His room smells of bleach and cheap shampoo. He’s not sure why that bothers him so much, but it does. Strange things bother him, like sounds only he can hear and toast that isn’t crisp enough and when he can’t understand people even though he’s sure they’re speaking a language he knows.

He knows a lot of languages. Doesn’t he?

He asks an orderly, very politely, if she can take him to the Stargate now. She looks at him like he’s crazy.

Maybe he is.

There is, or was, a Stargate. He’s sure of that. He sees it activating sometimes in the dead of night, sees each chevron locking, hears the distinctive whoosh as the wormhole is established.

He doesn’t call the orderlies in any more, because he knows they can’t see it the way he can. When he tries to make them realize that it’s right there, right in front of their faces, they just give him more drugs. He doesn’t like drugs.

They say he’s hallucinating. Sometimes he thinks he isn’t, that it’s all real and it all makes perfect sense and they’re the ones who can’t understand. Sometimes he knows he’s crazy and it hurts most then because he remembers that he wasn’t always crazy.

Sometimes he doesn’t really care, because he’s too tired to think and his eyes hurt from looking at white walls and he wants to fall asleep and never wake up.

He dreams in bright, confused colors. He dreams of giant serpents with eyes that glow. He dreams of drowning in vile-smelling mud and of falling into water that’s frozen and burns hotter than fire. He dreams of being buried alive and of clawing at the inside of the casket for monthsyearsforever.

In most of his dreams, he’s alone.

One night he isn’t. One night there’s a man with him, a man he trusts, a man who is or was his friend. The earth grows teeth and opens up and swallows the man, biting him in half first so bones snap and blood spurts and the man screams Help me, Daniel, help me!

He awakens shouting “Jack!”

“Who’s Jack?” An orderly asks another, not really caring.

The second orderly shrugs. “Just some guy who used to come visit years ago.”

A woman comes to see him. She has blue eyes and limp blond hair and a face that’s tired and old. He knows that this is wrong, because she isn’t old, she isn’t.

She asks him how he’s doing. She sounds like she wants to cry, or maybe she’s past the point of crying because she is so empty. He knows what it’s like, to be empty.

He tells her he’s fine. She nods and doesn’t say anything. She must be a ghost, he thinks. She looks translucent, not-quite-solid, like she could turn to mist and be sucked away through the air vents. He tells her to be careful of the vents.

“I will,” she says wearily, not understanding, and takes his hand for a moment. Her hand is cool and shaky. It looks fragile. She looks fragile, and gray and not completely alive, and it’s all wrong.

“Sam,” he says, because suddenly he knows her name. “Have I always been crazy?”

“No.” She doesn’t bother to deny that he is crazy. “No, Daniel, you were brilliant.”

“Is there any such thing as a Stargate?”

“Yes.” She tries to smile, tries too hard and it falls flat. “Yes, there is.”

“Where’s Jack?”

Pain flickers in her hollow, old eyes. “He’s gone, Daniel. He died ... a long time ago. So did Teal’c.” She sounds tired and he thinks that maybe she’s told him this before, many times before.

He can’t think of anything else to say, and after a while he realizes she is gone. Maybe she turned into vapor, like water when it boils, and drifted away. He isn’t sure.

Jack is dead and Teal’c is dead and soon Sam will be dead. He might not be sane but he saw that look in her eyes, that look of goodbye and I’m sorry and it’s not your fault. She’s too weary to fight any more. Maybe he is too.

That night he doesn’t dream of ice water that burns or of being buried alive. He doesn’t dream at all.

He goes to sleep and never wakes up.