Shadows of Fear – Part 8

"Any change?" General Hammond stopped only a fraction of an inch from the large viewing window, his nose almost touching the glass, looking down as he spoke.

Doctor Fraiser shook her head, but didn't turn, instead continuing to stare down at the room below, a frown of concentration on her face. "No, if anything his condition seems to have deteriorated."

The general's gaze was fixed wholly on the man pacing around the isolation room. "He looks fine, considering."

"You'd think so, but watch carefully."

There was silence from the two officers for a few minutes then Janet spoke sharply. "There! See that?"

"No."

"Watch again. There – you see now?"

Hammond nodded slowly. "He flinched and stepped to one side."

"Yes, as if he was about to walk into something." She emphasised her next words. "Or someone. And there – see that?"

Below them, Colonel O'Neill, with a look of profound horror, was now backing slowly, as if away from something – something that wasn't there. He stopped after only a few steps, raising his head, and the observers found themselves staring directly into his eyes. It was almost as if a switch was turned off as the colonel's face froze into an emotionless mask before he looked away once more and walked across to climb up onto the hospital bed in the center of the room, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders and turned his back on them.

"I don't think he's happy we're observing him."

Hammond bit back the urge to use one of O'Neill's favourite phrases – Ya think! – instead just muttering a grunt of agreement.

Janet sighed and made a few notes on the chart in her hand, checking her watch. "I hope he gets some sleep this time, if not I'll have to sedate him, despite his wishes. It's been thirty-six hours and in that time he's had less than three hours unbroken sleep."

"And we're no closer to finding an answer."

"The results of the scientists' tests, sir?"

"Are in." The general moved away from the window, taking a seat at the small table set against the wall. "There's no evidence of any cause for the hallucinations the colonel is experiencing." He rested his elbow on the hard surface and looked wearily up at the doctor. "I'm afraid the only conclusion we can come to at this point in time is that these events are a result of …" He stopped, unable to say the final damning words.

"He's lost it."

Hammond fought hard to conceal his surprise at the doctor's less than professional diagnosis, but seeing the despair in her face, instead of reprimanding Fraiser he just gave a weary nod. "I'll have to call in Doctor MacKenzie."

"The colonel won't like that."

As understatements went, Hammond thought that would top the list. "I don't have a choice. His behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic and the Pentagon wants answers."

If he was honest with himself, George Hammond knew the Pentagon didn't so much want answers as an excuse to put O'Neill somewhere very private from which he'd probably never return. Whether it was post-traumatic stress, an alien disease or caused by prolonged exposure to Gate use, the results were the same – a man teetering on the brink of complete meltdown. They weren't prepared to let the leader of the SGC's premier team and 2IC of the base retire on medical grounds if he was a danger to security.

A flurry of movement from the hospital bed brought Hammond to his feet once more and both he and Doctor Fraiser hurried to the window.

Jack had rolled off the bed and was now across the room, pressed into a corner as if he was trying to make himself as small as possible. Even from this distance the general could see the trembling that wracked his body. Within a few moments it was clear he was having trouble holding himself upright and it was without surprise that he watched O'Neill slide down the wall to sit, his knees bent and his head bowed.

"Sir – I need …"

He nodded. "Do what you have to, Doctor. When should I arrange Doctor MacKenzie's visit?"

"You'd better make it ten hours, sir."

"Very well."

General Hammond waited, watching as Doctor Fraiser and her nurses finally managed to coax Colonel O'Neill back up onto the bed and administer an injection he took to be a sedative. The protests were vehement and bitter, and at one point O'Neill looked up at him.

"General, please – don't …"

Leaning into the microphone, he gave the order. "Colonel O'Neill, let the doctor do her job."

The look of betrayal on Jack's face was almost too much for the general to bear.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

The sound of MacKenzie's voice was the first intimation Jack had that there was someone tangible in the room with him, someone he could touch, a living breathing person somehow crammed into a space left vacant by the myriad of ghosts who even haunted his drugged dreams.

Searching to find a face he could respond to, he surveyed the torn, broken and bloody remnants of lives brutally cut short. It was only when the doctor spoke again that Jack spotted him, standing between Akmar and Captain Foster of SG-8, his white-coated shoulder touching the oozing open sores on the captain's chest.

Jack had avoided looking in Akmar's direction since the first appearance of his Iraqi guard just before the Doc had knocked him out. Akmar looked like he'd been blown up, limbs hanging by threads and one eye dripping down his cheek as if peering at the floor.

The odd thing was that Jack didn't remember Akmar dying. In fact he had a very vivid and unpleasant memory of the huge man beating the crap out of him one more time before he was released – the final beating that was almost one too many. Still, he was here, and Jack did have gaps in his memory of that time so. . .

"Colonel O'Neill. Can you hear me?"

He glared at the psychiatrist. "Of course I can, Doctor, but the question is – do you have anything to say worth listening to?" He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat, just stopping himself from putting a hand to his head as the far too familiar headache that always accompanied waking up from a drug induced sleep began pounding behind his eyes.

He knew Janet had thought she was doing the right thing, but she couldn't have known the apparitions walked through his nightmares now, ever present – that there was nowhere he could escape them anymore. She couldn't have known, any more than the general could, because Jack hadn't told them. He hadn't told them how much worse it had gotten since Daniel had brought him back to the SGC four days ago, although given that they were watching his every move they had probably guessed. It was like he was living in a psychotic nightmare peopled by the past, in which the real and the present made very brief and hardly noticed appearances.

His team had visited, but he found it hard to pretend to be normal as the dead crowded around, clutching and touching them, stroking putrid fingers down their living cheeks as if trying to suck life from them. On Carter's last visit, Jack had cracked, leaping up to stop Jonas Hanson from wrapping his arms around her. Carter had jumped up and out of the way, her eyes showing her panic, and she hadn't been back.

Jack hadn't tried to explain. How could he?

"Tell me what you're seeing."

No matter how much he disliked this man, Jack knew he had to try. Being uncooperative won't help matters in the slightest, so he bit down on his natural inclination to refuse to answer. Perhaps the doctor had the solution; perhaps he could explain what was happening. He fixed his eyes determinedly on the psychiatrist, blocking out his surroundings.

"Ghosts. The dead. But I'm sure they've told you that."

"They?"

Irritated despite his best intentions, he glared at the man. "They – Doc Fraiser, the General. Do you think I'm seeing conspiracies now? I'm not that far gone." He barely refrained from muttering 'idiot'. "I know you've been given all the facts, MacKenzie – such as they are – so cut the bullshit and give me your theory. You must have one."

Jack began to see some humor in the situation when the doctor pulled a chair up level with his bed, carelessly dragging it through assorted apparitions. Except the mere fact he was finding it funny was cause enough to be worried about the tenuous grip with which he still held on to reality.

MacKenzie shook his head as if disappointed. "Come now, Colonel – you can't really expect me to make a diagnosis without talking to you first and hearing your side of the story."

"What's to hear? I'm seeing things that no one else can."

"Ghosts?"

"Yeah, whatever – maybe. Hell, it isn't like I believe in the things."

"But you're seeing something? If not ghosts, then what?"

Anger rose, but Jack swallowed it back. MacKenzie was just asking the same questions everyone else had when he finally described what he was seeing. And it wasn't like he had any explanation.

"You tell me, Doctor." He smiled bitterly, his lips twisted in a thin, crooked line. "Isn't that why you're here?"

Instead of answering, MacKenzie shifted in his chair, looking around. "Tell me what you see now, Colonel. Describe it to me."

"Well, there's a couple of Jaffa with staff weapon wounds standing about six inches from me. They're a bit hard to see around. And the whole of SG-18 is hanging about by the door. If they were alive I don't think they'd be at all well. Let's see, who else? Well, Major Mansfield has staked a claim to that bit of space next to the shelf, and Rothman …"

Jack stopped, his words faltering for a second before he continued, keeping his eyes firmly on MacKenzie's face. He didn't need to look to know who was in the room with him. He didn't want to look.

"The System Lords don't seem to like each other. Ra and Marduk have obviously had a falling out and are on opposite sides of the room. I haven't seen Apophis for a while but I know he's around here somewhere, and Hathor is fiddling with her hair about – there." He pointed and was amused to see the doctor instinctively glance in that direction. "There's assorted, very obviously dead people scattered around, some I don't even recognise, and Captain Foster is dripping pus all over you. You remember him? SG-8. I sent them out on a mission about eighteen months ago, while General Hammond was on leave. Nasty business. Some sort of allergy to a substance in the soil."

The doctor moved his chair a little to the left.

"Wrong direction, MacKenzie. You're practically sitting in his lap now." Jack watched as the bland expression changed to show a little concern. "But I wouldn't suggest you move the other way." He couldn't help looking at Akmar, feeling the Iraqi's cold eyes on him, and flinched when the prison guard licked his lips and gave him a slow, leering wink.

"I see a common thread here, Colonel. I'm sure you're already aware of it."

Jack's heart froze as another figure walked slowly towards him. With a supreme effort of will he answered the doctor.

"Do tell?"

"You are, in some way, responsible for the deaths of all the people you have mentioned. Major Kawalsky – the first hallucination – you gave the order that resulted in his death. The same with Captain Foster, even though there was no way you could have known you were sending him to his death. Rothman and the others were all people you felt some responsibility for. The System Lords and Jaffa were enemies who have been killed in the war you are fighting." He paused and raised his voice. "We must consider that these hallucinations are the manifestations of the guilt you have accumulated over the many years of service in the Air Force."

The others moved aside, clearing a corridor down which he came. He had almost reached them now, his steps long but languid. He moved with the familiar grace Jack knew so well, his mouth twisted up in that sadistic little smile that turned Jack's blood to ice.

MacKenzie was droning on – some utter crap about remorse and facing past deeds, but all Jack could do was sit, locked in place.

"Colonel O'Neill, you must try and concentrate and listen to me if I'm to help you." The man's firm hand on his arm broke the spell and Jack was able to reply.

"Ghosts. Guilt. Stress. People I've killed. Got it." He licked his lips, finding them amazingly dry. "Then I'd like you to explain something to me, seeing you've got all the answers."

"What is that, Colonel?"

Pointing, Jack rose, nausea warring with the urge to flee.

"What's Ba'al doing here?"

xoxoxoxoxoxo

TBC