Prologue

The whiteness glared at them as the three, team members stepped into the padded room. It was easy to spot their friend against the fierce brightness radiation from the walls. Daniel was sitting cross-legged against the far wall, his head in his hands. He reacted to the sound of them entering before he looked up at them. When he did, the confusion contorting his features did not fade, but seemed to deepen as his near-sighted eyes tried to focus on the forms to far away for them to see.

"Jack?" he called out in a small, hesitant voice, void of the certainty and underlying tones of condescension the usually coloured his voice.

Jack's throat tightened at the fear he saw in those blue eyes. He didn't answer. It didn't matter, Carter answered for him. Good old Carter, always there to pick up where he left off.

"It's us, Daniel." She said, fear mottling her voice as well, "Can't you see us?"

"I was just making sure you weren't figments of my … mind." His desolation scared Sam, "They took away my glasses in case I broke the lenses and, uh, tried to, uh, hurt myself."

A sharp stab of pain flared through Jack as thoughts of just how many ways Daniel could hurt himself with the lenses of his glasses appeared in his mind's eye. He was sacred so he retreated to his only line of defense. Sarcastic humor.

"Are they treating you okay?"

"Yeah." He whispered.

'Good, he's tagging along.' Jack thought, 'That's my Daniel'

Then Daniel's face screwed up as tears welled up and Jack's insides turned to ice again.

"I'm sorry." Daniel said a little more lucidly after semi-successfully getting the tears under control.

"For what?" Jack asked, dreading the response.

"For being such a head case." Daniel replied, unshed tears evident in his voice.

Sam's stomach clenched as half crazed giggles escaped his throat, tears of her own now threatening to come forth.

"It's not your fault Daniel."

The giggling died down at her words, though he didn't look up.

"Colonel O'Neill believes it has something to do with the Linvris." Teal'c said, his normally stoic tones dampened by sadness and grief.

"You remember in that chamber you said you felt something brush by you?" Jack added, wanting desperately to lighten the situation, to turn away from the reality of his condition and just have Daniel back.

"Yes…. It was them." He replied, the certainty in his voice only half of what was normally there, fueling the words, "I know you don't believe me but I felt them."

Then something changed. Slowly. Daniel's demeanor shifted and he seemed to sit up straighter. Sam recognized the look in his eyes. He was figuring something out.

"They heard me."

He moved suddenly, scampering across the room on all fours and jamming himself in the corner, hiding behind a white, padded pillar.

"They're coming." He said and Sam frowned in annoyance. He couldn't even think straight what with all the drugs they'd pumped into his system. He wasn't even there anymore.

"They're coming."

"Only your friends are here Daniel Jackson."

A long acquaintance with the impassive jaffa was the only thing that allowed Sam and Jack to detect the desperation and pain in Teal'c voice.

"They're coming. I hear footsteps." He seemed to be listening intently. Sam had no doubt in her mind that what he was hearing was real. In his head.

"Footsteps."

"Daniel, there are no footsteps." Jack was getting angry. Angry with Daniel for losing it like this, angry with Mackenzie for making that damned diagnosis, Angry at Janet for going along so willingly with it. Angry at the linvris that Daniel so adamantly believe were alive. And angry at the entire cosmos for doing this to the one person who didn't deserve it, "Stay with us." For god's sake please.

Daniel screwed up his face and rubbing his eyes into the palms of his hands. As if desperately trying to keep a hold on the last scrap of sanity he had left.

"Footsteps!" came the muffled cry from beneath the falling rubble of their crumbling archeologist.

Sam, Teal'c and jack could do nothing but stare in sad silence at the shell of that man they knew huddling in a corner, cowering against imaginary sounds.

Daniel's hands moved to his ears desperately trying to block out the sounds that were getting closer and closer every second. But they continued on like a mantra echoing inside his very mind.

Suddenly he looked up, his watery blue eyes staring at the empty space between Sam and Teal'c.

Then he began to laugh.

It cut through Sam like a knife. Never in all her adventures through the gate he she ever encountered something that frightened her as much as the maniacal laugh that escaped her best friend.

Slowly Daniel's hand snaked out and pointed unsteadily to the spot he was staring at.

"I told you." He said with such certainty that Jack felt like he'd been punched in the stomach, "That's one of them. He's right there."

"There is no one at my side, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c said quietly and for the first time since before he became first prime of Apophis, he was at a loss of what to do. This was no enemy that could be analyzed and defeated with strength or numbers. There was no miracle cure, no drug that would rid Daniel Jackson's mind of the horrors that now plagued it. There was literally nothing any one of them could do and it made him feel something he had not felt in a very long time. Desperation.

"Yes, there is."

He sounded now so convinced that Jack thought it wise to leave him be. There was nothing could be done now. Their teammate was well and truly gone.

"Wanna get the aides?" he said quietly to Carter as Daniel began laughing again.

Sam nodded and turned quickly to knock on the door. Sparing one last glance at her lost friend.

Jack saw it happen a split second before Daniel lunged. Teal'c moved to stop Daniel from reaching Sam at the door, but Jack got there first, catching the man and holding him as he struggled on unsteady feet and finally gave in to the strong arms holding him.

Sam was momentarily stunned but managed to get out of the orderlies' way as they hurried into the room two large men grabbed Daniel roughly off Jack and he was tempted to tell them to go easy on him. Then Daniel started screaming at the top of his lungs and a female nurse came at him with a particularly large needle.

"I'm not crazy! They're real! I can see them, they're real! there real."

Mackenzie appeared beside Teal'c as Daniel ranted on.

"Okay, let's raise the dose. 5mls at four hour intervals."

As the drugs began to take over, SG-1 was ushered out of the room; Daniel's yells fading to nothing and as the door slammed shut, Sam heard something.

"Why don't you believe me?"

I'm sorry Daniel. Of God, I'm sorry.