Mind Fever - Chapter 39

Daniel couldn't stay angry for long. He felt too depressed to be angry. Now he knew why Janet had turned to another man for comfort through all of this - she didn't feel she could ever trust him again. And how could he ask her to after everything he'd done? No, she deserved much better than to live like this. She deserved a man who would treat her right, who would be dependable, and who wouldn't need her to take care of him. That man wasn't him.

If there was one thing he'd learned from his trip to the river that evening, it was that everything was different now. He'd realized that as he'd watched the water flowing below him - a river is never the same from one moment to the next. It's constantly changing, because the water is constantly moving. Life is like that, too. You've got to move with the current, or you'll drown. There's no sense in trying to hang on to the way life used to be. You can never get it back once it's floated away.

As he sat there on the bed thinking this over, he absently fingered the pendant that still hung around his neck. When he realized what he was doing, he undid the clasp and let it fall into his lap. He sat there staring at it for a minute, focusing on the symbol of the bear that was engraved on it. That was all it was, he realized. Just a symbol. It didn't have any real power to heal; it was just an ornament. He didn't even know why he had kept it on as long as he had.

He looked up then and saw the two little teddy bears Janet had received for her birthday propped up on her dresser. He thought they were sweet, but at the same time it almost killed him to look at them knowing that his relationship with Janet had gone down the drain. The two bears looked like a perfect pair, but their human counterparts didn't anymore. With a sigh, he picked up his pendant and went over to the dresser to put it where it belonged.

"Here, Danbear," he said, "you can hold onto this for me." He tucked the pendant into the teddy bear's jacket. "Bears belong with bears, after all."

He smiled sadly as his gaze fell upon Janbear. Long ago, he had fallen in love with a woman wearing a white coat just like that one. He had always felt it made her look like an angel rather than a doctor. Too bad he'd never told her that.

"You and Danbear will always be together, won't you?" he said, picking the little bear up and hugging it to his neck. Then he kissed its fuzzy face and placed it back on the dresser.

He felt a little foolish for getting so sentimental over teddy bears, but who cared? It wasn't like anyone had seen him do it anyway. He went back over to the bed with a heavy heart and lay down to read a bit of his book. He hadn't read much of it in the days since Janet had given it to him, and to his surprise he found that he didn't have any trouble with it anymore. He wasn't in the mood to feel happy about it, though, so he just took it for what it was and began to read.

After an hour or so, he heard someone coming up the stairs. He knew who it was right away, so when he heard a knock on the door he sighed and called out, "It's your room, Janet. You don't have to knock."

She slowly opened the door and took a couple of tentative steps inside. Daniel looked at her over the top of his book.

"Can we talk for a minute?" she asked.

Daniel closed the book, set it down on his nightstand, folded his hands across his stomach, and looked over at her.

Janet took that as a yes, and stepped farther into the room to sit down on the edge of the bed. Her side of the bed. Daniel noticed that she was as far away from him as possible while still on the same piece of furniture that he was.

"I... you don't have to move out," she said. "That's not what I want at all."

"Then what do you want?"

She looked down at her hands. "I don't really know. But I promised to look after you, Daniel, and it's a promise I intend to keep."

Daniel nodded and met her gaze as she looked up at him again. Careful to keep his face expressionless, he said, "Wouldn't want to shirk your duty."

Janet looked stung. "It's not a duty, Daniel. I'm doing this because I want to."

"Because you feel guilty for not being able to cure me."

"Because I love you," she said, anger and frustration creeping into her tone.

Daniel sighed and shook his head. "How can you say that after the last few days?" he said. "It's a memory, Janet. I remember it, too... now. We'll never get that back. You do know that, right?"

Janet didn't answer. She looked down again, but this time at his hands instead of hers. Then she slowly moved closer to him on the bed and reached out to take one of his hands in one of her own.

Daniel was surprised by her actions, but he didn't pull away. He looked down at their intertwined hands as she took to stroking his knuckles with her thumb, and it melted his heart. It felt so good - so like the way they used to be. He couldn't help but stroke her hand with his thumb as well.

He didn't really want to break the spell the moment cast over them, but finally he felt he had to speak. "Look... if... if you want to be with him... it doesn't matter to me." He looked up at her face to see her reaction to this, though he was a bit afraid of it at the same time.

She looked confused more than anything else as she looked him in the eye and tried to read him. "Excuse me?"

"Carmichael... Andrew," he said. "I mean it's not like we're in a committed relationship anymore. I... I don't mind."

"What?" She let go of his hand as if he had burned her. "Why do you think I want to be with Andrew?"

He didn't answer, just looked away and chewed on the inside of his lip.

"Daniel? Why would you think that?"

He sighed in exasperation. "Oh, come on, Janet. I've seen the two of you. He's in love with you, and you know it."

Janet shook her head in disbelief. "Andrew is a good friend of mine, Daniel. That's all." "A very good friend. I saw him kiss you the other night."

Her mouth opened and shut a few times as she tried to find her voice to reply. "We'd had a hard night, and he was concerned about me," she said. "He kissed me on the cheek. My God, Daniel, you did that much when we were just friends... or don't you remember?"

Now it was Daniel's turn to feel stung. "Yes, and look how we ended up."

"Well, if this is how Andrew and I would end up, too, then I don't want anything to do with him," Janet said, her tone turning cold. She got up from the bed and paced across the room, but then she stopped, sighed, and turned around again. "This is ridiculous, Daniel," she said. "I didn't come in here to fight. I came in here to try to set things right between us."

Daniel huffed a laugh. "You really think that's possible?"

"If we both work hard enough at it, yes," she said. "I do."

Daniel winced. If they both worked hard enough? He didn't have enough energy to put in the amount of work it would take to fix this mess. "I'm too tired," he said, weariness settling over him like a blanket. "I can't talk about this right now."

She sighed. "Then why don't you get some sleep?" she said softly.

"I think I will," Daniel said.

She came around to his side of the bed as he got under the covers. This surprised him - he thought she'd have left right away. He was even more surprised when she took his glasses off his nose and placed them on his nightstand. He looked up at her wistfully as she stood there looking down at him, and for a moment he wasn't sure what to expect. Then she reached out to stroke his hair, leaned down, and kissed his forehead.

"Goodnight," she said.

Daniel couldn't say a word. Her tenderness brought tears to his eyes and a lump to his throat. He just watched as she turned out the light and left the room.

He turned onto his side as soon as she was gone, and started thinking over the events of the day. So, she wasn't having an affair after all. He knew for a fact that Carmichael was in love with her, though. He still thought she'd be better off with a man like him.

His mind was reeling all night long, even while he slept. Not that he slept very much - whenever he would drift off, he'd lapse into nightmares right away, and would jerk awake again scarcely five minutes later. Janet came to bed after a couple of hours, so he tried not to toss and turn for her sake. He could tell by her steady breathing that she was fast asleep within minutes, and as far as he could tell, she stayed asleep all night. He envied her that.

By morning, he was even more exhausted than he'd been the night before, but at least he'd come to a final decision. He couldn't stay here any longer. He couldn't repair his relationship with Janet, and he wasn't sure that he should even try. It just wasn't fair on her to have to put up with him for the rest of her life. If he could just get well enough to go it on his own, he should leave... set her free. Resolving this in his mind made him feel both saddened and relieved. He was sure, though, that he was doing the right thing.

Janet got up fairly early, and Daniel followed her downstairs soon after. He saw Jack lying fast asleep on the pullout couch as he passed through the living room, so he knew he had to be quick if he was going to say what he needed to say to her in private.

She was standing at the stove with her back towards him as he entered the kitchen, so he remained in the doorway and cleared his throat to announce his presence. He didn't want a repeat of yesterday.

Janet turned to look over at him and forced a smile. "Good morning."

"Morning," Daniel said.

He sat down at the table and watched for a moment as she broke a couple of eggs into a frying pan. Once she was done, she came over to the stretch of counter beside him to put some bread in the toaster.

"Can... can I ask you something?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied. "What is it?"

"How long do you think it'll be before I can handle living alone?"

Janet's hands froze as she was about to drop the slices into their slots. "What?"

"How long before I can start taking care of myself?"

She let the bread fall and turned the toaster on before she spoke. "I don't know. Whenever you feel able to, I guess."

Daniel nodded. "Well, I'd like to. As soon as I'm able."

Janet's face went pale as she stared at him in disbelief. "Leave?"

He couldn't stand the pain he saw in her eyes, so he quickly looked down at the table. "Yes."

"Daniel, if this is about Andrew, you have to believe me - nothing happened."

He took a slow deep breath. "Well, maybe something should."

"What?"

"You deserve much better than this," Daniel said, his voice husky with emotion. "You deserve to be happy."

"When will you get it through your thick skull that there is nothing going on between me and Andrew?" she snapped. "And there never will be! Nor do I ever want there to be!"

Daniel didn't move or flinch, just kept his eyes focused on the table before him. "Still... I think it's about time we went our separate ways. You know we can't carry on like this forever."

She was silent for a long moment, so Daniel finally looked up at her, keeping his expression guarded so as not to betray how heartbroken he was at having to say this.

"Fine," she said. "I'll talk to An... Dr. Carmichael. Ask him whether he feels you've improved enough for that."

"Thank you."

He could tell there was a lot more that she wanted to say, but just then the telephone rang. She rushed to answer it, so Daniel got up to tend to the eggs. He didn't pay much attention to what she was saying until he heard, "Yes, we'll be there as soon as we can. Thank you."

She hung up then, so Daniel turned towards her. "What was that?"

Janet looked flustered and started moving towards the door. "That was the SGC. There's been an emergency. They need me and Colonel O'Neill there immediately."

"Is everything okay?" Daniel asked, concerned. He knew that Sam and Teal'c were both on the base, as were any number of his friends and colleagues, so any emergency more than likely meant someone he knew was in trouble.

Janet was already in the living room waking Jack, so Daniel followed after her. He heard her telling him there was an emergency to do with the Goa'uld, and within seconds Jack was on his feet.

Everything moved fast after that. Jack and Janet practically flew from room to room as they prepared to leave, and by the time the toast had popped and the eggs were done, they were just about ready to head out the door. Jack had offered to take Janet there in his truck since her car was still out of action, so she had an extra minute to wait for him while he finished getting ready.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked Daniel as he put the eggs and toast on his own plate and sat down to eat them.

"I'll be fine," he said. "This way I can show you I can handle being on my own."

Janet didn't seem very pleased by this. She came over to him and tentatively rested her hands on his shoulders. "We'll talk about all of that when I get home, okay?" she said, her voice shaking a little.

"Yeah," Daniel said. He took a mouthful of food to avoid having to say anything else.

She didn't let his attitude push her away, however. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and brushed her lips against his cheek. "See you later," she said.

Then she was gone.

Daniel suddenly lost his appetite as he heard the front door close behind them. He felt like he'd made yet another huge mistake in telling her he wanted to leave, but what else could he do? He hated being here; hated the pain it caused her whenever he would do or say something weird. He hated being a burden to everyone around him. He just hated everything.

He shoved his plate aside and went through to the living room. Once there, he put the pullout couch back together and flopped down onto it to watch some television. He had nothing better to do, so he figured he might as well waste the day.

Before long, however, a strange feeling started to settle over him; one that he hadn't felt in quite some time. His head started to feel as though it had been detached from his body and was floating somewhere up around the ceiling, and he couldn't seem to concentrate on what he was watching.

"No..." he said under his breath. His throat constricted as a wave of panic engulfed him and left him gasping for air. His gaze darted around the room, waiting for what he knew was about to come.

Suddenly, a dark form appeared at the window, paralysing him with fear. An ugly face pressed up against the glass, and two evil eyes glared right into his own. An Unas - one not as friendly as Chaka - was standing on his front porch.

"No, it isn't real," he muttered, rocking back and forth in his seat as he tried to control his breathing. "I'm just hallucinating... it isn't real..."

Then it disappeared, and Daniel heaved a sigh of relief. With a shaking hand, he picked up the remote control for the television and tried to focus on watching Bugs Bunny. Just as Bugs was getting the upper hand over Elmer Fudd, however, a movement on the side of the television set caught his eye.

Daniel froze in terror. It was a cockroach the size of a plate.

"It isn't real," he whispered. "Oh God... not real... can't be real..." He watched it as it crawled across the TV and down to the floor. "Not real... hallucinating... don't be afraid..." When it started to approach the couch, even the knowledge that it wasn't real couldn't keep him sitting there. He screamed in panic and leaped from the couch clean across the room. Then he raced upstairs and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him and leaning against it as he tried to catch his breath.

"Dammit!" he cried. "Dammit! Damn! Damn!" He thumped his head against the door with every curse until his knees gave out from under him and he sank to the floor. He hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms as he cried tears of utter hopelessness.

"It'll never be over!" he sobbed. "Oh God, I can't do this! Please help me... I can't do this!"

"She'd be better off without me."

"You all deserve better than me."

"It'll never go away. Never."

"God, make it stop!"

"The only way you'll ever be free is if you're dead."

"...is if you're dead."

"...dead."

Daniel's sobs slowly faded as he realized what he had to do. Everyone would be better off, really. Not just him, but everyone. No one needed a burden like him on their backs all the time. No one deserved to live in constant fear, wondering what he would do next time he lost control. Especially not Janet. Not sweet, beautiful Janet.

Yes, he knew what he had to do.

He crawled over to the closet and pulled the door open. There was a toolkit lying right there in front of him. That was perfect. He opened it up, and his fingers closed around the object he needed right away - a penknife.

It was cold and shiny, almost brand new. It was ironic, really - Janet had bought this kit for him months ago, and he'd never really had the chance to use any of the tools for anything... until today.

Another sob rose to his throat as he opened the blade, but he choked it back down. There was no use crying over it. This was something he had to do... for Janet's sake.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

To be continued...