Stargate SG1: What Dreams May Come (11/21)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: What Dreams May Come
Chapter Eleven
Jack stared back at Daniel in horror. He heard Sam gasp behind him.
"He's dying," she said softly. "That's what he's saying, isn't it? He's dying."
"What has happened, Daniel Jackson?"
Daniel shook his head. "I don't know. But something's wrong-something's happened on the planet ... I think ... no, I know. Belos found him, Aynad's dead ... Oh, God, there's no one to stop Belos now! There's no one to help him, to teach him, to protect him ... I never should have come here. I should have stayed there with him where I belonged. He's going to die, and it's all my fault!" Jack didn't understand what Daniel was talking about, but the look of terror in his eyes needed no explanation. "If we don't go back soon ..."
"How long have you got?" Jack asked.
"There's no way to know. It all depends on Belos ... maybe six hours? I definitely won't make it through the night like this. I'm already getting weaker."
Jack looked at Daniel closely, and he could see the truth in what Daniel was saying. Daniel was pale-his eyes were circled with darkness and his cheeks were flushed. He was leaning against the bed rail for support, and his shoulders were noticeably lower than they had been only an hour before.
"We're out of time," Jack declared. He turned to face Teal'c and Sam and resumed command of his team. "You two get yourselves to that briefing. You're all we've got now."
"But, Colonel, what if they won't listen to us either?"
"Make them listen to you, Captain," Jack ordered. "Make them believe you. Daniel's life depends on it." Jack glanced across his shoulder at Daniel once more and lowered his voice. "We are not losing him like this. Do you understand me?"
Sam nodded quickly.
"Go," Jack said. "Save him."
Sam and Teal'c nodded in unison and turned toward the door. Jack watched them leave and then turned to face Daniel once again.
Jack could see the pain on Daniel's face and the fear in his eyes. He closed his eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer that Sam and Teal'c would be able to convince Hammond to let them go back to the planet. There was no way that they were just going to stand by and let Daniel die-not after everything he'd gone through to keep him alive.
"Just hang on a little longer, Daniel," Jack whispered. "Please, just hang on."
Sam and Teal'c entered the briefing room just in time to hear MacKenzie finishing his presentation. General Hammond glanced up at them and motioned for them both to be seated.
"The results of the scan are exactly what I expected them to be," MacKenzie was saying. "There is only one set of brain waves. There is only one person in the colonel's brain, and that person is Colonel O'Neill himself."
"Your scans are incorrect," Teal'c announced.
Hammond, MacKenzie, and Janet looked up in surprise.
"Teal'c?" Janet said. "Why do you say that?"
"I have seen Daniel Jackson," Teal'c explained. "Only moments ago, in the isolation room, I was speaking to him."
Hammond and Janet looked at each other in disbelief and MacKenzie snorted. "Of course you were, Mr. Teal'c."
"Dr. MacKenzie, do not be so willing to dismiss what I say. Daniel Jackson used O'Neill's body in order to communicate with me."
"Wait," MacKenzie said. "The colonel became Dr. Jackson?"
"No," Teal'c answered. "Daniel Jackson assumed control of O'Neill's body in order to speak to me."
MacKenzie smiled. "Now I understand exactly what's going on here. General, based on Mr. Teal'c's claims, I believe that we should move forward on the assumption that Colonel O'Neill is suffering from DID."
"DID?" Sam asked incredulously. "You think the colonel has suddenly developed DID?"
"Obviously he's always been at risk for it, Captain," MacKenzie said. "That his first break has come so soon after having lost Dr. Jackson cannot be a coincidence."
"What is this DID?" Teal'c asked.
"It's a mental illness, Teal'c," Sam explained. "DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder."
"It's a multiple personality disorder," MacKenzie added. "It occurs when the person in question is presented with an event or experience that they cannot allow themselves to accept."
"I do not understand how this relates to Daniel Jackson inhabiting O'Neill's body."
"It wasn't really Dr. Jackson, Mr. Teal'c," MacKenzie said. "It was an intricate recreation of Dr. Jackson that has been fashioned and executed entirely in Colonel O'Neill's mind."
"I disagree," Teal'c said. "I was present for the entire conversation. I am certain that I was speaking to Daniel Jackson."
"The personalities seem very real. That is their purpose. The primary personality protects itself by creating detailed lives for the alternates. And though the alternates are almost always aware of the primary personality, the reverse is rarely true."
"Daniel Jackson was aware that he inhabited O'Neill's body. He remarked more than once that it was an odd sensation."
"But Colonel O'Neill didn't have the same reaction, did he?" MacKenzie asked. "Colonel O'Neill has no memory of what happened while the Daniel personality was in control, does he?"
Teal'c's lack of response was the answer that MacKenzie had expected.
Hammond cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Dr. Fraiser, what is your opinion?"
"Dr. Fraiser is an excellent physician," MacKenzie said. "However, General, she is not a psychiatrist."
"She is the Chief Medical Officer on this base," Hammond replied hotly. "She is also Colonel O'Neill's primary care physician, and I asked for her opinion."
MacKenzie smiled smugly and shrugged.
Janet ignored the psychiatrist and gave her answer directly to General Hammond.
"Well, sir, Dr. MacKenzie's theory is certainly possible. However, the colonel is significantly older than the average age for the onset of DID."
"Averages do not reflect the high end of the spectrum, Doctor. This is why they are called averages," MacKenzie said.
Janet cleared her throat and continued. "Additionally, there is a growing belief that DID is not an actual illness, but rather a condition that grows out of therapy ..."
"The colonel has not been receiving therapy, Doctor," MacKenzie pointed out. "That rules out the possibility that this is a therapy-induced condition."
Janet gave him an annoyed look before she continued. "There is also the issue of exactly who the alleged alternate personality is. We're not talking about an alternate version of the colonel himself. We're talking about the possibility that Colonel O'Neill has adopted Dr. Jackson's personality."
"The nature of individual personalities is always relative to the situation," MacKenzie explained. "As the colonel is compensating for Dr. Jackson's death, it makes logical sense that his alternate personality would be closely related to Dr. Jackson."
Janet rolled her eyes. "And while I agree that Dr. Jackson's death has upset the colonel greatly, I don't believe that this is nearly traumatic enough to result in ..."
"He is hypersensitive to Dr. Jackson's death," MacKenzie interrupted. "His mind was subjected to an alien device that rewrote his memory only nine days ago. He may not have been fully recovered, and yesterday he was exposed to yet another mind-altering technology, one that he claims allowed him to communicate telepathically. He believes that Dr. Jackson's death was the direct result of an order that he gave. If that weren't enough, he now finds himself faced with the decision to terminate Dr. Jackson's life support. I would call that situation significantly traumatic."
Hammond slowly turned his head to face MacKenzie. "Are you finished, Doctor?"
MacKenzie nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Good. I asked for Dr. Fraiser's opinion-not an open debate."
"General, I truly believe that ..."
"Enough, Doctor."
"Of course, sir." MacKenzie's smugness returned as he picked his pencil up from the table.
Janet gave the general a quick appreciative smile.
"The strongest evidence against Dr. MacKenzie's theory, sir, seems to be Teal'c."
Janet looked across the table. Teal'c tilted his head slightly and waited for the questions that he knew were coming.
"Teal'c, are you absolutely positive that you were talking to Daniel? It wasn't the colonel impersonating him?"
"It was not O'Neill," Teal'c said. "I was speaking with Daniel Jackson."
"Tell us what happened, Teal'c," Janet said. "What convinced you that this was Daniel?"
Sam smiled knowingly at Teal'c and nodded in support. Teal'c nodded back. "Shortly after you left the isolation room to examine the results of the electroencephalogram, O'Neill began shouting and raised his arms to defend himself from something I could not see."
"That is when you believe that Dr. Jackson entered his body?" Hammond asked.
"It is. The mannerisms and speech patterns ceased to be those of O'Neill. I demanded the identity of this new being. Initially, he did not answer me and he seemed distracted. When I became physically threatening to him, he spoke words that convinced me that he was, in fact, Daniel Jackson."
"What did he say?" Janet asked.
"He asked me if removing his arms and assaulting him with them would not cause him great harm."
Sam could not stop the small giggle that escaped her lips. Janet and Hammond smiled at each other in mild amusement. MacKenzie looked perplexed.
"He never said to you, ‘I'm Daniel Jackson'?"
"He did not."
"I'm confused. How did that question prove that you were talking to Daniel?" MacKenzie asked.
"I had asked that exact question during a conversation that had taken place less than thirty-six hours earlier."
"A conversation you had with Daniel?" MacKenzie asked.
"That is correct," Teal'c answered.
"I see."
Janet's and Hammond's smiles grew wider. Sam grinned broadly at Teal'c, nodded again, and turned toward MacKenzie in anticipation.
"It had to be Daniel," she said. "The colonel wouldn't have known to say that."
"Perhaps not," MacKenzie replied. He turned back to Teal'c. "Tell me, Mr. Teal'c, was anyone else present for this earlier conversation you had with Daniel?"
"Indeed," Teal'c answered. "O'Neill was with us."
The smug smile returned to MacKenzie's face. "I see. So this question was not something that would be exclusive to Daniel. The colonel knew about it as well?"
Janet's smile fell away from her face. Hammond looked crestfallen. Teal'c became suddenly uneasy with the situation and turned to Sam, who looked back at him with wide eyes. Her expression was one of sudden desperation.
Teal'c had only one chance left to convince MacKenzie of the truth. Captain Carter had told him that it might be best to keep his observations about O'Neill's eyes to himself, lest he give MacKenzie the impression that he too had begun seeing things that did not exist. With Dr. MacKenzie's obvious dismissal of his statements, Teal'c had no choice but to use this information.
Teal'c turned back to MacKenzie.
"The question alone would have been unconvincing. However, I was also presented with physical evidence of Daniel Jackson's presence."
Three heads swiveled toward Teal'c in unison-two in excitement and one in shock.
"What physical evidence?" Janet asked.
"The being that I spoke to possessed the eyes of Daniel Jackson."
Janet, Hammond and MacKenzie were stunned. Sam's expression was one of support. Teal'c's face showed only certainty. Silence reigned for several moments, until finally Janet recovered enough to speak.
"Do you mean to say that Colonel O'Neill's eyes actually turned blue?"
"It was the color that first garnered my attention. However, on closer inspection I discovered that O'Neill's eyes had not simply changed color. They had in fact been replaced."
"By Daniel's?" Janet asked.
Teal'c nodded.
Hammond turned to MacKenzie as his hope returned. The psychiatrist still seemed to be stunned by Teal'c's revelation, as if he had no explanation for it. Encouraged by MacKenzie's lack of response, Hammond pressed forward.
"Doctor, I'm no psychiatrist, but I'm going to assume that this is not a normal thing with DID?"
MacKenzie's eyes moved back and forth between Teal'c and the general slowly, as if he were searching for an answer. His gaze settled on Teal'c, and the smile slowly returned to MacKenzie's face.
"On the contrary, General. It is more common than you know."
Sam was stunned. "People's eyes changing color, being completely replaced by someone else's, is normal?"
MacKenzie shook his head. "No one's eyes changed color, Captain. O'Neill's performance was simply good enough to convince Mr. Teal'c that he was Dr. Jackson. And then Mr. Teal'c's mind replaced pieces of what he was actually seeing with things he believed that he should see."
Sam turned to Teal'c in desperation. Janet and Hammond watched as Teal'c's certainty turned to anger.
"My mind did no such thing," Teal'c insisted. "The eyes I saw were real."
"If you truly believe that, Mr. Teal'c, then perhaps you too are suffering a breakdown. You have a personal relationship of your own with Daniel. Maybe you are just as unwilling as Colonel O'Neill to admit that he's gone."
"I suffer from no mental illness," Teal'c declared. "Daniel Jackson yet lives. I have seen him."
"That sounds familiar. I believe that O'Neill began his descent into madness by making those exact claims." MacKenzie shook his head. "You saw nothing, Mr. Teal'c, except what Colonel O'Neill intended for you to see-what your mind wanted to see and believed that it should be seeing."
Sam shook her head vehemently. "I can't believe that you won't even consider the possibility. Teal'c saw him! And I'm probably going to regret admitting this, but I can feel him, and more than once in the past twenty-four hours, I've heard him! What more proof do you need?"
MacKenzie held up the printouts of O'Neill's EEG results. "This is the proof that I need, Captain," he said. "The EEG that Colonel O'Neill himself insisted on having. The one that he said would support his claims that Dr. Jackson's mind had been somehow blended with his own. There is only one set of brainwaves."
Janet stared down at the papers in front of her. She felt completely drained. She had known all along that there was no other way for the situation to end. Daniel was dead; there was no way he could ever return to them.
She looked up and across the table at Sam and Teal'c. What did the situation have to be doing to them? They had lost Daniel, they had lost their commanding officer, and they faced the very real possibility that they were losing Teal'c. Sam was already claiming that she could feel and hear Daniel; it was only a matter of time before she started seeing him as well. And yet ...
Janet looked at General Hammond and shook her head. None of this made any sense. Yes, the colonel's EEG had discounted the possibility that Daniel's mind had been joined with his. The scan had been completely normal; there was no sign of any kind of mental illness at all. Teal'c's and Sam's initial EEG's had been normal as well.
Janet shook her head again and looked back down at the table. The entire situation was intolerable, but she could find no logical reason to resist it any longer.
Hammond glanced from Dr. Fraiser to the two remaining members of his premiere team. He too shook his head slowly and lowered his eyes.
"You don't believe us," Sam said suddenly. "None of you do. You don't believe the colonel; you don't believe Teal'c; you don't believe me. You won't even admit there's a possibility that we might be right about this."
"No, Captain, we will not," MacKenzie answered. He looked once from Dr. Fraiser to Hammond before continuing. "What you are saying is not possible."
"You are incorrect," Teal'c insisted. "What we are saying is not only possible but it is, in fact, the truth."
MacKenzie shook his head. "The truth, Mr. Teal'c, is that Dr. Jackson is dead and losing him has driven Colonel O'Neill insane. There is only one decision that can be made."
Sam's head snapped up. "What decision?"
MacKenzie turned to Hammond and pushed a piece of paper toward him. "General, if you would, please? I believe that we should get this over with as soon as possible."
"Get what over with?" Sam asked.
"What is this paper?" Teal'c demanded.
Hammond pointedly ignored their questions as he read the document that MacKenzie had just presented to him. It was an order to remove Dr. Jackson from Colonel O'Neill's custody and place him in Dr. MacKenzie's. In his mind, Hammond knew that there was no other option. His heart, however, was an entirely different matter. He fought to keep his heart from overruling his head as he made his decision. He was a general in the United States Air Force. He was the base commander. He had to act on the evidence that had been presented to him, no matter how much his heart wanted him to ignore it.
He signed his name quickly and shoved the offending document away.
"Thank you, sir." MacKenzie gathered his papers and stood. "I'll go inform the colonel."
A stunned, horrified silence fell over the room as the psychiatrist made his exit. Once he was gone, Teal'c turned to face Hammond.
"What have you done?"
Sam looked away and closed her eyes. "General, sir, please don't tell us that you ..."
"I did what had to be done," Hammond replied.
"But, sir, you can't do that!" Sam declared.
Hammond slowly pushed back from the table and stood. "Are you questioning my orders, Captain Carter?"
Sam closed her eyes again and shook her head. "Of course not, sir," she whispered.
Teal'c watched as Sam fought against her urge to challenge the general's decision, and his anger mounted. He had no such limitations on his ability to speak his mind.
"I will question your orders, General Hammond," Teal'c said as he stood. "You have taken away the only protection that Daniel Jackson possessed. You have removed the only person who remained able to speak for him. You have not acted in Daniel Jackson's best interests-you have betrayed him."
"You don't want to do this, Teal'c," Hammond warned. His voice was tight.
"No, sir, he's right." Sam shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. "The colonel was the only person willing to admit what he was feeling." She glanced at Teal'c briefly. He nodded in response, and she continued. "Teal'c and I both knew that Daniel wasn't dead last night. We heard him screaming in the isolation room this morning. We were both too afraid to admit to it, and when the colonel asked us, we denied having felt anything."
"The decision has been made, Captain," Hammond said. "Unless you can prove to me that Dr. Jackson is still alive, it will stand."
"How do we do that, sir? How do we prove to you that something you can't see exists?"
"Find a way, Captain. There's nothing more that I can do. I need more than your belief that Dr. Jackson didn't die on that planet."
"You have already denied the only physical proof that we have to offer you-the eyes of Daniel Jackson."
"Someone else needs to see him, Teal'c. If he's here, then tell him to jump into Colonel O'Neill when someone besides the two of you is looking."
Teal'c shook his head. "This is not possible. The possession of O'Neill's body caused Daniel Jackson great pain. He nearly lacked the strength required to remove himself, and he was unresponsive to O'Neill for thirty minutes afterwards. He awoke only to tell us that he is growing weaker and that we must return him to the planet immediately in order to learn how to return to his body before he dies."
"Teal'c, there's nothing more I can do unless you give me something more to work with. I cannot authorize a trip through the gate to an obviously hostile planet with a dead body in tow. Dr. MacKenzie convinced me of his theory-you didn't. Now, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
Hammond turned and walked toward his office.
"Do you think we're all crazy?" Sam asked behind him. "Because that's the only explanation for all three of us thinking and feeling and believing the same thing. Unless we're all three right."
Hammond sighed and paused, but he did not turn around. "Captain, at the moment, I honestly don't know what I think." He continued on toward his door.
"You have condemned Daniel Jackson to death."
Hammond froze in place and closed his eyes, but again he did not turn around.
"I require solitude. I must meditate in order to calm myself before I engage in behavior that I would later regret." Teal'c nodded once at Janet and turned to Sam. "Captain Carter, I shall be in my quarters should you require my assistance."
Sam nodded. Teal'c turned and walked out the door.
"General ..."
Hammond spun around, suddenly angry. "Tell me what else to do, Captain! If you were in my place, you would do the same. I have no other options."
"You have to believe us, General-believe in us. Just this once, sir, faith has to be enough, because it's all we've got. Our faith in Daniel is strong enough. Where is your faith in us?"
Hammond exhaled slowly. "Sometimes, Captain," he said quietly. "Faith isn't enough."
"Maybe it doesn't have to be."
Janet's sudden participation in the conversation took Hammond and Sam by surprise. They spun to face her.
"Explain that, Doctor," Hammond said.
"The colonel's EEG was perfectly normal, sir."
Hammond nodded slowly. "Yes, I know that."
"Well, for one thing, that means that there is no evidence that the colonel is suffering from any mental illness at all, let alone DID specifically. It's just not possible."
"So he's not going insane?" Hammond asked.
"No, sir, not according to that EEG. On top of that, I've been sitting here thinking that I should have seen something in that scan that wasn't there, but I couldn't remember why. And then it hit me." Janet looked up. She glanced briefly at Sam and then locked eyes with the general. "The evidence isn't in the EEG scan, sir; it's in his MRI. I remember there being a few small anomalies in Colonel O'Neill's MRI last night - three of them, one larger than the other two - so small that I completely disregarded them. And unless I'm remembering this completely wrong, Teal'c and Captain Carter had anomalies too, sir. Three of them, just like the colonel, and in the same exact place."
"Are you absolutely certain, Doctor?"
"I'll have to go to my office and check them again, but yes, sir, I'm almost positive they're there."
"So you're saying that these anomalies are making them act like this?"
"Yes, sir. But I don't think they're doing it in the way you think they are."
"I don't understand."
"The anomalies are almost identical. That leads me to believe that they were all gotten at the same time, from the same source, and in the same way."
"The beam," Sam said. "While we were in the beam, we could all read each other's thoughts and see through each other's eyes. It was like all four of us were the same person, but we were still ourselves."
Janet nodded in encouragement. Sam turned to face Hammond and continued.
"Dr. MacKenzie was wrong, sir. Those anomalies are proof that Daniel is still alive. At least, one of them is. The colonel and Daniel were in the beam longer than Teal'c and I were. Their connection with each other lasted longer; their anomalies had longer to develop. The larger one ... that has to be Daniel."
Hammond's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "So Dr. Jackson is in Colonel O'Neill's mind, in the form of that anomaly?"
"No, sir, I don't think he is. I think Daniel's here on his own, disconnected from his body somehow, but still existing as a separate person. Those anomalies, sir, are why the colonel can see him. They're also why Teal'c and I can feel that he's here and why we can occasionally hear him."
"You're all connected in the same way, just in different amounts?"
"Yes, sir," Janet and Sam said in unison.
Sam continued. "I have a theory, sir, that the energy clouds on 759 are actually human consciousnesses that have been removed from their bodies, exactly the way the colonel and Daniel are saying he was. And I've noticed that since we've returned, the physical reactions that we had to those energy clouds haven't stopped; it's as though one of them followed us through, sir. I think that Daniel has become one of those clouds, somehow, and that it's got something to do with that beam. And now he's here."
"Captain ..."
"There's more, sir. I went to the isolation room earlier because I knew I needed to be there. I didn't find out until I got there, but Daniel was in trouble. Teal'c knew that Daniel was unresponsive after he left the colonel's body, even though he couldn't see him any more. The colonel knew that he couldn't disconnect the life support machines last night, before any of us had seen or heard Daniel. And we're all absolutely certain of one thing."
"What?" Hammond asked.
Sam smiled, the first real smile that had crossed her lips all day.
"Daniel's not dead."
Hammond took only seconds to make his decision. As soon as it was made, he felt the weight in his chest disappear, and he knew he was doing the right thing.
"Captain, Doctor, if you'll come with me. I believe we have an appointment with Dr. MacKenzie."
Chapter Eleven
Jack stared back at Daniel in horror. He heard Sam gasp behind him.
"He's dying," she said softly. "That's what he's saying, isn't it? He's dying."
"What has happened, Daniel Jackson?"
Daniel shook his head. "I don't know. But something's wrong-something's happened on the planet ... I think ... no, I know. Belos found him, Aynad's dead ... Oh, God, there's no one to stop Belos now! There's no one to help him, to teach him, to protect him ... I never should have come here. I should have stayed there with him where I belonged. He's going to die, and it's all my fault!" Jack didn't understand what Daniel was talking about, but the look of terror in his eyes needed no explanation. "If we don't go back soon ..."
"How long have you got?" Jack asked.
"There's no way to know. It all depends on Belos ... maybe six hours? I definitely won't make it through the night like this. I'm already getting weaker."
Jack looked at Daniel closely, and he could see the truth in what Daniel was saying. Daniel was pale-his eyes were circled with darkness and his cheeks were flushed. He was leaning against the bed rail for support, and his shoulders were noticeably lower than they had been only an hour before.
"We're out of time," Jack declared. He turned to face Teal'c and Sam and resumed command of his team. "You two get yourselves to that briefing. You're all we've got now."
"But, Colonel, what if they won't listen to us either?"
"Make them listen to you, Captain," Jack ordered. "Make them believe you. Daniel's life depends on it." Jack glanced across his shoulder at Daniel once more and lowered his voice. "We are not losing him like this. Do you understand me?"
Sam nodded quickly.
"Go," Jack said. "Save him."
Sam and Teal'c nodded in unison and turned toward the door. Jack watched them leave and then turned to face Daniel once again.
Jack could see the pain on Daniel's face and the fear in his eyes. He closed his eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer that Sam and Teal'c would be able to convince Hammond to let them go back to the planet. There was no way that they were just going to stand by and let Daniel die-not after everything he'd gone through to keep him alive.
"Just hang on a little longer, Daniel," Jack whispered. "Please, just hang on."
Sam and Teal'c entered the briefing room just in time to hear MacKenzie finishing his presentation. General Hammond glanced up at them and motioned for them both to be seated.
"The results of the scan are exactly what I expected them to be," MacKenzie was saying. "There is only one set of brain waves. There is only one person in the colonel's brain, and that person is Colonel O'Neill himself."
"Your scans are incorrect," Teal'c announced.
Hammond, MacKenzie, and Janet looked up in surprise.
"Teal'c?" Janet said. "Why do you say that?"
"I have seen Daniel Jackson," Teal'c explained. "Only moments ago, in the isolation room, I was speaking to him."
Hammond and Janet looked at each other in disbelief and MacKenzie snorted. "Of course you were, Mr. Teal'c."
"Dr. MacKenzie, do not be so willing to dismiss what I say. Daniel Jackson used O'Neill's body in order to communicate with me."
"Wait," MacKenzie said. "The colonel became Dr. Jackson?"
"No," Teal'c answered. "Daniel Jackson assumed control of O'Neill's body in order to speak to me."
MacKenzie smiled. "Now I understand exactly what's going on here. General, based on Mr. Teal'c's claims, I believe that we should move forward on the assumption that Colonel O'Neill is suffering from DID."
"DID?" Sam asked incredulously. "You think the colonel has suddenly developed DID?"
"Obviously he's always been at risk for it, Captain," MacKenzie said. "That his first break has come so soon after having lost Dr. Jackson cannot be a coincidence."
"What is this DID?" Teal'c asked.
"It's a mental illness, Teal'c," Sam explained. "DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder."
"It's a multiple personality disorder," MacKenzie added. "It occurs when the person in question is presented with an event or experience that they cannot allow themselves to accept."
"I do not understand how this relates to Daniel Jackson inhabiting O'Neill's body."
"It wasn't really Dr. Jackson, Mr. Teal'c," MacKenzie said. "It was an intricate recreation of Dr. Jackson that has been fashioned and executed entirely in Colonel O'Neill's mind."
"I disagree," Teal'c said. "I was present for the entire conversation. I am certain that I was speaking to Daniel Jackson."
"The personalities seem very real. That is their purpose. The primary personality protects itself by creating detailed lives for the alternates. And though the alternates are almost always aware of the primary personality, the reverse is rarely true."
"Daniel Jackson was aware that he inhabited O'Neill's body. He remarked more than once that it was an odd sensation."
"But Colonel O'Neill didn't have the same reaction, did he?" MacKenzie asked. "Colonel O'Neill has no memory of what happened while the Daniel personality was in control, does he?"
Teal'c's lack of response was the answer that MacKenzie had expected.
Hammond cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Dr. Fraiser, what is your opinion?"
"Dr. Fraiser is an excellent physician," MacKenzie said. "However, General, she is not a psychiatrist."
"She is the Chief Medical Officer on this base," Hammond replied hotly. "She is also Colonel O'Neill's primary care physician, and I asked for her opinion."
MacKenzie smiled smugly and shrugged.
Janet ignored the psychiatrist and gave her answer directly to General Hammond.
"Well, sir, Dr. MacKenzie's theory is certainly possible. However, the colonel is significantly older than the average age for the onset of DID."
"Averages do not reflect the high end of the spectrum, Doctor. This is why they are called averages," MacKenzie said.
Janet cleared her throat and continued. "Additionally, there is a growing belief that DID is not an actual illness, but rather a condition that grows out of therapy ..."
"The colonel has not been receiving therapy, Doctor," MacKenzie pointed out. "That rules out the possibility that this is a therapy-induced condition."
Janet gave him an annoyed look before she continued. "There is also the issue of exactly who the alleged alternate personality is. We're not talking about an alternate version of the colonel himself. We're talking about the possibility that Colonel O'Neill has adopted Dr. Jackson's personality."
"The nature of individual personalities is always relative to the situation," MacKenzie explained. "As the colonel is compensating for Dr. Jackson's death, it makes logical sense that his alternate personality would be closely related to Dr. Jackson."
Janet rolled her eyes. "And while I agree that Dr. Jackson's death has upset the colonel greatly, I don't believe that this is nearly traumatic enough to result in ..."
"He is hypersensitive to Dr. Jackson's death," MacKenzie interrupted. "His mind was subjected to an alien device that rewrote his memory only nine days ago. He may not have been fully recovered, and yesterday he was exposed to yet another mind-altering technology, one that he claims allowed him to communicate telepathically. He believes that Dr. Jackson's death was the direct result of an order that he gave. If that weren't enough, he now finds himself faced with the decision to terminate Dr. Jackson's life support. I would call that situation significantly traumatic."
Hammond slowly turned his head to face MacKenzie. "Are you finished, Doctor?"
MacKenzie nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Good. I asked for Dr. Fraiser's opinion-not an open debate."
"General, I truly believe that ..."
"Enough, Doctor."
"Of course, sir." MacKenzie's smugness returned as he picked his pencil up from the table.
Janet gave the general a quick appreciative smile.
"The strongest evidence against Dr. MacKenzie's theory, sir, seems to be Teal'c."
Janet looked across the table. Teal'c tilted his head slightly and waited for the questions that he knew were coming.
"Teal'c, are you absolutely positive that you were talking to Daniel? It wasn't the colonel impersonating him?"
"It was not O'Neill," Teal'c said. "I was speaking with Daniel Jackson."
"Tell us what happened, Teal'c," Janet said. "What convinced you that this was Daniel?"
Sam smiled knowingly at Teal'c and nodded in support. Teal'c nodded back. "Shortly after you left the isolation room to examine the results of the electroencephalogram, O'Neill began shouting and raised his arms to defend himself from something I could not see."
"That is when you believe that Dr. Jackson entered his body?" Hammond asked.
"It is. The mannerisms and speech patterns ceased to be those of O'Neill. I demanded the identity of this new being. Initially, he did not answer me and he seemed distracted. When I became physically threatening to him, he spoke words that convinced me that he was, in fact, Daniel Jackson."
"What did he say?" Janet asked.
"He asked me if removing his arms and assaulting him with them would not cause him great harm."
Sam could not stop the small giggle that escaped her lips. Janet and Hammond smiled at each other in mild amusement. MacKenzie looked perplexed.
"He never said to you, ‘I'm Daniel Jackson'?"
"He did not."
"I'm confused. How did that question prove that you were talking to Daniel?" MacKenzie asked.
"I had asked that exact question during a conversation that had taken place less than thirty-six hours earlier."
"A conversation you had with Daniel?" MacKenzie asked.
"That is correct," Teal'c answered.
"I see."
Janet's and Hammond's smiles grew wider. Sam grinned broadly at Teal'c, nodded again, and turned toward MacKenzie in anticipation.
"It had to be Daniel," she said. "The colonel wouldn't have known to say that."
"Perhaps not," MacKenzie replied. He turned back to Teal'c. "Tell me, Mr. Teal'c, was anyone else present for this earlier conversation you had with Daniel?"
"Indeed," Teal'c answered. "O'Neill was with us."
The smug smile returned to MacKenzie's face. "I see. So this question was not something that would be exclusive to Daniel. The colonel knew about it as well?"
Janet's smile fell away from her face. Hammond looked crestfallen. Teal'c became suddenly uneasy with the situation and turned to Sam, who looked back at him with wide eyes. Her expression was one of sudden desperation.
Teal'c had only one chance left to convince MacKenzie of the truth. Captain Carter had told him that it might be best to keep his observations about O'Neill's eyes to himself, lest he give MacKenzie the impression that he too had begun seeing things that did not exist. With Dr. MacKenzie's obvious dismissal of his statements, Teal'c had no choice but to use this information.
Teal'c turned back to MacKenzie.
"The question alone would have been unconvincing. However, I was also presented with physical evidence of Daniel Jackson's presence."
Three heads swiveled toward Teal'c in unison-two in excitement and one in shock.
"What physical evidence?" Janet asked.
"The being that I spoke to possessed the eyes of Daniel Jackson."
Janet, Hammond and MacKenzie were stunned. Sam's expression was one of support. Teal'c's face showed only certainty. Silence reigned for several moments, until finally Janet recovered enough to speak.
"Do you mean to say that Colonel O'Neill's eyes actually turned blue?"
"It was the color that first garnered my attention. However, on closer inspection I discovered that O'Neill's eyes had not simply changed color. They had in fact been replaced."
"By Daniel's?" Janet asked.
Teal'c nodded.
Hammond turned to MacKenzie as his hope returned. The psychiatrist still seemed to be stunned by Teal'c's revelation, as if he had no explanation for it. Encouraged by MacKenzie's lack of response, Hammond pressed forward.
"Doctor, I'm no psychiatrist, but I'm going to assume that this is not a normal thing with DID?"
MacKenzie's eyes moved back and forth between Teal'c and the general slowly, as if he were searching for an answer. His gaze settled on Teal'c, and the smile slowly returned to MacKenzie's face.
"On the contrary, General. It is more common than you know."
Sam was stunned. "People's eyes changing color, being completely replaced by someone else's, is normal?"
MacKenzie shook his head. "No one's eyes changed color, Captain. O'Neill's performance was simply good enough to convince Mr. Teal'c that he was Dr. Jackson. And then Mr. Teal'c's mind replaced pieces of what he was actually seeing with things he believed that he should see."
Sam turned to Teal'c in desperation. Janet and Hammond watched as Teal'c's certainty turned to anger.
"My mind did no such thing," Teal'c insisted. "The eyes I saw were real."
"If you truly believe that, Mr. Teal'c, then perhaps you too are suffering a breakdown. You have a personal relationship of your own with Daniel. Maybe you are just as unwilling as Colonel O'Neill to admit that he's gone."
"I suffer from no mental illness," Teal'c declared. "Daniel Jackson yet lives. I have seen him."
"That sounds familiar. I believe that O'Neill began his descent into madness by making those exact claims." MacKenzie shook his head. "You saw nothing, Mr. Teal'c, except what Colonel O'Neill intended for you to see-what your mind wanted to see and believed that it should be seeing."
Sam shook her head vehemently. "I can't believe that you won't even consider the possibility. Teal'c saw him! And I'm probably going to regret admitting this, but I can feel him, and more than once in the past twenty-four hours, I've heard him! What more proof do you need?"
MacKenzie held up the printouts of O'Neill's EEG results. "This is the proof that I need, Captain," he said. "The EEG that Colonel O'Neill himself insisted on having. The one that he said would support his claims that Dr. Jackson's mind had been somehow blended with his own. There is only one set of brainwaves."
Janet stared down at the papers in front of her. She felt completely drained. She had known all along that there was no other way for the situation to end. Daniel was dead; there was no way he could ever return to them.
She looked up and across the table at Sam and Teal'c. What did the situation have to be doing to them? They had lost Daniel, they had lost their commanding officer, and they faced the very real possibility that they were losing Teal'c. Sam was already claiming that she could feel and hear Daniel; it was only a matter of time before she started seeing him as well. And yet ...
Janet looked at General Hammond and shook her head. None of this made any sense. Yes, the colonel's EEG had discounted the possibility that Daniel's mind had been joined with his. The scan had been completely normal; there was no sign of any kind of mental illness at all. Teal'c's and Sam's initial EEG's had been normal as well.
Janet shook her head again and looked back down at the table. The entire situation was intolerable, but she could find no logical reason to resist it any longer.
Hammond glanced from Dr. Fraiser to the two remaining members of his premiere team. He too shook his head slowly and lowered his eyes.
"You don't believe us," Sam said suddenly. "None of you do. You don't believe the colonel; you don't believe Teal'c; you don't believe me. You won't even admit there's a possibility that we might be right about this."
"No, Captain, we will not," MacKenzie answered. He looked once from Dr. Fraiser to Hammond before continuing. "What you are saying is not possible."
"You are incorrect," Teal'c insisted. "What we are saying is not only possible but it is, in fact, the truth."
MacKenzie shook his head. "The truth, Mr. Teal'c, is that Dr. Jackson is dead and losing him has driven Colonel O'Neill insane. There is only one decision that can be made."
Sam's head snapped up. "What decision?"
MacKenzie turned to Hammond and pushed a piece of paper toward him. "General, if you would, please? I believe that we should get this over with as soon as possible."
"Get what over with?" Sam asked.
"What is this paper?" Teal'c demanded.
Hammond pointedly ignored their questions as he read the document that MacKenzie had just presented to him. It was an order to remove Dr. Jackson from Colonel O'Neill's custody and place him in Dr. MacKenzie's. In his mind, Hammond knew that there was no other option. His heart, however, was an entirely different matter. He fought to keep his heart from overruling his head as he made his decision. He was a general in the United States Air Force. He was the base commander. He had to act on the evidence that had been presented to him, no matter how much his heart wanted him to ignore it.
He signed his name quickly and shoved the offending document away.
"Thank you, sir." MacKenzie gathered his papers and stood. "I'll go inform the colonel."
A stunned, horrified silence fell over the room as the psychiatrist made his exit. Once he was gone, Teal'c turned to face Hammond.
"What have you done?"
Sam looked away and closed her eyes. "General, sir, please don't tell us that you ..."
"I did what had to be done," Hammond replied.
"But, sir, you can't do that!" Sam declared.
Hammond slowly pushed back from the table and stood. "Are you questioning my orders, Captain Carter?"
Sam closed her eyes again and shook her head. "Of course not, sir," she whispered.
Teal'c watched as Sam fought against her urge to challenge the general's decision, and his anger mounted. He had no such limitations on his ability to speak his mind.
"I will question your orders, General Hammond," Teal'c said as he stood. "You have taken away the only protection that Daniel Jackson possessed. You have removed the only person who remained able to speak for him. You have not acted in Daniel Jackson's best interests-you have betrayed him."
"You don't want to do this, Teal'c," Hammond warned. His voice was tight.
"No, sir, he's right." Sam shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. "The colonel was the only person willing to admit what he was feeling." She glanced at Teal'c briefly. He nodded in response, and she continued. "Teal'c and I both knew that Daniel wasn't dead last night. We heard him screaming in the isolation room this morning. We were both too afraid to admit to it, and when the colonel asked us, we denied having felt anything."
"The decision has been made, Captain," Hammond said. "Unless you can prove to me that Dr. Jackson is still alive, it will stand."
"How do we do that, sir? How do we prove to you that something you can't see exists?"
"Find a way, Captain. There's nothing more that I can do. I need more than your belief that Dr. Jackson didn't die on that planet."
"You have already denied the only physical proof that we have to offer you-the eyes of Daniel Jackson."
"Someone else needs to see him, Teal'c. If he's here, then tell him to jump into Colonel O'Neill when someone besides the two of you is looking."
Teal'c shook his head. "This is not possible. The possession of O'Neill's body caused Daniel Jackson great pain. He nearly lacked the strength required to remove himself, and he was unresponsive to O'Neill for thirty minutes afterwards. He awoke only to tell us that he is growing weaker and that we must return him to the planet immediately in order to learn how to return to his body before he dies."
"Teal'c, there's nothing more I can do unless you give me something more to work with. I cannot authorize a trip through the gate to an obviously hostile planet with a dead body in tow. Dr. MacKenzie convinced me of his theory-you didn't. Now, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
Hammond turned and walked toward his office.
"Do you think we're all crazy?" Sam asked behind him. "Because that's the only explanation for all three of us thinking and feeling and believing the same thing. Unless we're all three right."
Hammond sighed and paused, but he did not turn around. "Captain, at the moment, I honestly don't know what I think." He continued on toward his door.
"You have condemned Daniel Jackson to death."
Hammond froze in place and closed his eyes, but again he did not turn around.
"I require solitude. I must meditate in order to calm myself before I engage in behavior that I would later regret." Teal'c nodded once at Janet and turned to Sam. "Captain Carter, I shall be in my quarters should you require my assistance."
Sam nodded. Teal'c turned and walked out the door.
"General ..."
Hammond spun around, suddenly angry. "Tell me what else to do, Captain! If you were in my place, you would do the same. I have no other options."
"You have to believe us, General-believe in us. Just this once, sir, faith has to be enough, because it's all we've got. Our faith in Daniel is strong enough. Where is your faith in us?"
Hammond exhaled slowly. "Sometimes, Captain," he said quietly. "Faith isn't enough."
"Maybe it doesn't have to be."
Janet's sudden participation in the conversation took Hammond and Sam by surprise. They spun to face her.
"Explain that, Doctor," Hammond said.
"The colonel's EEG was perfectly normal, sir."
Hammond nodded slowly. "Yes, I know that."
"Well, for one thing, that means that there is no evidence that the colonel is suffering from any mental illness at all, let alone DID specifically. It's just not possible."
"So he's not going insane?" Hammond asked.
"No, sir, not according to that EEG. On top of that, I've been sitting here thinking that I should have seen something in that scan that wasn't there, but I couldn't remember why. And then it hit me." Janet looked up. She glanced briefly at Sam and then locked eyes with the general. "The evidence isn't in the EEG scan, sir; it's in his MRI. I remember there being a few small anomalies in Colonel O'Neill's MRI last night - three of them, one larger than the other two - so small that I completely disregarded them. And unless I'm remembering this completely wrong, Teal'c and Captain Carter had anomalies too, sir. Three of them, just like the colonel, and in the same exact place."
"Are you absolutely certain, Doctor?"
"I'll have to go to my office and check them again, but yes, sir, I'm almost positive they're there."
"So you're saying that these anomalies are making them act like this?"
"Yes, sir. But I don't think they're doing it in the way you think they are."
"I don't understand."
"The anomalies are almost identical. That leads me to believe that they were all gotten at the same time, from the same source, and in the same way."
"The beam," Sam said. "While we were in the beam, we could all read each other's thoughts and see through each other's eyes. It was like all four of us were the same person, but we were still ourselves."
Janet nodded in encouragement. Sam turned to face Hammond and continued.
"Dr. MacKenzie was wrong, sir. Those anomalies are proof that Daniel is still alive. At least, one of them is. The colonel and Daniel were in the beam longer than Teal'c and I were. Their connection with each other lasted longer; their anomalies had longer to develop. The larger one ... that has to be Daniel."
Hammond's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "So Dr. Jackson is in Colonel O'Neill's mind, in the form of that anomaly?"
"No, sir, I don't think he is. I think Daniel's here on his own, disconnected from his body somehow, but still existing as a separate person. Those anomalies, sir, are why the colonel can see him. They're also why Teal'c and I can feel that he's here and why we can occasionally hear him."
"You're all connected in the same way, just in different amounts?"
"Yes, sir," Janet and Sam said in unison.
Sam continued. "I have a theory, sir, that the energy clouds on 759 are actually human consciousnesses that have been removed from their bodies, exactly the way the colonel and Daniel are saying he was. And I've noticed that since we've returned, the physical reactions that we had to those energy clouds haven't stopped; it's as though one of them followed us through, sir. I think that Daniel has become one of those clouds, somehow, and that it's got something to do with that beam. And now he's here."
"Captain ..."
"There's more, sir. I went to the isolation room earlier because I knew I needed to be there. I didn't find out until I got there, but Daniel was in trouble. Teal'c knew that Daniel was unresponsive after he left the colonel's body, even though he couldn't see him any more. The colonel knew that he couldn't disconnect the life support machines last night, before any of us had seen or heard Daniel. And we're all absolutely certain of one thing."
"What?" Hammond asked.
Sam smiled, the first real smile that had crossed her lips all day.
"Daniel's not dead."
Hammond took only seconds to make his decision. As soon as it was made, he felt the weight in his chest disappear, and he knew he was doing the right thing.
"Captain, Doctor, if you'll come with me. I believe we have an appointment with Dr. MacKenzie."