Mind Fever - Chapter 40
Janet slammed the receiver back into its cradle and buried her face in her hands. That was the third time in a row that she had tried calling the house and received no answer. She tried to tell herself that Daniel was just sitting out on the porch and couldn't hear the phone ringing, but she had an awful feeling deep down inside that something was wrong.
"Still no answer?" Andrew asked from her office doorway.
Janet dropped her hands onto her desk. "No," she said, "and it has me worried."
"How has he been doing lately?"
Janet sighed, not entirely sure how to answer that question. "He has good days and bad days," she said. "Yesterday was a bad one, and then today he said he wanted to move out."
"Move out?" he repeated in surprise. "Why would he want to move out?"
Janet shook her head. "I don't know. He... he thought there was something going on between us, actually."
Andrew gaped at her for a moment. "Oh."
"I tried to tell him he was wrong, but then he started asking whether he could live on his own yet." She took a deep, nervous breath and stood up. "I have a bad feeling about this, Drew. Anything could have happened while I've been gone. I have to go check on him."
"Yes, by all means," he said, stepping out of her way as she moved towards the door. "SG-1 and SG-3 have the situation on P5G-995 under control, and SG-2 have been patched up. I'm sure the rest of us can manage without you."
"Thanks, Drew," she said gratefully. "If everything's okay, I'll be back in an hour."
The elevators didn't move fast enough to the surface for Janet's liking, but at least Sam had managed to fix her car the night before. It was still sitting in the parking garage where she had left it on Saturday, and this time it actually started up when she turned the key in the ignition. The drive home passed in a blur until she pulled into the driveway and saw that the front porch was empty.
"Relax, Janet," she told herself. "He might have just gone back inside a minute ago. He might have been inside the whole time and just not felt like answering the phone. This doesn't mean anything has happened."
She hurried out of the car and onto the porch anyway, and then unlocked the door with a shaking hand.
Once she stepped inside, the sound of some silly cartoon greeted her ears. The living room was empty, but the TV was still on. Daniel must be somewhere nearby. "Daniel?" she called. No answer.
She shrugged off her jacket and draped it across the back of a chair as she started down the hallway. The bathroom door was open and empty. His office door was shut, so she knocked lightly and opened it. That room was empty, too.
Next she made her way into the kitchen. It was empty as well, but Daniel's breakfast was still sitting on the table, relatively untouched.
She was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
"Daniel? Where are you?" she called, her anxiety creeping into her tone. She went back down the hall and started to climb the stairs. He hadn't been sleeping well lately - maybe he'd gone down for a nap while the house was quiet.
Their bedroom door was closed, so she opened it quietly, hoping not to wake him if he was, indeed, asleep. She saw right away, however, that the bed was unoccupied.
As she opened the door wider, something on the carpet by the closet caught her eye. She stared at it for what seemed like hours, not wanting to believe what her eyes were telling her. Her mind was screaming at her, but she tried to ignore the words. It couldn't be... he wouldn't have...
One tentative step into the room later, Janet could no longer deny it. There was blood on the bedroom carpet. Lots of blood. A trail of it led to the bathroom door, which was standing partway open. There was also blood on the door handle.
"None who have experienced the 'mind fever' live longer than a year after... In the end, they take their own lives."
"No! Daniel?" she cried. She rushed over to the bathroom and pushed the door open wide.
There he was, sitting on the bathroom floor with his back slumped against the vanity, covered in blood. His eyes were staring straight ahead, dull and vacant. Lifeless.
"Daniel!" She dropped to her knees beside him and pressed her fingers to his neck, hoping desperately that she would find a pulse.
To her surprise, he rolled his eyes to the side to look at her, and the expression they held was one of utter misery and defeat.
She gasped and drew her hand away from him again. "Are you alright?" she asked, trying to get herself back under control after her fright. "What happened? Where are you hurt?"
He lifted his left arm, and she saw that his wrist was swathed in a blood-soaked bandage.
"Daniel, what happened?"
He dropped his hand limply into his lap. "Look at me," he said, his words slurred. "I'm so useless I can't even kill myself." He practically choked on the words as he tried not to cry.
"Kill yourself?" Janet repeated. "Why would you want to kill yourself?"
Daniel closed his eyes and turned his face away from her. "Just go away."
"Why would you try to kill yourself, Daniel?" she said louder, her voice filled with fear and anger.
"Because I'm useless!" he suddenly yelled. "I'm nothing! All I can do is sit around all day watching TV. Even then, I never know whether what I'm seeing is really there or just a figment of my imagination! I'm just a burden to everyone around me, especially you. You'd be better off without me."
Janet's anger multiplied a few dozen times over at this speech. The red she was seeing now was no longer Daniel's blood - it was her own rage. She grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists and let it all out. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare tell me I'd be better off without you! I'd be nothing without you, Daniel Jackson! If you died now, I'd die, too! Why can't you understand that?" Tears flowed unheeded down her cheeks as she thumped him back against the vanity as punctuation to her words. "Why are you so desperate to leave me? You horrible, selfish bastard! After everything I've done for you, you'd just leave me? How could you hate me so much?"
Her voice and energy gave out on her then, and all she could do was sob. All the frustrations of the past weeks came flooding out of her, and she knew she couldn't stop it even if she tried. The thought of losing Daniel now was just too horrific. Her mind couldn't even take it in.
Janet didn't know how it happened, but suddenly she realized that she was being cradled in Daniel's lap, and he was crying into her hair. He was rocking them back and forth as he chanted over and over, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry."
She beat her fists against his chest. "Don't you give up on me now. You promised me you'd hang in there. You promised me!"
"I'm sorry, Janet. I'm so sorry."
Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said. They simply held each other until their tears had run dry.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Daniel watched Janet's tear-stained face as she stitched up the gash in his wrist. He had never seen her look so pale and unnerved. He could tell she was only holding her hands steady with great effort, and she couldn't suppress the occasional wince as she worked.
He hated himself all the more for causing her so much pain. He couldn't believe he was even a failure at being a failure. He had been so close to ending it all forever, but when the blood had started to flow, some part of him had started screaming at him to stop. He had quickly pressed the hem of his shirt against the wound and somehow made it to the bathroom in time to bandage himself up before he had lost enough for it to be fatal. He hadn't thought of that as a good thing, though.
The next few hours had seemed like an eternity, but he hadn't moved from the spot. He hadn't even been thinking about anything, really. The amount of blood he had lost had left him feeling rather dazed, and he half hoped that meant he was dying, after all. He could feel himself slowly going into shock... until Janet had arrived.
He hadn't realized it until just now that she had come home a lot earlier than he'd expected, but he didn't dare to ask her why. He hadn't said anything since her outburst, and he wanted to keep it that way. It would be much too easy to say the wrong thing and set things off again.
When Janet was finished stitching and bandaging him up, she raised his arm and kissed the bandage over his wound. Then she looked him straight in the eye. "Don't you ever do that to me again."
Daniel shook his head, but didn't speak. He sure as hell wouldn't do anything like that again - ever. Not after he'd seen the fear in her eyes at the thought that he was dead. She really did love him. God, she really did love him! How could he have done this to her? How could he ever have doubted her?
"Come on," she said, "let's get you into some clean clothes and into bed." She stood up and helped him to his feet, wrapping her arm around his waist when he swayed with dizziness. "Can you make it?"
Daniel nodded and started for the door.
Once they were in the bedroom, Janet sat him down on the bed and peeled his soiled shirt off of him. He shivered with cold until she brought him a sweatshirt and helped him put it on. Even that didn't warm him up completely, though.
"You're probably feeling the cold because of the blood loss," she explained unnecessarily as she helped him change into a clean pair of sweatpants. Unlike him, she seemed to feel the need to say something. "Now you need to rest," she said as she turned back the covers for him to get into bed.
He meekly obeyed, climbing between the sheets and allowing her to pull the blankets up under his chin and tuck him in like a child. Then he just lay there looking up at her as she stood for a long moment stroking his hair.
"I'll get you some orange juice, okay?" she said, her voice quiet and her eyes full of tears. "That should help build up your blood again."
She went to leave, but Daniel pulled his hand out from under the covers and took hold of her arm. Once he was sure he had her attention again, he said, "Thank you."
He knew he should say more - thank you for coming home when you did; thank you for stitching me up; thank you for not leaving me to wallow in my own blood after doing something so stupid; thank you for loving me... but he didn't. He knew she would understand.
She did. She gave him a tiny smile and patted his hand. "I'll be right back," she said, and then she left the room.
Daniel tried to get comfortable in the bed while she was gone, but his throbbing arm didn't make it very easy. He wasn't about to complain, though. He deserved the pain after what he'd done. He'd just figured out a way of positioning his arm so that he wasn't putting any weight on his wound when Janet returned with the promised juice. Neither of them spoke as she helped him take a drink, and Janet even avoided making eye contact with him.
Just before she left again, Janet stroked his cheek and forced a smile for him. "Get some sleep," she said. "If you need me, just call. I'll be downstairs."
Daniel nodded. "'Kay."
She left the room again before he had the chance to say anything more.
Even though he was exhausted, he couldn't sleep. It was barely noon, after all, and even though the blinds were closed, the room was still very light. He stayed put, though, not wanting to upset Janet any further by not doing as he was told. He didn't even move.
He appreciated that she hadn't bombarded him with a whole bunch of questions about what had happened, but at the same time, he wished he could tell her all about it. He just didn't want to lay that kind of burden on her right away after what he'd already put her through.
She came up to check on him every hour on the hour, just poking her head in the room to see, he assumed, whether or not he was still breathing. On her fourth visit, he sat up and called her into the room.
"Would you mind if I came downstairs?" he asked. "I'm not sleeping, and I'm bored up here."
A look of pure guilt appeared on Janet's face, and it made Daniel's heart ache. "Of course you can," she said. "I'll set you up on the couch and put a movie on for you."
"Thank you."
Janet had to help him down the stairs, as he was still very unsteady on his feet, and then she helped him over to the couch where she surrounded him with pillows and blankets and everything else he could possibly need. He let her fuss over him as much as she wanted, as he knew that was her way of dealing with what had just happened. She even brought him a bowl of chicken noodle soup. He hadn't felt so loved in... well, in quite a while.
He couldn't help but wonder why he had ever wanted to leave.
It wasn't long before he began to doze, listening to the sounds of the movie Janet had put on for him and Janet unloading the dishwasher in the kitchen. He felt safe, he felt at peace... he felt at home. He burrowed down into the pillows more and allowed himself to fall asleep.
As soon as he drifted off, however, he headed into yet another nightmare. He was dying, and Janet was screaming as she tried to get to him. She was held back from him by something he couldn't see, and he was reaching for her... reaching... reaching...
"Daniel, wake up!"
He jerked awake to find Janet's worried face looking down at him and her hands shaking his shoulders. "Janet?"
"You were just having a bad dream," she said. She sounded about as shaken as he felt.
"Dream?" His head still hadn't cleared completely, and the dream had been so vivid that he couldn't quite grasp which was reality.
"A dream," she repeated, sitting down on the edge of the couch. "You were calling my name."
"I couldn't get to you. You were screaming... I couldn't get to you. I'm so sorry, Janet."
She smiled and stroked his hair. "Just a dream, Daniel. Everything's going to be okay."
The way she said it, he almost believed it.
He spent the remainder of the day dozing in front of the television and occasionally forcing himself to eat whatever Janet brought him, but finally Janet announced that it was time for him to go back to bed. He didn't protest as she led him up the stairs and tucked him in again.
"I'll be coming to bed soon, okay?" she said as she was leaving the room. "Try to sleep now."
Daniel did try to sleep, but after having another nightmare, he found he just couldn't do it. He waited and waited for Janet to come, but it seemed like forever before he heard her light step on the stairs.
She entered the room silently, made a quick trip to the bathroom, and then slipped into bed without even saying a word. She immediately turned on her side away from him, so Daniel assumed she thought he was asleep.
"Janet?"
She didn't move. "Go to sleep, Daniel," she said.
Her voice sounded tired, so Daniel didn't speak again. He lay there listening to her breathing, wishing he could take her in his arms as he slept like he used to do. It always comforted him to have a woman's calm presence that close to him when he drifted off to sleep. He'd found that was the only way to prevent the nightmares that so often plagued him throughout his life. Holding Janet had always brought him restful sleep and sweet, beautiful dreams. If only he could have that now.
A couple of hours passed in silence before Daniel heard a slight noise coming from Janet's side of the bed. He wasn't sure what it was at first, until he heard it again.
Janet was crying.
He turned on his side to face her and reached out his hand to touch her shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Janet flinched at his touch. Daniel tried to tell himself it was out of surprise rather than discomfort, but he wasn't sure. "Sorry I woke you," she said. "Just go back to sleep, okay?"
Daniel propped himself up on his elbow to get a better look at her. "No, I think we should talk about this."
Janet sighed. "I really think it best that we don't, Daniel. We'd just end up fighting."
"No, we..."
"Look, we're both tired, Sam will be coming in the morning to give you another treatment... we both need to sleep, not talk." She thumped her pillow and squirmed a bit to get more comfortable.
Daniel felt stricken. "Tomorrow, then?"
She didn't answer.
"Janet?"
No response.
Daniel sighed and reached out to touch her again, but stopped an inch away from her. He didn't want to push too hard for fear of pushing her away entirely, so he closed his hand into a fist and turned over onto his back. There would be time enough for them to talk tomorrow.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Sam had been concerned about her friends when she was told that Janet had suddenly gone home after not being able to get an answer from Daniel on the phone. She had called that night to ask how things were going, and was dumbstruck when Janet had poured out the whole story to her. Janet had asked that she not tell anyone what had happened, and especially not to tell Daniel that she knew, so Sam had been in agony for the rest of the day not knowing what to do.
She set out bright and early for their house the next morning, determined that she was going to do the best damn job she could so that this whole mess would end once and for all.
Janet greeted her at the door and let her inside. As soon as she entered the house, she saw Daniel sitting on the couch, propped up against all kinds of pillows and cushions and covered in blankets. He looked quite pale, but very relaxed. He even offered her a weak smile when she came and sat down beside him.
"Hey, Sam," he said.
"Hey. Not feeling too good today?" She hoped she was doing better than she thought at keeping her knowledge of yesterday's events a secret.
"Just tired," he said.
Sam nodded and looked over at Janet. "Should I just go ahead?" she asked.
"Yes, please do," Janet replied. She then went over to Daniel, cupped his chin in her hand, and tilted his face up to look at her. "I just have to go out for a few minutes, okay?" she said. "I'll be back in plenty of time before you wake up."
"Okay."
Janet led Sam aside before she left, explaining that she was going to the drug store for something better to use on Daniel's wound to prevent it from getting infected. "Would you stay until I get back?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure," Sam agreed. Then she watched as Janet hurried out the door.
She turned back to Daniel then, and she got a little nervous when she saw how down he looked. "You sure you're okay?" she asked, sitting back down beside him.
He nodded. "Yeah, I just... how long do you think this is going to take?"
"You mean this treatment, or the whole thing?"
"The whole thing."
Sam chewed on the inside of her lip as she thought this over. "I'm not sure exactly," she said. "You're definitely improving with each treatment, though. It won't be long now, I can promise you."
Daniel sighed and nodded, though he didn't look convinced.
"You sure there's nothing you want to talk about before I do this?" she asked.
Daniel looked at her closely as if trying to figure out whether she had an underlying motive for asking that question. Sam kept her best poker face on throughout his examination, and it seemed to be effective. He sighed again and looked down. "I... had more hallucinations yesterday," he said. "And I'm still having the nightmares. It's just not going away, Sam. I'm scared it never will."
Sam laid her hand on his arm and stroked it reassuringly. "I don't know why you're still having the hallucinations, Daniel," she said. "I honestly don't. But I promise you, we will get to the bottom of it, and we will fix it. You won't be like this forever."
Daniel looked up at her with sad, but hopeful eyes. "Thanks, Sam."
"I mean it," she said. "Don't give up."
He forced a smile and settled back against his pillows. "I'm ready now."
Sam took a deep breath and activated the healing device.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
To be continued...