Daniel was tired of pretending.
He was so mad at himself for falling apart while Mackenzie was here that he'd put extra effort into acting normally for the rest of the day. He couldn't believe how much energy it took to pretend he didn't jump at every noise, and he was fighting a losing battle with the flashbacks he had to pretend he wasn't having. He knew it was all just because he'd been talking to Mackenzie, and it had brought his bottled-up feelings out for a little while. It would go away again. He'd be fine.
Wouldn't he?
No matter how hard he tried, though, he didn't seem to be fooling Janet. She'd been hovering around him all day, and even though he'd never tell her so in a million years, it was making him feel rather uncomfortable. He needed his space, or he was likely to fall apart.
He practically collapsed into bed at the end of the day, and as it was still quite early, Janet tucked him in and then left him alone for a couple of hours. Daniel had been sure that would be a good thing - he could finally have some peace and get some much-needed sleep. Unfortunately, as soon as Janet left him alone in the dark, it all started to sink in.
Clammy hands... distorted faces... unearthly moans... sudden, sharp pain... his own terrified screams...
Daniel stifled a cry and burrowed his head under his pillow. He groaned when he realized how futile that action was. No matter how many blankets and pillows he buried himself under, it wasn't going to keep them out. They were in his head. They were under his skin. He could almost feel them crawling around inside him like maggots inside a corpse.
He shuddered and screamed with all his might into his pillow, releasing all of his fear, rage, and violation in that one breath. By the time he felt the need to bring his face back out into the open for air, the fear and violation were gone. At least for the moment, all he felt was rage.
Why the hell had they done this to him? They'd ruined his life forever, and they didn't even care. Hell, they didn't even seem to think he had a life to ruin in the first place. He should have fought harder. He should have killed them all, even if it meant dying in the process. If there was one memory of that place he wished he had, it was his escape. He hoped he'd slaughtered the whole damn bunch of them before he got away.
He froze when he heard a floorboard creek outside his door. For a moment, he was afraid it was one of them, but then the door opened and Janet stepped inside.
"Daniel?" she whispered. "Are you alright?"
He winced and drew his blankets up closer to his chin. He thought the sound of his cry would have been muffled enough that Janet wouldn't hear it, but apparently he'd been wrong. "Fine," he said, though his voice was too shaky for that to be true. "Just... thinking about things."
Janet made a soft tutting sound and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. "This isn't a time for thinking, Daniel," she said, stroking the damp hair back from his forehead. "You look exhausted. You need to sleep."
"I know." Daniel drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I guess I'm just... a little nervous in the dark."
"Would you like me to leave the door open until I come to bed?" Janet asked sympathetically.
Daniel wasn't sure that would make much of a difference, but he nodded anyway. At least then he could avoid talking any more about it.
"Anything else I can do for you?" Janet asked.
Daniel shook his head. "No, I'm fine."
"Okay." Janet kissed his forehead and then left the room, leaving the door open a few inches so just enough light from the hall came in to make everything in the room plainly visible.
Unfortunately, that also meant it was just enough light to cast eerie shadows on the walls. Long fingers stretched out towards him... disembodied eyes watched him from just beyond the half-open closet door. He knew they were just harmless objects like a vase of flowers and a shirt with shiny buttons, but they reminded him of things he didn't want to be reminded of.
The chair in the corner looked like one of them, hunched over as it picked up the tray of food Daniel had thrown at the wall on one of his first days in hell. He remembered what his punishment for that had been - they'd taken his sight away. He hadn't been able to see for over a day. That was when he'd realized they were in complete control. He'd never known fear as intense as he'd experienced in those hours.
Daniel swallowed another scream and buried himself under the covers. He hated feeling so weak, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't block it all out. He lay there motionless, trying to clear his mind of everything, until he finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Even in his sleep, they wouldn't leave him alone. Memories of that place flooded into his mind, jumbled together with his experiences of the past few days, until his body just couldn't take it anymore. He woke up screaming, covered in sweat.
"It's okay, Daniel," Janet said, stroking his back with one hand and gripping his shoulder with the other to prevent him from bolting from the bed. "It was just a nightmare."
Daniel looked over at her as he panted for breath. He felt disoriented, not remembering when she'd come to bed and not fully understanding yet that what he'd just seen and experienced had just been a nightmare. For that matter, he didn't remember when he'd sat up. "Nightmare?" he repeated stupidly.
"Yes, just a nightmare," she said. "Lie down again. It's okay."
Daniel obediently lay back down, turning on his side to face her as she continued to stroke his head and shoulders and make soothing sounds like he was a frightened child. He didn't mind being treated like a child in situations like this. It was nice to feel loved and cared for, especially when it was coming from Janet.
He sighed as his heart slowed down to its normal rhythm and the adrenaline began to wear off. "Sorry I woke you," he murmured as his eyes started to grow heavy again.
Janet shook her head and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Then she resumed running her fingers through his hair. "What did they do to you, Daniel?"
The way she said it implied that it was a rhetorical question, so Daniel didn't even attempt to answer. He just lay there watching her face until his eyes started to droop. Then he reached out to wrap his arms around her, and drew her close against his chest.
He clung to her for a few moments, but began to relax when she started tracing patterns on his back with her fingertips. It seemed like a lifetime since he'd last cuddled with her like this, so he was reluctant to miss it by allowing himself to fall asleep. Fairly soon, though, nature won out, and he drifted off.
If he had more nightmares after that, he didn't remember them. The next thing he knew, he was waking up to the scent of coffee and pancakes.
A glance at the clock told him it was getting late, so he got up and dressed as quickly as he could. It didn't occur to him until he was halfway down the stairs that he was feeling better than he'd felt since his whole ordeal began. He was almost feeling... happy. Light. Like it had all just been a dream.
Cassie was bouncing over to the front door as he reached the bottom of the stairs, so she briefly veered away from her destination to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek before shouting, "Bye, Mom!" and running out of the house.
"The whirlwind that is Cassie," Daniel said as he entered the kitchen a moment later.
Janet turned from the stove to look at him and laughed. "She caught you, did she?" she said. "She stuck around as long as she could in hopes of seeing you before she left, but she finally had to go or be late for school. It was all I could do to keep her from running upstairs to wake you up herself."
Daniel came to stand behind her as she spoke, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and stooped down to place a kiss on her neck.
"My my," Janet teased, "somebody's feeling better this morning."
"I am," he agreed. "And I'm starving, too."
"Well," Janet said as she reached for a plate, "you're just in time, because these pancakes are for you." She loaded the plate with three perfect-looking pancakes and then turned around to face him.
Daniel held her in place and kissed her sweetly on the lips. He couldn't believe how good he was feeling. He felt like sweeping her up in his arms and dancing her around the kitchen.
Until the doorbell rang.
Daniel groaned as Janet pulled away from him.
"That'll be Dr. Mackenzie," she said. "I'll hold him off until you've had your breakfast, okay?"
"Do I have a choice?" Daniel muttered as she rushed off to answer the door. He grabbed his plate and a fork and plodded over to the table. Funny how the presence of one man could so easily ruin his appetite.
Still, he knew it had to be done, and better now while he was feeling okay than a time when he was feeling delicate and easily spooked. So, he ate his breakfast as quickly as he could, and soon joined Janet and Mackenzie in the living room.
"Ah, Daniel, there you are," Mackenzie greeted him. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Better than yesterday," Daniel said as he sat down next to Janet.
Janet smiled and patted his leg. "I guess I'll disappear again for a while," she said. "Call me if you need me."
Daniel took a deep breath as she stood up and left the room. "So..." he said once he and Mackenzie were alone. "What's on the agenda for today?"
Mackenzie glanced up at him over the rims of his glasses as he shuffled through his notes. "There's no agenda here, Daniel," he said in his usual calm tone. "If you feel you can talk about what happened to you today, I'm here to listen. If not... we can talk about the weather."
Daniel leaned to the side and over-dramatized taking a look out the window. "Looks a little cloudy," he said. "Feels cool. Pretty common fall weather in Colorado, wouldn't you say?"
Mackenzie chuckled. "Alright, so we've talked about the weather. Now how about we pick up where we left off yesterday, hmm?"
Daniel nervously rubbed his thighs and wetted his lips. "Okay," he said. He cleared his throat. "Um... I guess I left off... with the door of my cell opening."
"One of the aliens was standing there," Mackenzie offered.
"Yeah."
"Can you... describe it for me?"
Daniel watched Mackenzie's pen as it hovered over the page, waiting to scribble down whatever came out of Daniel's mouth. It was rather unnerving. "It... was about my height," he began, trying to think without feeling. To his relief, it actually seemed to work this time. "Grey skin. Peeling in places. Dead." He paused for a moment as Mackenzie's pen moved frantically across the page and then stopped. "Long fingers, like claws. Cold... clammy hands. It was wearing some kind of... uniform or... protective gear. Not sure what it was. Most of them wore it. Brown... sandy brown... covering everything but their face and hands. It looked and felt like... skin."
Mackenzie took a second or two to catch up, and then looked up at Daniel as if expecting him to go on. "You're doing extremely well, Daniel," he said. "What else can you tell me about them?"
"Red eyes," he said. He would never forget those eyes.
Mackenzie jotted that down as well. "What about their speech?" he asked. "You seemed to know some of their language. Can you tell me about that?"
Daniel shook his head. "One word," he said. "Cape. I... I don't even know how I know it."
"You don't remember learning it?"
Daniel shook his head again. "I don't remember understanding them," he said, staring off into space as random images and memories started to flash across his mind's eye. "They... they moaned. Zombies. They moaned. Over and over. Then they'd mutter to each other. Chak. Da. Minal kara. Don't know what it means. Nothing good. It was usually followed by pain. The first one... it didn't want me walking around, touching buttons. It zapped me with... some kind of energy weapon... like a stun gun. I was conscious, but I couldn't move." He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut as if to shut out the images. "Couldn't fight it off when it took my clothes..."
"Chak. Da. Minal kara."
"Please, just let me go. Please!"
"There was nothing I could do," Daniel said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "There were three of them then... three on the ship. More on the planet. Zombies... everywhere. Dozens of them."
"Daniel..." Mackenzie leaned forward and rested his elbows on his clipboard. "What makes you think they were zombies?"
"The moaning... their dead skin... the way they moved... slow, clumsy..."
"But Daniel, if they were really zombies... wouldn't you be a zombie, too?"
A shiver passed through him from head to toe. Mackenzie was right. If they were really zombies, they would have turned him into a zombie, too.
That feeling came over him again, the one that told him they were nearby. He'd come to recognize that feeling even while the implant in his head was leaving him barely aware of his surroundings. He knew when they were coming. He always knew.
But maybe they were already here. Maybe they were him. "Maybe I am one of them," he whispered, the words sending another shiver through his body.
"No, Daniel," Mackenzie said. "You're a human being, and just as alive as I am. They were aliens that took you, Daniel. Aliens that may have zombie-ish characteristics, but still very much alive. Whatever they wanted from you, it obviously wasn't to eat your flesh."
Daniel felt like arguing that not all zombies eat flesh, but he suddenly felt much too tired. He took off his glasses and covered his face with his hands. The feeling of their nearness was slowly dissipating, leaving him with an almost empty feeling in its place. "I get your point," he said wearily. "Not zombies... just aliens. Is there anything else you want to know?"
Mackenzie seemed almost sympathetic as he sat back in his seat and said, "No, I think that's it for today. You're doing remarkably well, Daniel. I know it isn't easy to talk about what you've experienced."
Daniel sighed and lowered his hands into his lap. He didn't know the half of it.