Chapter 5

"Where'd you get the stick?" Jack asked once they were safely back in their quarters.

Marzun didn't answer until he'd lowered Jack down onto his blankets and made him as comfortable as possible. "Derya always kept it close at hand in case of just such an emergency," he said as he crossed the room to get some water.

"Right." Jack squinted up at Marzun's back inquisitively. "How did you know where to find me?" he asked.

Marzun sighed as he turned around and crouched down beside Jack with a clean rag and a bowl of water. "I awoke and you were gone," he said. "Once I left our quarters, I had only to follow the sound of screaming to find you. Please, hold still," he added as he touched Jack's face with the damp cloth. "I need to clean your wounds, or they are likely to become infected."

Jack tried not to flinch as Marzun carefully bathed the scratches on his face, arms, and chest, but they were jagged and deep and hurt like hell. "Got any band-aids?" Jack asked dryly.

Marzun didn't answer, but once he was finished cleaning the wounds he pulled out a small tube from under one of the blankets. "This will help with the pain, and also prevent infection," he said as he squeezed some green goo out of the tube and started dabbing it on the worst of the scratches.

"What is that stuff?" Jack asked.

"Medicine," Marzun replied. "We are not completely deprived of all comforts here."

Jack could tell from Marzun's tone that he knew Jack had been trying to escape and he didn't exactly approve. He figured it would be best for him to keep his mouth shut for a while, so once the green goo had been applied, Jack stretched out on his blankets and tried to get some sleep.

Tried, but didn't succeed. He couldn't stop thinking over what had happened and berating himself for being so stupid. He should have known by now that except for Marzun and the other "colonists," nothing and no one that he saw in this place was real. Aside from his daily routine, nothing he experienced in this place really happened. It was all just this damn disease messing with his mind.

And there was no way of escaping from this place, that much was clear. As much as he hated resigning himself to failure, it was about time he started facing facts - he was probably going to be here for the rest of his life. He needed to start preparing himself for that, and stop getting himself into situations from which he needed Marzun to rescue him. Pretty soon he was going to be on his own. That was just reality.

Reality... Jack couldn't help but laugh when he suddenly found himself playing a friendly game of chess with Teal'c back at the SGC. It was the first hallucination he'd had that seemed pleasant and restful, so he was reluctant to let it go. But let it go he must, or he knew he would end up like the "weak-minded" colonists... lost in his own little world, completely oblivious to what was really going on around him.

No, he needed to keep his mind sharp, disease or no damn disease. He quickly chased the fantasy SGC out of his mind and returned to his dark, oppressive quarters before he had a chance to think twice about it.

"How did you manage to keep yourself sane, Marz?" he asked wearily when Marzun's internal clock told him it was time to start getting ready for the day.

"What makes you think I am sane, Jack?" Marzun replied.

Jack looked up at him in surprise. Was that a hint of... humour he'd just heard in Marzun's tone?

Marzun smiled sadly and shook his head. "No one in this place is completely sane," he said matter-of-factly. "We do not need to be. No one will hate us or mock us for being who we are. For years I imagined myself with a wife and children, living a normal life on the surface... but I never allowed myself to remain in that imaginary world for very long. It made the hardest times a little easier, but reality must be faced sooner or later. Living your life always trying to escape it is much too tiresome."

"Yeah," Jack said with a sigh. He got the message loud and clear - Marzun was basically telling him to grow up and stop feeling sorry for himself.

"I must fetch our day's rations," Marzun said then as he moved towards the door. "You must stay here and rest. I will not be long."

Jack buried himself under his blankets as soon as Marzun left. His body ached from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and he could easily have killed to get his hands on some aspirin, but he finally felt exhausted enough that he could actually sleep.

If only his mind would sleep, as well.

"Jack?"

Jack groaned and pulled the blanket down just enough to peek out with one eye. He groaned again and burrowed back under the blanket when he saw Daniel's face staring back at him. "Crap."

"What? Jack, are you awake?"

"Probably not," Jack muttered into his pillow.

"Well, could you try to be?" Daniel said impatiently. "I don't have much time before your roommate comes back."

"What difference does that make?" Jack said. "It's not like he can see you anyway."

"Jack, I'm not a hallucination. I'm real. I'm going to get you out of here, but I need you to sit up and listen to me."

"Nice try, but I'm not interested," Jack said without moving from his comfortable position. "The last time you guys tried to break me out of here, I was nearly pounded into the ground by a raving lunatic. Been there, done that, got the shredded t-shirt. Now will you please leave me alone?"

"I know about that," Daniel said, his impatience giving way to sympathy. "I saw you coming out of that room. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you," Jack said, poking his head out from under the blanket. "You know, I don't even know why I'm talking to you. Not only are you just a figment of my imagination, but you're a figment of my imagination that almost got me killed!"

"I realize you're confused right now, Jack..."

"Confused doesn't even begin to describe it," Jack said, wincing at the stab of pain in his side as he tried to get comfortable again.

"...and I don't know what kind of hallucinations you've had before, but I assure you that this time, it's really me."

Jack sighed and willed his brain to focus on the task of sleeping rather than hallucinating. He knew what flashback this conversation would eventually conjure up, and he wasn't exactly looking forward to it.

"I leave, and look at the mess you get yourself into."

Jack cursed under his breath as the room he was in slowly morphed into the cell in Baal's outpost. He really did not want to be here...

"It's good to see you," Daniel said.

"Yeah... you, too," Jack said cautiously. He sat down on the bench opposite Daniel's, but couldn't bring himself to relax. "It's a shame you're a delusion."

"No, I'm here. I'm really here."

"Sure you are," Jack said, not buying it for a second. He casually removed one of his shoes and tossed it across the room at Daniel.

It hit him square in the chest.

"Ow?" Daniel cocked an eyebrow at him. "What did you do that for?"

Jack stood up as quickly as his aching body would allow as he found himself back in the colony. "That... that hit you," he said, his mouth hanging open in surprise.

"Of course it hit me," Daniel said. "Like I've been trying to tell you, I'm real."

Jack looked Daniel up and down for the first time since he'd appeared in his room. He wasn't wearing his SG-1 uniform like he had in Jack's previous hallucinations, nor was he wearing the white sweater and beige pants from his mid-ascension visit. This time he was covered from head to toe in a dark, hooded robe, not quite the type of thing he'd worn on Abydos, but very similar to the cloaks some of the colonists wore. His mind could easily have married the two images together and spat out this hallucination as a way to assuage his fears of not being able to escape. Yeah... that's it.

"Alright, if you're really real," he said, "how did you get in this room?"

Daniel gestured towards the door, which was standing open.

Jack could have sworn Marzun had closed it when he'd left a few minutes earlier. "I could just be hallucinating that the door is open," he said thoughtfully.

"Jack, we really don't have time for this... I am not a hallucination!"

"Okay, so prove it," Jack said with finality. "Hit me."

Daniel looked at him like he'd just sprouted another head. "What?"

"If you're real, then prove it," Jack repeated, holding his arms out to the sides. "Hit me."

"I can't," Daniel said. "You know I can't."

"Exactly," Jack said triumphantly. "Because you're not real!"

"I mean, I can't touch anyone who has this disease, or I'll get it, too," Daniel said.

"You have to have the disease to get thrown into this place," Jack pointed out.

"I faked it, so I could come in here and rescue you."

Jack huffed. This conversation wasn't getting them anywhere, and he really needed to lie down. "Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that you're real," he said, easing himself back down onto his bed. "What good does that do either of us? There's no way out of here."

"There is if you know where to look."

"Trust me, Daniel... I've looked everywhere. This place is like a fortress. There are force shields everywhere."

"Sam told me how to disable them."

For a moment Jack felt a surge of hope at this revelation, but then he remembered just how crafty these hallucinations could be. He laughed and shook his finger at Daniel. "You know, you almost had me going for a second there," he said. "I think I've had enough run-ins with those damn shields for one week, though, so... how about you come back when the wounds I've already got have had a chance to heal, hmm?" He shook his head and lay back down, turning on his side away from Daniel in the hopes that he would disappear.

"I will come back," Daniel said, his voice sounding as though it was moving towards the door. "Once everyone else is asleep, I'll be waiting for you in the main square. I can't run the risk of anyone else finding out about the escape, so... you're going to have to leave the room without waking your friend."

"Right. Whatever. Goodbye, Daniel."

"Believe in me, Jack. I have to get you out of here before I get sick and start hallucinating, too, so... please. Meet me in the main square."

Jack lay there in silence for a minute or two before he turned over and chanced a look outside his covers. Daniel had vanished, and the door had closed without him hearing a sound.

He felt a little disappointed that he'd been right, but it was just as well. He turned back onto his side and drifted off to sleep.

To be continued...