Chapter 2

Tim felt himself battered about by the water. He tried to find the surface, but there didn't seem to be any end to the water. It was surging around him without end. He had to breathe...but he couldn't breathe.

Then, walking through the water toward him was the dreamer. As he walked forward, the water began turning to fire. Tim tried to back away, but he couldn't. It was like he was frozen in place...frozen with water and fire coming at him. His right hand was clenched tightly over his tattoo. He didn't want to summon them. It was his only advantage...and he wasn't sure what kind of advantage it actually was.

Then, the fire reached him and Tim's instincts took over. He threw his hand out and shouted.

"Three into one!"

The dragons burst out of his hand, swirled around the fire and the dreamer himself, rending the imagery into nothing.

Tim suddenly fell to the ground. The fire was gone. The dreamer was gone and the dragons faded away, the little wisps returning to his hand.

Breathing heavily, Tim got to his feet and looked around. There was an oppressive feeling in the air. Tim looked around, and he was on the precipice he'd seen in his own dream. Tim looked around, trying to find his adversary.

...but then, a tidal wave hit him from behind, knocking him off the precipice and down toward the ground.

Tim couldn't help it. He screamed out for help as he plummeted downward.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Before Tony could answer, he suddenly felt a burning sensation on his chest. He tried not to react to it. To his surprise, Gibbs looked around the elevator and then skewered Tony with a look.

"Have you lost your ability to understand English, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

This was more mind-boggling than seeing Tim separating into three different Tims...but the burning wasn't going away and Tony took a chance. He unbuttoned his shirt and showed the tattoo Tim had given him. It was glowing. Gibbs looked at it and then at Tony.

"Boss, whatever is going on, I need to...to find him. I need to see if Tim is okay. That only happens when something bad is going on."

"Do you think you can track him down?"

"I won't know unless I try," Tony said. "Please, Boss?"

Gibbs looked at him for a long moment...and then, he turned on the elevator.

"Thanks, Boss."

"I'm coming with you."

"Uh...what?"

"You going deaf, DiNozzo?"

"No."

"Good. Let's go."

"What about Ziva?"

"We'll tell her later."

"She won't be happy."

"Your chest is glowing and you're worried about Ziva not being happy?" Gibbs asked.

Tony shrugged. "I'm getting used to it."

"We'll call her on the way."

They headed out of the building and Tony got into the car, trying to forget about how surreal it was that Gibbs was calmly discussing Tim being some kind of supernatural human being and seeing an invisible glowing tattoo.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim hit the ground. Hard. If this was a dream, it sure hurt like reality. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky. It was turbulent, full of lightning. It had a red cast to it.

And then he saw it.

The lightning formed the shape of his tattoo.

"I dream. Do you?"

Tim got shakily to his feet and looked around.

"Why?"

"I dream!"

The wave of water hit him again. He couldn't anticipate. He was a knower. That meant he knew what was really there. How did one anticipate what happened in a dream? The water forced him back to the ground, threatening to drown him again.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They were driving west out of DC, and Tony couldn't stop himself from staring at Gibbs. It went on for a few minutes before Gibbs deigned to say something.

"I think they call me a Watcher. Not my choice. You get recruited to these things and, well, you can't really say no."

"Who are they?"

"The others," Gibbs said and smiled a little. "How long have you known about McGee?"

"What do you think I know?"

"That McGee has a few extra abilities."

"Just a few? I'd go a bit farther than a few. He's a knower, Boss. ...well, according to Rhian, he's the knower."

Gibbs' eyes widened slightly.

"McGee is?"

"Yeah," Tony said, a little surprised at Gibbs' surprise. "If you watch all this stuff, how come you didn't know about it? Did you just ignore all the stuff with Mongothsberd three years ago?"

"You know about Mongothsberd?"

Tony laughed. "Boss, I was there! Don't you remember when we got sent there, when you sent Tim and I over there? I got this tattoo thing when we were fighting off the Proprietor there."

"So you're all the way in it, then, huh?"

"Only as much as I can be. Tim tries to keep me out of it."

"Why?"

"Because it's dangerous. How come you don't remember?"

Gibbs made a sound of annoyance.

"I hate when they do that."

"Do what?"

"Change reality."

"They made you forget along with everyone else?"

"I guess they must have. I don't remember sending you to Mongothsberd. I'm supposed to watch and they don't let me do it."

"Why were you wondering where McGee was if you didn't know he was a knower?"

"I knew that he was involved in something. Didn't know what it was, and if he's not showing up, then, he's probably involved in something even worse than I'm thinking. Any sense of where he is yet?"

Tony shook his head. "I really don't. He called me and said he was going and that I couldn't come along."

"And you accepted that?"

"He's the knower, Boss. There are times when I just have to accept that I'm not really a part of that world."

"Like now?"

Tony shrugged and smiled a little. "I never could keep myself out of it for long. What about you? Why did you need to know where he was?"

"So I could watch. That's my job. I know you two went into the dream world for a while last year."

"But..."

"I don't see everything. I see what the world sees and let the others know...in case something goes wrong. I'm not allowed to get involved. I just watch."

"And you're okay with that?"

"I'm not given a choice. When you get into this, you follow the rules...no matter what the rules are. There are only two. You watch. You don't get involved."

"What happens if you don't obey the rules?"

"I've never broken them. That's why I let you and McGee pretend that there was nothing going on at that house beyond what it seemed."

"You sent Tim down to Ducky. Was that just a coincidence?"

"I didn't do anything."

"Does Ducky know, too?"

"Not really. He knows there's something going on, but he doesn't know what it is and he has the sense not to ask."

"So...wait...if you're not supposed to be involved and are just telling what you see...why are you coming with me to find him?" Tony asked. "Shouldn't you just be...watching?"

Gibbs just smiled.

"Felt anything?" he asked.

"No. West, but...but it's not anything that I can really...really feel. He's out there, and that's all."

"Maybe he's not."

"He is!"

"You've been on another plane. Do you think that you weren't really there?"

Tony thought about the scar on Tim's chest from when he'd had a hole burned through his heart...in a dream.

"There's no such thing as just a dream," he said softly. "...and that's what he was going to fight."

"What do you mean?"

"He said he had to go and confront a dreamer. I didn't know there was such a thing."

"A dreamer and a knower," Gibbs said. "How could they possibly fight and have a winner? It's more likely that they'll both lose."

"What do you mean, Boss?"

"I mean...think about it, Tony. Reality is in the conscious world. Dreaming is not. How can they really fight each other?"

"From what I'm feeling...they're managing it somehow."

Gibbs nodded and increased his speed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim hit the ground heavily as the water disappeared again, gasping for breath. Finally, he got to his feet and looked around.

The lake was gone. The water was gone. There was nothing left of what had happened. Nothing left of the churning chaos that had surrounded and nearly drowned him. He stepped forward, carefully. Somehow, the complete silence was more frightening than that water rushing at him. If the dreamer was trying to keep him off-balance...it was working.

"Why are you doing this?" he called out. "I know you're still here! Why?"

Then, there he was standing in front of Tim.

The dreamer.

"The world is mine," he said softly. "Mine to do what I want with it. I'll destroy it and rebuild it every second."

"No. Why would you do that?"

The dreamer just laughed and vanished from Tim's sight. Tim looked around and the sky darkened. Clouds appeared overhead and the wind came up.

Then, he heard a voice from behind him.

"I think we're done with you."

Tim started to turn around, but he caught a glint of a knife. It plunged down into his back. Tim screamed and tried to writhe away. He staggered forward and then collapsed.

"Can you die in your dreams?"

"NO!" Tim shouted.

"Let's see, shall we?"

The dreamer pressed on the knife, forcing it further into Tim's back. Tim screamed again. He reached out, not toward the dreamer this time, but out...away from the pain and toward what he hoped was reality.

"Not so easy, is it," the dreamer hissed in his ear. "You belong to me."

"No..." Tim gasped.

With one might burst of energy, he flung himself onto his back and thrust his tattooed palm against the chest of the dreamer. There was a flash of light and the dreamer screamed...shaking all of the world around them as he did. He backed away and vanished from view.

Tim turned back over and crawled away, not knowing where he was going, just knowing that he couldn't stay here. The pain from the knife radiated across his back and as soon as he reached the trees surrounding the clearing, Tim couldn't move any further.

He fell to the ground and let his eyes close.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony inhaled deeply as the burning from his tattoo suddenly intensified. For a moment, he saw black spots.

"What's wrong?" Gibbs asked.

"Something...happened to Tim. I don't know what...but it must have been bad for me to feel it like that."

"What is it that you're feeling?"

"Tim...taking...energy, I guess, from me."

"What?"

"We've used it a few times. Tim doesn't like to because...well, because it could be dangerous for me, but...but that just means that it's probably worse than he thought."

"Then, you've got to figure out where he is."

"I don't know how to, Boss!" Tony said. "I never have. Tim is the one who..."

Thwack!

"You're a lot smarter than this, Tony. You have experience with it. You can feel when something's wrong. Figure it out!"

Tony really didn't know what to do, but he closed his eyes anyway. It's not like Gibbs would accept his denial without evidence of his lack of ability. He could still feel that feeling of his life being sucked away, but then, suddenly, it was gone. Completely gone. Nothing. Not even the latent connection Tony generally felt when it came to Tim. It was like there was a void in the place of it. Tony's heart sank. How could he find Tim if all that remained was a void...a void. A place where there was nothing...as if Tim's location was being covered, blocked...or something.

Tony focused in on that void. For a moment, he wished they were in that demon world where they could create their own reality because there was nothing of reality existing in that place...but then, there were all the demons that went along with it.

His hand started to rise before he even knew where he was thinking they needed to go in a specific direction.

"That way."

Gibbs just nodded and drove.