Chapter 4
Greta smiled at the knower's companion. He was trying much more to understand, but he didn't have the tools to do so. Perhaps it was time to bring him to her plane once more, to let him know more than the knower would allow. The knower was still human and that meant being restrained by concern for others. Greta had none of that because she was not human. In fact, she shouldn't even exist. That had a way of changing one's point of view.
Setting the basket of nightmares aside for the moment (the knower would have time to get to the place he had chosen), she ran one white hand across her skirt, pulling a strand away. Then, she began to swirl that strand faster and faster, concentrating on the knower's companion.
She had never brought reality into this place. She didn't really know what would happen, but if it shook the earth closer to the Fracture, all the better. She was as patient as eternity, but that didn't mean she wouldn't choose to move things along when possible.
She whispered the words to the song she had sung before and smiled as she saw the panic in his eyes. This was not what he had expected.
All to the better. Sometimes, not knowing was a benefit to humans.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Timothy, you seem very calm right now."
Tim smiled. "I don't know how long that will last."
"Perhaps this is a mistake."
Tim shook his head. "No, it's only a reprieve."
"How do you know?"
Tim looked at Ducky and Gibbs.
"Sometimes...you just know." Those words had a deeper meaning that Ducky would understand. Even Gibbs, knowing as he did what Tim was, couldn't really understand all that knowing entailed. Tony couldn't understand it, either. Not completely.
"Very well. Here we are."
Tim nodded. He did wonder why there was a delay in the return of the nightmares that were not his own. He wondered why they were happening in the first place.
He wondered why he didn't care about getting put into psychiatric observation.
"This is Tim McGee?"
Tim refocused on what was going on. They'd walked into the hospital.
"That's correct," Ducky said.
Gibbs was strangely silent. Or rather, it wasn't really strange, Tim knew. Gibbs tended to speak very little at the best of times. It was just that he would have expected Gibbs to say something about this.
Then, there was a wisp that attracted his attention. He looked away from Ducky and the doctor and at the wisp. Where had that come from? What was that?
"Timothy?"
"McGee."
Tim didn't hear them...or at least, he didn't pay attention. That wisp was getting closer to him.
And then, before he had time to realize it, it exploded out into something he couldn't even understand. It was...
...water.
A whirlpool, sucking him down into oblivion.
As happened in dreams, he couldn't avoid seeing it as real. He couldn't get away from it. The water sucked him down and he couldn't breathe. He collapsed.
...and then, it was gone. Tim took a deep breath and let it out. He opened his eyes and saw Gibbs there, keeping him from falling to the floor.
"You're all right now?" Gibbs asked.
"I was drowning," Tim said softly.
"Drowning?"
Tim got his feet under him and stood up again. He smiled weakly at the doctor.
"Now, you know why I'm here," he said.
"Yes, I can see. We'll take you in for a seventy-two hour observation and we'll go from there. Is that all right?"
Tim nodded.
"All right. I'm Dr. Tragan and I'll be taking your case. Andy will take you back and get you checked in."
"All right."
Tim looked at Ducky and Gibbs.
"I guess I'll see you in a few days."
"Timothy, is there something you're not telling us?" Ducky asked.
Tim just smiled and turned to follow Andy back into the psychiatric wing of the hospital.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Mitchell?" Ducky said, hesitantly.
"You can't be asking me for an analysis right away, Don."
"Not a full analysis, but a preliminary?"
"Well, the reactions seem to be genuine. I would say that he's not putting on an act. It takes talent to act like you're drowning. His complete sanity in between, though. That's odd. To have the events be so completely discrete...that's not normal. He seems very accepting of coming here."
"Yes, he didn't fight it at all."
"All right...well, we'll see what we can see. I can't promise anything more than that. We'll do a full blood and tox screen to rule out anything external causing it. It may end up being idiopathic."
"If it stops, I can live with that. I don't like seeing Timothy this way."
"I understand that much. I'll let you know."
Dr. Tragan followed Tim and Andy back. Ducky looked at Gibbs.
"You've said almost nothing, Jethro."
"I'm just watching to see what happens."
"Timothy is keeping something from us."
"Probably. He may know more than he's telling us...or think he knows more."
Ducky nodded.
"We'll just have to trust him, Duck. I don't think there's anything else we can do besides watch and wait."
"You're probably correct. It just came on so very suddenly. It seems strange to me. Almost as if someone had managed to force him to have nightmares while he's awake."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
When the swirling stopped, Tony realized that he was no longer in Autopsy. He looked around. It was a world of spires stretching toward a bright sky, windswept valleys and a narrow path. He was a little weirded out, but at the same time, he'd had too much experience with the supernatural world to wonder if this was real.
Whether it was real or not, it was happening.
Then, he heard the lilting voice sing again...the same words as before.
"Hear my silent prayer
Heed my quiet call
When the dark and blue surround you
Step into my sigh
Look inside the light
You will know that I have found you"
"I can hear you!" he said.
The world trembled at the sound of his voice.
"Greta?"
Another shaking.
"I am here."
He turned around and jumped back. Yes, it was Greta. Her eyes were white. She was white from her hair down to her feet. She always managed to freak him out.
She smiled at his fear.
"Welcome."
"Where am I?"
"You are here."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you are here and that trying to place a location on something that does not really exist is useless."
"Okay. Then, why am I here?"
"You are here because you need to be here. Come."
Greta turned and walked away from Tony, forcing him to follow her. Like he had experienced in the demon world, one step didn't really cover a defined distance. Every step changed where they were rather significantly and he ignored the changing scenery.
"You're doing this to Tim, aren't you!"
"Yes. Come."
Greta didn't even pause at Tony's question. He was reminded again why he didn't like her. For someone supposedly on the side of saving the world, she sure had a funny way of showing it.
"I am not a human being for all that I have been forced into that shape."
"Forced?" Tony asked, forgetting to be annoyed that she had read his mind.
"Yes. Forced. The knower explained it to you. I should not exist in this form. I should be something that occurs, not an anthropomorphization."
"A what?"
"A human-shaped thing. I have been made into a tangible thing and it is not what I should be. The knower understands this, but he fears to step into a world of dreams."
"That's not true! Tim has been trying to understand all this!"
Greta stopped, whipped her white cloak around. It filled the world and when it fell...
...they were on a hillside beside a cave.
"He is not. He is a knower. He does not need to try. If he allows it, he will know."
"But dreaming is different."
"Only because he makes it so."
"Why tell me and not him?"
"You are his companion."
"So?"
"You may succeed in convincing him to accept his fate."
"Fate? What do you mean?"
"There is an end to all things."
"You're saying he has to die?"
"All things must die eventually. Even a knower."
"So...to save the world, Tim has to die?"
"The knower has to die. The dreamer has to die. He has both."
"Does he know that?"
"He is the knower."
"Does he know that?"
Greta smiled.
"Yes, the knower knows that."
"He told me that he didn't know."
Greta just smiled.
"Have you noticed how every word you speak here shakes the world? Have you seen that it trembles with the interaction between reality and dreams?"
"Yes."
"This is a place that should not exist. It is filled with things that should not exist. It is created in a way that should not be possible. What happens to dreams when you wake up? They disappear because they do not exist. This exists, but you are awake."
"What does this have to do with forcing Tim to see all these nightmares?" Tony asked.
Greta pulled a wisp of something out of a basket Tony hadn't noticed before. She blew on it and it vanished. Then, she reached out and took hold of Tony's arm. He shivered at the unwelcome contact. She ignored that and forced him to stand beside her.
"Watch."
Tony stared in the direction Greta indicated and suddenly, he was watching Tim. It was like a movie almost. He could see the water overwhelm Tim and drag him down, but at the same time, he could also see the hospital around him. He started forward to stop it, but Greta's grip on his arm was quite strong for being something that wasn't real.
"Watch."
Tony watched and didn't understand what he saw. Something in Tim's face seemed to change. Almost like there was something else there. Just for a moment.
"What was that?"
"His natural response to a dreamed threat, but he is afraid of it and suppressed it. These dreams are simple and he could fight them off easily because they are not real. Not yet. But he is resisting using that power because he fears what it means for him. He has done this every time. Whether it is a conscious decision or not, the result is the same. He is not doing what is necessary and if he cannot do it this time, he will not be able to do it when it matters."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Watch and understand. You must learn what he already knows."
Tony hated watching. He hated being here with Greta's hand holding him back from trying to help Tim right away. He'd never been about sitting and thinking...and waiting. He made a decision and did things.
"Where did these things come from?"
Greta smiled again and pointed behind him. Tony turned.
"A dreamcatcher."
"Precisely."
"But they're just...souvenirs."
"Not here. Not now. They are what they are called."
She opened the basket, looked at Tony, almost daring him to protest, and then let another wisp go.
"Tim saw the dreamcatcher."
"Good. Then, perhaps he will admit what he can do."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim stopped screaming when the nightmare ended. He hadn't enjoyed that one. Not at all.
"Tim, what do you see?"
Tim sighed.
"It's different every time. It's always a nightmare. Someone's nightmare."
"What is your nightmare?"
Tim smiled and looked at the ceiling. A nightmare, but it was also what was true...not that he had to clarify that.
"I only have one nightmare."
"What is that?"
Tim hesitated...too used to keeping it a secret to be easy about telling a stranger.
"You can trust me, Tim. I'm here to help you, to listen."
Tim took a breath and let it out.
"I have to save the world from being destroyed. I'm the only one who can do it, and I don't know if I'm strong enough because there are so many things that I don't know if I can handle. ...and I'm afraid that I'll have to die if I succeed."
"Why would you have to die?"
"Because I'm not normal and the things that make me not normal could kill me in the end. That's what frightens me."
"Does anyone else know about this nightmare?"
"Tony does, but it's my fear and you can't really understand someone else's fear."
"That's true. So why did you tell Tony and no one else?"
"I wouldn't have," Tim admitted. "But I didn't really have a choice. He was there at the beginning."
"The beginning of what?"
"Of the nightmare. It gets worse over time, but it's always the same. I can't avoid it no matter how much I want to."
"Is it just a nightmare, Tim? Or is it more?"
"It feels like more," Tim said. "It's always felt like more."
"So...do you prefer to see these other nightmares to your own?"
"No, because I can't control them."
Yeah, you can, McGee! You just need to do it!
Tim jumped. He had heard Tony, but he had thought that he'd blocked Tony out.
"What is it, Tim? Another nightmare?"
"No...just thought I heard something."
"I see."
Tim turned back and looked at Dr. Tragan.
"Do you really? Or are you just saying that?"
Dr. Tragan smiled. "I don't understand everything, but I can understand your being a little jumpy. Let me tell you, though, Tim, that you're stumping me so far."
"Why?"
"Because you're totally lucid in between your terrors."
"Maybe I'm not. Maybe I just haven't shown my insanity yet."
"You don't believe that, though, do you. I think I'm pretty good at reading people and you don't think you're crazy. You may not know what's going on right now, but I almost think that you have an idea."
Tim shrugged.
"The only thing that I can think of to explain this is that Sleep is trying to drive me crazy by sending me other people's nightmares."
"And if that's right?"
"Maybe I have to fight Sleep."
"I don't think that will help. Sleep will generally win in the long term."
"You're probably right," Tim said.
"All right, you'll be under observation for the next few days, I'll be meeting with you and someone will be making sure that you don't hurt yourself or others during your terrors."
"Right."
"For now, you have some free time."
"Okay."
Tim got up and walked to the window of his room. Dr. Tragan left him alone, although Tim understood that he'd never really be alone in here. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
He saw the dreamcatcher.