Chapter 6
Dr. Tragan hurried to the room of his newest patient. Tim had begun screaming and thrashing about in his sleep, but no one could wake him up. It was actually almost a relief that he was having a nightmare at the normal time, but it was worrisome that they couldn't seem to get him out of it. He'd seen people deeply asleep, but it had been ten minutes now that they had been actively trying to pull Tim out of his nightmare. Unsuccessfully.
"No eyes! I have no eyes!" Tim screamed suddenly. They were the first words he'd used.
That meant he could be headed toward consciousness.
Tim covered his face and curled into a ball.
"I have no eyes! My eyes are gone!"
"Tim, you have eyes. Wake up."
Tim shook his head.
"He's being pulled apart! I'm killing him! In my eyes!"
"Tim, open your eyes. Look at me."
Tim resisted when Dr. Tragan gently pulled his hands down from his face.
"Tim," he said calmly.
Tim sat up and stared at Dr. Tragan with a terrified expression. For just a second, Dr. Tragan could have sworn that there was a black spot in Tim's eyes, but he blinked frantically and it was gone. He dismissed the idea. It wasn't even in the realms of possibility that Tim's eyes could have disappeared...temporarily.
"I don't have any eyes," Tim said, looking at Dr. Tragan...with his green eyes.
"Yes, you do, Tim. I'm looking at them right now. Wake up. Completely."
Tim got his eyes focused on Dr. Tragan, but he was clearly nearly out of his mind with fear. Unlike the other terrors which ended abruptly, this was lingering.
"Tim, are you hearing me?"
Shaking, Tim nodded.
"I killed him!" he said, almost in a whimper.
"Who?"
"Tony!"
"How?"
"I dreamed...I let it take over and he was washed away! He was...I felt it...and..."
"Tim, it was just a dream. A nightmare. That's all it was. I'm sure Tony is fine."
Tim was shaking his head.
"Not just a dream. They're never just dreams."
"It is just a dream, Tim," Dr. Tragan said. "Calm down. Take a deep breath and calm down."
"Tony is going to die and he was trying to help! He came in there to help me and..."
"In where?"
"In my mind!"
Dr. Tragan could see that Tim was still very much in the grips of the nightmare he'd had. If this was a normal occurrence for him, it was possible that the daytime nightmares were some kind of reaction to extreme stress or burnout.
"Tim, we'll call Tony and get him here. Okay?"
"You won't find him."
"I'm sure we will. You can stay awake until we get him here. Bryan will stay here and keep an eye on you. All right?"
Tim was still trembling but he nodded. He closed his eyes tightly and kept nodding.
"Open your eyes, Tim. Don't close them."
Tim opened his eyes.
"Stay in the waking world until you can let the dreams go."
Tim nodded again.
"Good. I'll go and call your friend."
Dr. Tragan dialed the number he'd been given. The phone rang and rang and rang.
"Hello, this is Tony. You know the drill."
"Hello, Agent DiNozzo. This is Dr. Tragan. Agent McGee has been worried after a nightmare he had. Please call back as soon as possible."
He hung up and couldn't help thinking about the fact that Tim had insisted that Tony was in danger. It was much more likely that Tony had simply been unable to answer or hadn't heard his phone.
...but Tim was so insistent.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Greta stood and waited.
Black swirled and Death returned.
"It is not his time," he said.
Greta looked at the body on the ground.
"No. I cannot call him back. The knower used the dreaming power well."
"You are saying..."
"Yes."
Death sighed. "Very well. It would be wrong to take him now. We do not need to upset the balance more by letting him die before his time. I will bring him back."
Death vanished. Greta sat down on a rock. It had succeeded as she had hoped. The knower had done as he needed. If he could risk the life of his friend, he would not hesitate to risk himself. And he had tapped the power that he had hidden within him.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Death penetrated the chaos of destruction without effort. Nothing could hide from Death and there was no place he could not go. He was not bound by space. He was not bound by time, either. It was as easy to go back in time as it was to go back in miles. He moved back through to the moment when the destruction of the nightmare had begun. He saw the mind of the human and approached it, hearing the human's cries for help.
"Here," Death said.
The sound of his voice penetrated the chaos and the blackness he carried with him surrounded the mind of the human.
"What's going on?" the human asked.
"It is time to return to your body."
"What? Who are–? You're Death!"
"Yes."
"But...I'm not ready to die yet!"
"It is not your time to die, but you cannot stay here. You must return to your body if you wish to live. Only Death could reach to where you are. It would not take much more for your destruction."
The human looked uncertain and Death found that amusing. His death was imminent and yet he hesitated because it was Death saving him.
"If you would wish to stay, human, you have but to say so. I do not usually take people early, but I would make an exception for you."
The human looked surprised and Death smiled.
"Yes, Death has a sense of humor."
The human laughed a little.
"I guess facing death or facing Death doesn't take much thought. I'll trust you."
"Good. Prepare yourself. The journey will not be what you are used to."
"What do you–?"
That was all the time Death gave. In the same motions as that of his twin, he swirled his black cloak, enfolded the human mind inside it and left the nightmare behind to its solitary annihilation.
Then, they were back to the hillside. He shook out the cloak and the mind melded with the flesh of the body. It took no special effort to do so. They naturally came together. The human took a deep breath and sat up, looking around.
"That was...intense."
The world trembled at his voice.
"Yes."
"Am I back in my body, now?" he asked.
"Yes," Greta said. "You are in your body. You succeeded in unleashing the dreamer."
"He doesn't like it."
"That does not matter, and he will do it when it is necessary."
"And you know that, how?"
"He almost destroyed you and he will care much less about his own comfort than he will about the lives of others."
"Does that mean that you'll stop attacking him with nightmares?"
"Yes," Greta said simply. "There is no point to it now that he has allowed the power of the dreamer out."
"Why can't he do it on his own? Aren't the dragons enough?"
"Reality is not always enough on its own. 'Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.' A human artist by the name of Goya said that. Dreams are not enough on their own because they are at the mercy of reality, but reality, untempered by dreams, is brittle and can fracture...as the world is. Both are needed, and they must be united in one."
"Is there a third part?"
"A third?"
"Yeah. It seems like everything in this mess comes in threes. The three-headed dragon. The three to destroy Mongothsberd. Is there a third part that McGee needs?"
"Knowing, dreaming...perhaps, you could say there is a third, but it is not something that can simply be absorbed into oneself, not something that can be given. It is more...and less."
"What is it?"
Greta smiled and began to swirl the air around her with a single white thread. The whole world began to swirl and the human began to fade away...as did the human world's memory of his vanishing. He would have been gone but the memories of those involved had been changed to accept it as expected, not worrying.
"What is it?" he asked again.
"It is believing. Sometimes, belief can triumph over what is real and what is dreamed. Remember that, human."
Then, he was gone.
"And now?" Death asked. "The dreamer is awake within him. The companion is back in his world. ...but the knower is confined."
"Only for now. Already, the way is set for an explanation that the world can accept. It did not even take any manipulation. The knower will be free."
"And will the world stand the strain?"
"For a time. The knower will be ready to face the Fracture when it comes. And when he repairs the Fracture, we will be free and the world will be safe. That is all that matters."
"All?" Death asked.
"Yes, all." Greta grinned. "That does not mean I cannot have fun on the way. If I must be in this form, I can enjoy it as I may."
Death smiled and swirled into oblivion. Left alone, Greta looked back at the cave. The dreamcatcher wavered in the mouth of it and then, at her gesture, it vanished. It was no longer needed.
For now.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tony sat up on his bed, not aware of anything for a moment. He felt stretched and raw. He wasn't sure where he was. Gradually, there was a sound that impinged on him. Gradually, he noticed that there was sound. In that other world, he didn't know what it was, but it hadn't been sound. He had made the only sound that existed there.
Sound.
Ringing.
A phone.
"My phone!" he said aloud. He fumbled for it and answered. "DiNozzo."
"Agent DiNozzo?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
He looked around and realized that he was at home. They had returned him to his...home. He was distracted enough by the realization that he almost missed what was being said.
"This is Dr. Tragan from the hospital. I'm so glad that you're finally answering the phone. I've been trying to contact you for an hour. Tim was so insistent that I was actually get a little worried myself."
"Worried? About what?"
"Could you come over here, please? Tim had a nightmare and he's convinced himself that he killed you. I'm not sure how, but given the situation, I'd like to ease his worries, and if you came, it would instantly show him that his worries were unfounded."
Tony grimaced. Sometimes, it was hard knowing all that there was going on behind the scenes, but that was the way it had to be.
"Sure. I'll be right over. I'm sorry I didn't answer before. I didn't hear my phone. I'm lucky that my boss didn't call. He'd kill me."
"One question before you hang up, Agent DiNozzo."
"Yes?"
"Has Tim been under a lot of stress lately?"
"Well...for the last year or two, yeah, I'd say so." Probably one of the biggest understatements he'd ever made.
"When was the last time he took a vacation?"
"I don't know. Probably not for a while. Why?"
"Because I'm thinking, more and more, that this breakdown of his is a result of stress, that he just burned out. Now, waking nightmares of the sort he's having isn't anything I've seen before, but his willingness to come here, the fact that, since he came, the nightmares have eased considerably...I think that he has been needing time away from work, and I think that, once we finish our observations, he'll be released but with the stipulation that he take time off. He needs it. I'll be telling this to Agent Gibbs, but I wanted to ask you as his friend."
"Okay. I'll buy that. Are you sure that's what it is?"
"Not yet. It's only been one day, but I think I'm right."
"Okay, I'll be right over."
"Thank you."
Tony hung up and drove to the hospital as quickly as he could, knowing why Tim was so freaked out. Tim had almost been right.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim was no longer visibly freaking out. He had stopped rocking back and forth, but the devastation he felt couldn't go away. Not when he'd killed his friend who had been trying to help him.
He just sat on the bed staring at nothing, his hands covering his mouth. The dreamer was powerful. Yes, he'd need that power more than likely, but was anything worth killing a friend? He'd rather put himself in that position than have anyone else suffer the kind of obliteration Tony's mind more than likely had.
He couldn't stop trembling.
He'd take the nightmares for the rest of his life over this.
"Tim? Can you hear me?"
Tim nodded but didn't look up.
"Tony's here."
Tim couldn't believe that.
"Hey, Probie, I knew you needed a vacation, but you could have just submitted a request like everyone else. I'm sure Gibbs would have let you."
Tim lifted his eyes, almost afraid of verifying what he'd just heard.
Tony was grinning at him like he always did. Dr. Tragan was standing behind.
"Tony...you're alive."
"Of course, I am! You can't dream me dead, no matter how much you might want to."
Tim just closed his eyes and tried not to break down. No matter what Dr. Tragan had said, he had been sure that he'd killed Tony, not realizing that Tony's presence had been tied to his nightmare.
There was a shifting as Tony sat down beside him on the bed.
"Hey, McGee, it's okay. Don't worry."
"I thought I'd killed you," Tim whispered.
"I know, but Death wouldn't take me. They'd just send me home. Besides, we have a movie to watch when you get out of this."
"Does this count?" Tim asked.
"Absolutely. It would be criminal to pass up the chance."
Tim opened his eyes again and managed a weak smile.
"So...now what?" he asked.
Tony winked at him.
"You stick around in here for a couple of days. They let you out and they tell you to take a vacation. ...and you could use one."
"Do I get a vacation from being me?"
"I don't think you need one, Probie. Maybe some days out on the beach."
Tim laughed a little.
"Sounds nice."
"Good. So you just relax and enjoy the best the hospital has to offer. You'll see. I'm right."
"I'm glad I didn't kill you," Tim said.
"I'm glad you didn't, too."
Tim took a deep breath. Tony obviously knew more than he did about what had happened.
"What do you think?" he asked. "Are the nightmares done?"
"I'll bet they are," Tony said. "I'm no expert, but I'll bet they are."
"Thanks, Tony."
"No problem."
Tony thumped him on the back and Tim wanted to hug him. He didn't, but seeing the reality rather than the dream...it was a relief. A distinct relief. And Tony would explain everything when Tim wasn't under observation, but he could depend on the nightmares being gone.
All in all, it was a definite improvement over how he'd been feeling only a few minutes before.
"I think you should get some sleep, Tim. Some real sleep."
One more thump on the back and Tony stood. He smiled at Tim and then left the room. Tim was still feeling shaky, but he felt better.
"There, Tim. I told you that Tony was fine."
"Yes, you did," Tim said.
"He gave you some good advice. I'd recommend that you take it and get some sleep. And he's also correct that I'm going to recommend that you take a vacation. We'll finish the observation to make sure that this isn't a lull, but your reactions are similar to people who have become burned out. So you need to give your body a rest. You can't take on the world if you can't deal with the dreams."
Tim smiled. Dr. Tragan was more right than he could possibly realize.
"Okay. I'll try to sleep again."
"If you find that you can't, I can give you a sedative for tonight, but if you can get there on your own, that would be better."
"Okay."
Tim lay down, tossed and turned for a few minutes...and then fell asleep.