, it seemed impossible. It was still saying that he was in a deep sleep. This made no sense to Janet: One couldn't be right.

Daniel finally managed to open his eyes and focus on Janet. "Janet? I mean… Dr. Fraser. Uh, w-…where are w-we?" Daniel was panicking and really didn't need to have done what he did next. Slowly, craning his head, he looked down at his body and screamed at what he saw.

"Calm down, Daniel. Calm down," Janet told him soothingly. She put her hands on his chest to push him back onto the bed.

Daniel looked up at her and found her eyes with his. Janet could see the immense fear in them but she could also see the trust he had for her even though Janet was sure he didn't really know who she was.

"What did you do to me?" Daniel asked her, his voice shaky.

"I didn't do this, Daniel. I'm still trying to fix this. Please, could you tell me the last thing you remember?" Janet asked him, almost desperately.

Daniel thought for a moment and said, "I w-was in my…my room. I w-went to sleep. I didn't w-wake up… maybe t-this i-is a dream. Yes… a dream." As Daniel went on about dreams and such, Janet thought for a moment and tried to piece together some of the things she had already learned.

Both Jack and Daniel remembered going to sleep before they… woke up. And Janet had seen that Daniel was in a deep state of sleep. Which could have some connection. Perhaps when the dream went to sleep and they reached a deep state of sleep, they were able to awaken. But why?

When Janet looked back down at Daniel, she saw that he was close to falling asleep. Again having no way to keep him awake, she allowed him to sleep. She stood and walked away from Daniel's bed and kept an eye on their monitors.

**Block Three, House Two**

Jack woke up to find that Sam was already awake and watching him. He smiled and kissed her. Then asked, "What time is it?"

"6:00: we have plenty of time before we have to get up," Sam told him with a suggestive grin.

"Really?" Just as Jack asked that, he began to tickle her unmercifully. Sam giggled uncontrollably and tried to get him off. Finally she managed to get him off and immediately started to do the same to him. Jack laughed until he couldn't breath.

When they calmed down, Jack's eyes started to become distant and it was obvious that he was thinking about something. "What?"

Jack looked at her and answered, "Uh, nothing. It was just this dream I had. It was… weird."

"What was it about?" Sam smiled as she watched him try to remember.

"Um, I was in this… dark room laying on a bed. And I had all these wires and tubes attached to me. And you, Daniel, and someone other guy was there too just like me."

Sam smiled and asked, "Me?"

"Yea. And then, Janet came wearing one of those… lab coats doctors used to wear. She kept calling me Colonel. And then asked me the last thing I remembered."

"What did you say?" Sam asked, her head cocked to the side.

"I told her being with you. Then I figured out it was a dream and woke up. But it was so… real." Jack paused at her look and said with a laugh, "What am I talking about? How could it have been real? That's stupid."

**Block Four, House Three**

Daniel awoke with a start. His heart was pounding and he could feel the cold sweat dripping down his back and face. Once his breathing had steadied and he was no longer able to feel his heart beating inside his chest, he brought his hand to his face and tried to ride it of some of the sweat that had collected itself on his brow.

He then ran a hand through his tousle hair and rubbed the back of his neck. As he let out a few more rattled breathes, he tried to reassure himself that it was only a dream and hadn't really been Janet who had done all that to him.

As if to confirm that thought, Daniel looked down at his chest- no wires and no tubes and no scars from their removal. Breathing a sigh of relief, he pushed aside the blanket covering his sweaty body and swung his legs over the bed. Standing on two unsteady feet, Daniel made his way to his bathroom to shower and in hopes of riding his mind of the images still running through his mind.

He started the warm water and watched it for a minute before stripping out of his boxers and stepping in. He sighed as he felt the water hit his skin and run down his body- removing the sweat that had collected over him.

After lathering his body and removing the soap along with cleaning his hair, he turned off the water. He stepped out of his bathtub and grabbed a towel to wrap his wet body in- no longer from the cold sweat.

Daniel approached his mirror, fogged over from the steam his shower had created. He brought his arm up to touch the glass and rubbed most of the fog off. What he saw was a blurred and distorted image of himself- what he felt like at that moment.

His dream of the dark room with the wire and tubes connected to him seemed so real- so…familiar. He had never had the dream before nor had he ever been to the place, but he felt like he knew it. Like it was somewhere he had been so many times before.

Looking closer at himself in the mirror- that becoming easier as the water dripped away- he could see indentations on both sides of his nose. They had always been there, ever since he could remember, but, now that he thought about it, he felt like something was missing- that something should be there to create and sustain them. He even was having this feeling that his face looked different without that unknown thing.

**Information Center, Level Three**

Jack entered his office on Level Three and immediately sat down. He had no desire to work that day and wanted to go home and sleep. Even though he had gotten quite a lot, he felt like he hadn't slept in a week. Crossing his arms on the desk and putting his head in them, he was startled to death when Janet walked in.

"Morning!" Janet shouted at him. Quickly his head sprung up and he practically jumped a mile out of his seat. "Oh, god! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

"No, that's ok. Just don't do that," Jack warned her.

"Sorry," Janet apologized again. "You look exhausted, what didn't get any sleep?"

Jack glared at Janet after the way she said that. In some strange way, Jack felt awful about the one time the night before. But that had been ignored with the dream he had had. "No, it was this… nightmare. Alright?"

"Nightmare? Oh, don't tell. You had that dream where Sam was a giant chasing you with the huge mallet?" Jack blushed and looked away. He had often had that dream when he and Sam weren't on as good of grounds with each other.

"I only had that dream once!" Jack defended himself but, in fact, he had had that particular dream quite a few times. Which changed to her chasing him with a huge ring after they had been chosen to be together.

"Really?"

Jack just gave her a look and said, "It wasn't that dream anyway. It was… me in dark room, strapped to a bed with tubes and things in me. Then… you were there as a maniac doctor or something who wouldn't stop calling me Colonel."

"Colonel? Perhaps you're having a desire to be in the military," Janet joked but immediately looked away with that remark- it was unwarranted and a stupid comment that could have gotten both in trouble. "Sorry."

Jack just shrugged it off and asked, "What time is it?"

"One minute to oh-eight hundred hours, Colonel," Janet answered in a mock military voice.

"Stop that!" Jack begged and chased her around their small office. A knock at the door made them stop as they realized it was their uplinks that would tell them what they were up against.

Jack walked over to the door and opened it for Henry, the man who always delivered their uplinks. But it wasn't Henry. And who it was almost gave Jack a heart attack. It was the same bald, dark man from his dream.

"Your uplinks were given to me by mistake. Here," the man said putting out a hand and gave Jack two uplinks.

"Thanks, uh, Teal'c," he answered, looking at the man's nametag. Teal'c bowed his head and turned to his left toward the elevator. Jack looked at the labels and found his was the second one. Taking his uplink, he tossed the second one at Janet.

Carefully removing the small piece of technology, Jack placed the label on his desk in the only place he knew that it wouldn't get lost in his endless paperwork. He craned his neck to the side and set the uplink onto his chip. Jack felt the rush of information into his brain. Separating the important information from the details and background of his patients, he saw that they had five patients for that day.

Jack nodded to himself and decided to make his rounds and meet his patients and get their backgrounds straight. It had become customary for him to do such a thing in order to keep them from being afraid and so he knew what he was dealing with personally.

**Level Three Hall**

With a practiced ease Daniel had mastered over the years, he balanced a tray in each hand as he walked off the elevator. The he strolled down the few meters down the hall until he reached room 35, Jack and Janet's office.

Seeing that his hands were already occupied, he kicked the door lightly to get someone's attention and allow him to enter. Daniel watched as the handle turned and the door was pulled open. Daniel jumped when he saw Janet's face. He was still a bit shaken by the dream he had had and seeing Janet had just made it worse.

"Daniel! Be careful!" Janet yelled. When Daniel had been startled, his hands shook and he had almost dropped the two chips. Janet had grabbed one from him to keep the tray from crashing to the ground. At the same time, Daniel had put both hands on the other tray in order to steady it.

"S-sorry about, uh, that. I w-was, uh…"

Janet smiled and shook her head, "It's ok, Daniel." Then she stepped aside and let Daniel walk in. Daniel brushed past her to find Jack walk up and look at them.

"What's going on?" Jack asked.

"W-well, um, I wasn't paying attention and, um, almost dropped the trays," Daniel explained.

"That would have been… bad," Jack commented as Janet took the second tray from Daniel. "So, what was distracting you?"

Daniel sighed and told Jack, "I had a, um, strange dream that I, um, can't shack."

"Really? I had one too. What was yours about?"

Daniel shrugged and started, "W-well, um, Janet was a… crazy doctor who had, um, strapped me down to a bed and, um, hooked me up to all sorts of m-machines." Jack had smiled at the idea about hearing someone else's dream but it rapidly disappeared once he discovered Daniel was telling him about his dream.

"Stupid really," Daniel continued but Jack just barely heard the comment.

"Huh?"

"I said, um, it's stupid to get w-wound up by something like that. It w-was, um, just-"

"So real?" Jack interrupted.

"Yea, uh, how'd you k-know?" Daniel asked, his brow furrowed.

"I had the same dream," Jack told him absent-mindedly.

"Y-you did?" Daniel stuttered out.

"Yea, weird isn't it?" Jack commented as he looked up at Daniel.

**Infirmary, Monday at 1613 Hours**

Janet had sat there for the past two hours trying to understand what was going on. Her friends' minds seemed so attached yet so different. There were many similarities but then there were times when there was no difference. It was eerie and fascinating from Janet's point of view.

Janet turned her attention to Jack. He seemed to be the only one that continuously matched Sam and Daniel's brain waves, only at different times. She looked at his face and saw that his head had moved slightly. As she continued to watch, he groaned and moved his head to the other side of the pillow.

Janet moved closer and put a hand on his shoulder, hoping it would help to wake him up. He groaned again and responded slightly to her touch. After a few minutes of just waiting for Jack to wake up, he did.

Jack slowly opened his eyes, blinked and allowed them to adjust to the low lighting. Then he looked at Janet standing next to him. Seeing what she wore, he quickly identified that he was in the 'dream' he had had before. Then he looked down and noticed the tubes and familiar wiring.

Sighing he grumbled, "We have got to stop meeting like this."

Janet gave a weak smile and said, "Col- Jack, you remember being here?"

"Of course I remember this dream," Jack informed her.

"Jack, this isn't a dream. This is reality. Trust me," Janet pleaded with him.

"And how do I know that?" Jack looked her in the eye and saw something that startled him. For just a moment, he thought that it could be but then he shook the idea off.

Looking to his left, he saw the same three. The bigger guy on the end was still there even though he only 'really' knew him after the mix up with the uplinks. But curiosity got the best of him. "Uh, Janet, may I ask what that guy's name is. The big guy at the end."

"That's Teal'c."

"Teal'c?" Jack repeated, his voice weak and recalling the man's nametag. "So how come we are all like this? I mean, how come we're all together, here, and in this state?"

Janet looked at him. For a minute she played with the idea that he wanted to test and see which 'reality' he thought was real. She was sure that the one he was living-in in his mind was more reasonable and believable but she would give it a try.

"Well, you are a Colonel in the United States Air Force."

"As we already established," Jack commented, thinking of their last encounter.

"Right, and Sam is Major Samantha Carter, also in the USAF. Dr. Daniel Jackson was hired by the Air Force to help with your latest assignment."

"And what is that? If I may ask?"

Janet hesitated. It wasn't as if Jack didn't already know what the Stargate was, he just didn't remember at the moment. "Well, this is Stargate Command. Or the SGC. Here we have an ancient piece of technology called the Stargate. It can literally transport you to another solar system or another galaxy. As long as the other planet has a Stargate, then you can go there."

Jack looked at her for a minute. That was ridicules. If this 'dream' thought he was going to believe it, it was insane. But the idea was intriguing, so he listened. "And that… Stargate, what we go through it or something?"

"Yes, yourself, Major Carter, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c make up the most elect team called SG-1. You go through the Stargate all the time to save the world from a powerful enemy we made ourselves. That's how you met Teal'c. He was there the second time you were facing this enemy."

Jack nodded. Interesting, this dream was making him some space hero in order to win his favor. And it was working. Jack was continuing to get sucked into the story. No matter how unbelievable it seemed, the more he believed it.

"On your latest mission, something happened to you. I don't know what yet but you all were connected to these… machines. And I haven't been able to figure them out much less deactivate them."

Jack nodded and asked, "Janet, could you tell me a little about… myself? You know… am I married or children?"

Janet looked at him. Her eyes sad and Jack knew that something wasn't good and that maybe he wouldn't like what he was going to hear. She sighed and told him, "You were married to someone name Sarah. Together you had one child, Charley." After a pause, Janet continued, "Charley… shot himself with your gun. After that, you and Sarah split up."

Jack wasn't looking at her any more. He had hoped, somehow, that if that world were real, he and Sam would already be together in it with children and in a great family. But apparently not.

Janet turned away to look at some of the others as she gave Jack some time to digest that information. When she looked back, he had fallen back asleep.

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Please R/R and tell me what you think. How's it going and all. Anything really would be appreciated. Thanks.