Daniel was home. He woke slowly, lying comfortably in his own bed with the sheets drawn over him. He lay without moving, feeling sleep drift gently away as wakefulness slowly invaded his body and brought his senses softly to life. He had been dreaming, and his dream merged into reality until it was impossible for him to tell where the dream ended and waking began. Daniel sighed quietly, feeling himself relax into the mattress. It was good to be home.
He could feel a gentle wind blowing through the room, making his body feel cool and light. In his mind’s eye, he could see the white, gauzy curtain fluttering away from the window in the breeze. He could hear the gentle swelling roar of the wind as he let the cool breeze wash over and through him. Daniel could hear the birds singing outside and the leaves rustling in the trees.
There was no worry, no trouble, only a great peace. Outside, there were only the sounds of a country morning, as there always were here at home. Yet it was strangely dark, Daniel noticed. Wondering a little, Daniel decided to open his eyes... and realised with a shock that they were already open.
~*~
The morning was too dark. Daniel stumbled to the window, heedless of the crash as something fell to the floor at his side. Groping with blind, helpless hands, Daniel’s fingers touched the window frame, curling tightly around it as if for dear life.
He could feel the warmth of the sunshine on his face, he could smell the scent of the dew-soaked grass outside. Somewhere, a bell was tolling, ringing sweetly across the wide fields and through the clear air. The gentle wind blew upon him, cooling the warmth of his brow and fanning his hair from his forehead, whispering gently to him all the while. Yet Daniel only stood there with the new day bright around him, and slowly brought his hands to his face. With a soft noise of desperation, he ran his fingers over and around his eyes. His eyes were open, they were moving. Yet, open or closed, there was only darkness before him. Daniel buried his face in his hands and let the tears come. Bending low beside the window in his misery, Daniel felt wild sobs shake his body.
It was true: he was blind. And if this was to be his fate, Daniel would rather be dead. It would be better if he were. Without his eyes, what was he? What use could he ever be now?
Blind. How could he be blind? He didn’t remember it happening, he didn’t understand. Daniel closed his eyes and tried to remember what could have happened to him, pressing his hands against his useless eyes in frustration as he clenched his teeth together. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t even remember who he was.
Daniel sank to the floor beside the window, wincing and clutching his arm as he felt his shoulder hit the corner of a table. There was a sharp tinkle of broken glass, and he felt small hard objects, like sand, fall upon him. But unlike sand, they were sharp, and he raised his hand to feel a little trail of blood on his forehead. Daniel sighed and let his arms drop limply to his sides as he lifted his sightless eyes to the window, searching wistfully for the light he could no longer see. His blank, blue eyes seemed to beg helplessly, moving desperately yet seeing nothing. He reached out an arm tentatively towards the light, towards the bright world outside, and his fingers drew back suddenly as he felt a glass jar totter and fall beneath his touch. Bending his head and huddling into himself, Daniel felt the rain of broken fragments upon his body.
Daniel buried his head in his arms, and his body shook with dry, silent sobs. He could hear the lowing of the cattle in the field, the tinkle of their bells and the gentle rustling of the trees. He could hear the warble of birdsong, every note falling through the clear air like a liquid jewel, so precious and so bright. The wind rose, sighing like the sadness of a soul as it departs this life, leaving behind it everything it has ever loved. The breath of the wind blew through the window and ruffled his hair like the caress of a beloved hand, but Daniel didn’t look up. The great bell rang again, singing across the distance, and its sweet tolling rang in his head, pounding like a gentle pulse through his temples.
Every sound was so beautiful, so wonderfully, so poignantly clear. It was almost as if he could see the sounds of the land outside. A bird called out as it passed the window, and Daniel could hear the soft rush of its wings as it went, and its voice faded into the distance, trilling and piercingly beautiful. Without knowing what he did, Daniel’s poor blind eyes followed the bird as it flew across the blue of the sky and disappeared into the trees. The bell tolled again, sweetly mellow, deep as the dome of the blue sky above. And the sound of the bell brought tears to Daniel’s blue eyes, and for a moment, the sun shone into them so that they were as radiant as the heavens themselves.
Then his hand touched the floor beside him, and he felt the sting of the broken glass that lay there. Daniel wrapped his arms around his knees and laid his face upon them, feeling the blood trickle slowly from the wounds on his hand, on his face. He crouched there, making himself as small as possible, and the tears began to pour from his eyes. At first he tried to control them, but it was no use. So he sat there in the middle of a circle of glass fragments with the sunlight warm upon his head, and his shoulders heaved wrackingly as he sobbed for the sight that was forever lost to him.
~*~
"Daniel?"
The voice was gentle and thrilling, a young woman’s voice calling low but piercingly, filling his head and banishing all other sounds from his ears. He started and raised his head, hardly knowing whether the voice was real or only in his imagination.
"Daniel, are you all right?"
Daniel started to his feet suddenly, stumbling as he hit the window frame, and fell heavily against the wall.
Daniel. That had been his name. Somewhere, far away, in a long ago time, that had been his name.
"Daniel, speak to me!"
There was a sharp note of anxiety in her voice now, the tone of it rising and tightening with fear. He could hear her light footsteps crossing the room towards him, faltering when they came to the broken glass. Daniel stood away from the wall and came towards her, one slow, cautious step at a time. But the shards of glass pierced the delicate skin of his feet, and he winced as he moved backwards, feeling the slivers digging deeply into his skin. He could hear the girl gasp, and suddenly she was at his side, easing him to the ground and murmuring soothingly to him as she lifted his wounded feet in her cool hands. Daniel felt her hair swing forward softly against his cheek as she bent over him and pulled the splinters of glass smoothly out of his skin. After his first sharply drawn breath at the pain, it hardly even hurt. Her fingers were gentle and skilled, moving with quiet confidence over his tender feet.
She sat back with a sigh, and a smell of violets wafted from her to wash over him with a scent like the breath of a spring day. Daniel breathed it in and remembered fields of flowers, waving in the wind and the sunlight. A little boy with shining hair was running through the field, passing his hands softly over the flowers as he ran. Suddenly a tall girl in a long dress came out of the forest and walked after the boy. Her long hair was golden red, shining like a beacon beneath the bright sun, and her skirt rustled gently as she moved, like the sound of the leaves dancing outside the window. She walked with long, easy strides, and caught the boy in her arms, laughing, and as the boy turned his face upward to bask in the sunlight, his eyes shone bluer than the heavens themselves. And suddenly Daniel knew that he had once been that boy, perhaps in another life than this... long, long ago.
"Daniel."
She was speaking again, her voice calling him back from the bright memory of that meadow to an unfathomable darkness. And he could have wept for fear of the blackness, for love of the sunlight that he could no longer see. She laid a hand on his shoulder and Daniel started at her touch, hearing the creaking of the floorboards beneath him as he moved, feeling the wind drying the tears on his face.
"Daniel?"
He ran a tongue over his lips and swallowed, raising a hand to his face as if he expected to feel something that was not there. Slowly he lowered it again, wondering vaguely what could be missing.
"Wh-who are you? What am I doing here? What happened to me?" His voice sounded rusty and strange in his own ears, and his throat felt rough and dry.
There was a sound from the girl beside him, and Daniel knew suddenly that it was a sob, a sob of heart-broken anguish. She had begun rocking in her grief, back and forth, back and forth, struggling to control the sobs, to keep her voice calm and steady. Daniel’s eyes flew to where he believed her face was, straining his eyes as if he expected to see her in the darkness that now covered him. He couldn’t bear to hear a woman cry like that. It reminded him of... it reminded him of something.
He reached out with an awkward hand and touched her gently, feeling the smooth, firm curve of her cheek beneath his fingers, wet with her tears.
"What’s wrong? I hope I didn’t hurt you," he said softly, his voice full of concern.
She put forward a cool hand and stroked his hair, her fingers moving gently over his face and around his sightless eyes. Daniel could only wait in wonder, hearing her smothered sobs and her gasping breath.
"Daniel," she said softly, tenderly, her voice faltering and full of tears. "You’re home with me, Daniel, you’re safe. Don’t you remember me?" There was a pause, filled with a gentle breath from the girl and the rushing of the blood pounding in his temples. There was fear in Daniel’s heart, fear and a terrible dread, but he didn’t know why. He could only wait, breathless, to hear what she would say.
The girl drew a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out in what was almost a trembling laugh, a sad laughter intended to reassure herself and not Daniel. He could imagine her eyes looking into his, swimming with tears, her mouth trembling uncertainly as she tried to smile. "Don’t you remember me, Daniel? I’m your sister, Rebecca. You’re safe now."
~*~
Daniel gasped suddenly, and a wave of fear washed all through his body, leaving him shivering uncontrollably. And yet he didn’t know why.
His sister. Did he have a sister? Daniel tried to think back, but there was only a whirling, rushing darkness in his mind, thicker and blacker than the darkness all around him. His head grew giddy when he tried to think, and he pressed his hands to his forehead, trying to make the world stop spinning around him.
Rebecca’s voice was gentle in his ear, her breath sweet on his face. "Daniel, it’s me. You know me, you’ve always known me. Don’t you remember?"
He was trembling with a dread that was beyond fear, beyond anything he could understand. His heart was beating wildly, fluttering like a bird trying to escape a sudden, clawed death and all-seeing green eyes. Why was he afraid?
"No." He dropped his hands suddenly to his knees, and his blind eyes moved uncertainly. A rising tide of fear surged through him, and his voice was unnaturally high and strained, twisted with that nameless terror. "No, I don’t! I can’t remember anything." And Daniel buried his face in his hands.
"Daniel." Rebecca’s voice was gentle, controlled, but there were tears lurking behind it somewhere. Very softly, she brushed against his hand with the tips of her fingers. "You will remember," she told him, but there was an edge to her voice as if she was trying to convince herself of this. "This is not unexpected, after... after all you’ve been through. You will remember, but you need time and rest. Come." Daniel could almost hear her forced smile, the tears kept with great difficulty from her eyes and her voice. She took his bleeding feet in her hands and bound them, spreading something over the wounds so that the sting went out of them. Her dress rustled as she bent low, as she slipped shoes over his feet.
With a gentle hand on his shoulder, light as a bird’s wing, Rebecca spoke in his ear. "You must rest. I will help you."
Daniel was too tired now, too confused with the half-obscured thoughts running through his mind to resist, to ask her to explain what had happened to him. With a weariness in his heart that was akin to despair, he let her help him to his feet, let her lead him back to his bed. The wind still blew through the room, cool and sweet, smelling of green fields and spring flowers. The sheets were still airy and soft, and the birds still sang outside the window, but Daniel heeded none of it. He was as one in a dream, a dream from which there is no awakening, and none of it seemed to matter beneath the intolerable burden of his fate.
Rebecca eased him gently down on the bed and drew the sheets over him. She bent low over him and kissed his forehead, and the touch of her lips made him think again of violets, of springs that had come and gone, long ago. His eyes searched her face without seeing it, and she laughed softly, reassuringly, as her cool fingers touched his face for an instant.
"You will remember, Daniel, now go to sleep again." And she sang to him, a song of mist and rain, of blossoms shining with dew in the sun. It was a queer high song, a song like the sound of the wind in the trees on a clear night, with the stars shining above. It was a strange song, but it was very beautiful, and Daniel felt himself relaxing, felt the world slipping away as Rebecca sang to him. As his blue eyes closed and he lay there, he could almost forget that he was blind, that his life was over. And his last thought, on the very edge of sleep, was that this was all a dream. When he woke, he would be back in his real life, whatever that was, and all this would be a distant memory.
~*~
Daniel shot upright in bed, his eyes wide in the darkness. With a sigh, he relaxed again onto the soft mattress, covering his eyes with his hands. It had all been a dream, a terrible dream, but it was over now. He was home, in his own bed, and everything was all right. He wasn’t blind, he never had been.
Daniel felt a great peace steal through him, leaving him drowsy and happy. It had all been another bad dream, like the ones he had so often. Just another bad dream, and tomorrow he would... he would...
Daniel frowned, jerked suddenly awake as an old, haunting fear rose in him like nausea. He would do what? Doom and foreboding were overshadowing him, filling his heart like a black tide. He could feel it coming, and there was no escape. He didn’t understand, he still couldn’t understand. Daniel pressed his hands to his forehead and tried to think, and suddenly he knew what was wrong.
There was nothing in his memory, nothing. It was just like before.
And at that moment, there was a light footstep in the room, and a gentle, tremulous voice spoke out of the darkness.
"It’s morning, Daniel. Would you like some breakfast?"
~*~
The day passed in a kind of waking dream for Daniel after the shock of learning that he was still blind, that it was not yet ended, had passed over him. Rebecca gave him food which he ate without knowing or caring what it was. She came in and talked to him, tried to engage him in conversation, but Daniel hardly heard her. She urged him to walk with her, but he turned his face away. And the long hours passed, while he lay unmoving on the bed and stared at the ceiling without seeing it. Outside the room, life went on. The sun shone, birds sang, and the trees grew beneath the sunlight and the rain. But Daniel knew none of this.
He was lost in a horror of darkness he could not understand, and his mind was groping blindly in a night beyond anything he had ever known. Daniel could not understand, could not believe, and yet it was so. And the shock left him gasping in deep waters, struggling against the weight that was pulling him down. His mind was reeling, and Daniel was fighting merely to survive beneath this blow, fighting so that he did not sink forever.
It seemed to him that he slept, adrift in a timeless sea and at peace. And the darkness that surrounded him was pierced with a light like the first ray of dawn. Suddenly, he was washed in a land made all of light, a light of silver and of gold, dancing and mingling as if it were made of water. Daniel reached out and touched the light, and an all-consuming joy pervaded him as it passed through his hand and away. His heart was glowing radiantly within him, shining with the joy of the light. The shafts of light around him were separate and yet one, rays that joined and merged, and yet never lost their identity. And as the light moved, it sang, a song of brightness and changing, and yet it was a song of eternity, and of a love that never ends. And Daniel’s heart sang with it as it moved on its endless journey, for he knew that this was truth.
All at once he felt her presence behind him, a presence he had not felt in so long. And when he turned, he saw here there, and even within the darkness of his mind, he knew her.
"Sha’re," he said, as he held out his hand to her. And his voice was not sound but light, and it was as if their minds and their spirits were joined, so that they did not need to speak in words.
She smiled, and he basked in the glory of her dark eyes, in the joy of her curved lips. "Dan’yel," she said, and her voice was like light and music together, and yet he did not hear it with his ears. "My husband, I am here."
With a sudden flying rush, she came to him, and he felt her in his arms, felt her heart beating like a wild bird against his, felt her tears against his shoulder, her soft hair on his face. And Daniel knew that he was happy.
He cradled her in his arms, feeling a joy pierce his heart so that he could not hold back the tears. And their tears fell and were mingled, and where they fell, the light grew stronger and more beautiful. "Sha’re," he whispered, "you don’t know how much I’ve missed you."
She drew back and he looked into the loving beauty of her face, the shining joy he beheld in her eyes. And he held her face gently in his hands, and bending softly, he kissed her. She raised a hand and ran it gently down his face, caressing his hair with loving fingers.
"Fear not, my husband," she told him, "for we are always together. They cannot separate us, for our love will last forever."
And as she spoke, the light grew until Daniel had to close his eyes against the glare, in a symphony of beauty that was overwhelming. When he opened them again, there was only darkness, a darkness that was absolute and impenetrable, and Rebecca was beside him, begging him to eat.
~*~
"Sha’re," he said, his eyes searching blindly, desperately. "Where is she?"
There was a note of confusion in Rebecca’s voice, and she spoke with the tolerance of one who soothes the fear of a child in the night. "There is no one else here."
"But she was here! I saw her, I spoke to her. I know she was here!"
Rebecca laid a hand on his brow, a hand like the cool breeze that blew always through the window. "It was a dream, Daniel, only a dream."
Daniel shook his head and closed his eyes tightly, trying to hold on to the memory, to the sound of Sha’re’s voice and the light of her beautiful eyes. "No, no, it wasn’t a dream. Sha’re is real."
"Who is she, Daniel? She is no one I have ever known or heard you speak of." Rebecca was speaking to him as if he were a child who cannot tell what is real and what only exists in his young mind.
"She... she..." The memory was slipping away, down into the darkness that filled his sight and his mind. He tried to hold onto it, but it slipped from his grasp and fell, and all he knew was that Sha’re was beautiful, and that he loved her. He couldn’t even remember what her face looked like or how her eyes shone. But he loved her, he knew that.
With a deep sigh, he turned his sightless eyes to Rebecca, his lips tightening in pain when he saw only darkness. How could one ever get used to being blind? How could anyone grow accustomed to seeing nothing, after living with sunlight, with beauty, with the light of people’s faces like windows into their souls?
"I... I can’t remember anymore. It’s all gone."
Her voice was very quiet, very soothing, like the drone of insects in the field on a summer day when the sun is blazing down, but with an undertone of comfort and beauty, like the moon over the sea. "That’s because it was all a dream, Daniel. Dreams cannot stand in the real world."
Daniel turned away and nodded. Maybe, maybe it was so. Maybe Sha’re was only a dream, only a spectre conjured up by his imagination. Maybe. His mind was reeling in darkest night, and he couldn’t tell, he couldn’t know. But it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all. Whether she was a dream or whether she was real, he loved her, he loved her, and that was all that mattered in the world.
~*~
It was evening now, Rebecca told him, and he could hear the crickets singing outside. She said that the moonlight was over everything, shining bright and full out of a clear sky filled with stars. She told him how it fell over the fields and turned everything to silver, how it shone over the long grass as it bent and waved in the wind. And a terrible grief pierced through Daniel’s heart at the thought that he could not see it, that he would never see it again, as long as he lived. But with the grief came a single ray of sweetness, for the moonlight made him think of Sha’re.
It had been two days, two days since he woke one morning and found that he was blind, two days since he opened his eyes to neverending darkness. It had been two days, two long days. Sometimes he dreamed and sometimes he woke, and sometimes Rebecca was beside him, speaking to him, feeding him with her gentle hands. Time passed but slowly and strangely, for without the light he did not know if it was day or not, and in his first despair it didn’t matter.
Sha’re was his only light now, the only comfort in this dark world of pain and hopelessness without end. Sometimes when he slept, he would dream of her, and the dreams had grown to be his greatest joy, so that he was always seeking for them, always yearning to fall into a dream and see her face there. Sometimes he did, and he carried a joy back with him to the darkness that would have been unbearable without the memory of seeing her there.
Sometimes he thought he could hear her voice when he lay awake but unmoving, staring straight before him with blind beautiful eyes. Sometimes he thought he heard her call to him, and sometimes he would answer her, softly, or without words, for they did not need words any longer. Sometimes he thought they spoke together and then he was happy, or maybe he only imagined it, caught up in a terrible nightmare of darkness and loneliness. Or maybe he was losing his mind, maybe he was going crazy at last. Maybe, but it didn’t matter. Nothing could ever be worse than this, and if he could talk to Sha’re, could be with her again in this unending night, what did it matter to him if he went mad?
He still could not remember what had happened to him, who he had been and what he had done before he woke that fateful morning and knew that he was home. He could not remember anything at all. He asked Rebecca, but she refused to tell him, saying that he must be stronger. And her words awakened a great fear in Daniel’s heart, the fear of the unknown. That fear grew and spread until anything was better than not knowing, than being left to wonder any longer. He had to know, no matter what it cost him.
Rebecca was sitting beside him as he lay on the bed, telling him what the world looked like to eyes that could still see. She was telling him with a voice that was dreamy and vibrant at once, a voice that barely suppressed its joy and trembling eagerness at the beauty that lay before her. And yet there was sadness in her voice, too, a sadness for Daniel’s blind eyes, so beautiful and yet so useless. She was seeing for him, for his benefit, as well as for her own.
She paused, and the night was filled with a tremulous stillness, with a pulsing awareness of life and beauty. Daniel could almost hear it, the heartbeat of the silver-clad night, and once again he remembered Sha’re. But still he could not remember what she looked like.
Daniel turned his face to Rebecca and touched her arm gently, hesitantly. "Please, Rebecca, please tell me what happened. It might help me remember."
She hesitated, and Daniel could hear the gentle sigh that broke from her lips.
Daniel turned his beseeching eyes upon her, eyes that could not see her face but that had not lost their power of persuasion, a power he never knew he had. "Please, I need to know. You must understand that."
She sighed again, and shifted on the bed, her skirt rustling as she moved. Her voice was very soft as she answered him, and he could tell by the sound that she had turned her eyes from the window and that she was now gazing at his face. "I will tell you, Daniel, but I hope you are strong enough to bear it."
"I will be. I will have to be."
She drew in a deep breath, and Daniel could hear the tension in her voice, the smoothness of her beautiful voice broken by a harsh fear.
"You are my brother, Daniel. You were born in this house when I was eight years old. Eight years later, our parents died, in a terrible accident. They..."
Her voice faltered, and Daniel knew that she had pressed her hands against her face to smother her sobs. Daniel spoke steadily, calmly, controlling his voice though he feared to hear the answer. "What happened to them?"
Rebecca let out a deep, trembling breath and dropped her hands to her lap. "They died," she said simply. "They were out in the fields one day. Our father was moving a heavy tree that he had cut down and Mother was with him. It fell on them."
A long ago memory rose to the surface of Daniel’s mind, struggling through the murky darkness that filled it. "I... I think I remember that," he said, a wonder in his voice and the beginning of a hope that he would someday remember.
Daniel heard Rebecca turn to him quickly, felt her peaceful breath on his face as she looked at him and touched his face with one finger. "You do? That is good, your memory is returning." Her voice was like the sunshine on a moving stream, bright and glowing, but the light faded from her voice as she went on.
"Yes, Daniel, you were there. I can remember you running towards the house screaming for me to come, to help. I couldn’t understand what you were saying at first. When I did, we ran out there together, but it was too late. They were gone."
Daniel felt her tears fall upon his face as she bent her head and cried without a sound. He could remember, he could remember seeing his parents die. But it seemed unreal somehow, faded and very distant, so far away that he could not touch it no matter how hard he tried. He could not make it real, he could not make it his.
Rebecca recovered herself and sat up very straight upon the bed. "I brought you up alone after our parents’ death. Times were hard, so I sold a great deal of our land. All that is left now is a single field where I plant and harvest corn, and our animals. But we get by, we always do.
"There isn’t much more to tell. We have always lived together here, in this farmhouse, ever since our parents died. We have few neighbours, and those we do have live at a great distance. We rarely see them. We have lived all alone here for many years, and you have helped me on the farm, planting, harvesting, feeding the animals. But you have always been delicate, and when the sickness came..."
Daniel felt a great dread rise in him at her words, but there was a strange excitement in his heart as well, knowing that he was close to hearing what had happened to him at last. He was trembling with eagerness and fear, wanting to know, needing to know, and yet dreading it with all his heart. He raised himself on an elbow and his heart beat rapidly in his ears. "Tell me."
She sighed again, like the wind in the night before the coming of a storm, a sad sound and without hope. "You were ill for many days, many weeks. I nursed you, but you did not get better. I brought a doctor here at last, but it was nearly too late. You were almost gone, but he saved you.
"For a time, all was well. But one day I came to the barn where you were milking the cows, and the milk lay in puddles beside the pail. I asked you about it, and you said that it was too dark for you to see the pail at all, and it was broad daylight.
"I was frightened, and I called the doctor, though you begged me not to. He said that he could save your sight, but that it would be a difficult process. We had the money, we could have done it, but you would not let me. I pleaded with you for hours, begging as the tears streamed down my cheeks, but you would not listen, though I could see you did not want to hurt me. I couldn’t force you. And in the end, you lost your sight completely."
An unspeakable horror seemed to be rising up in Daniel’s mind, a figure of such ugliness that he shrank from it in fear and disgust. Could he really... could he really have done this to himself? No, he wouldn’t have, he knew he wouldn’t have. Or would he? He could not speak, could not ask her to tell him. He could only wait helplessly to hear what she would say.
"There was a prophecy. At your birth, it was foretold by the great god of fire and warmth that you would be the one to betray your world to the enemy, that it would be your eyes that would see its fate, and seeing it, that they would condemn it to its destruction."
Daniel found his voice again. "B-but I don’t understand – "
Her voice was calm and very gentle as she laid a cool hand on his brow. "No one did. No one does even now. But you said that you would rather die than betray your people. And you believed that your blindness would save all of us from destruction. The prophecy said that your eyes would see its fate, and if you could not see, you could not bring that about. You told me that the Fates were blind, that they cannot see what it is they weave for mankind, and so would you be, and thus you would not see our fate. For if there was even a chance that your blindness would save us, you would have to take it or be forever cursed. And so you did, and I could not persuade you otherwise."
Daniel opened his mouth, but he could not speak, and a horror was in his blind eyes at what he had heard.
"But you have been very ill since then. The sickness has weakened your body, and soon after your eyes lost the last of their sight, you fell ill once again. You lay long in unconsciousness, and I feared it was too late, but you have come back to me at last."
Rebecca bent over him and stroked his brow with her cool, gentle hands. "Now sleep, for it is late, and you need your strength." She sang to him again, like the waters of a brook running beneath the bright sun, but there was a sadness to her song that was like inescapable change, time passing on to its inevitable end, things being lost forever. Perhaps her song was of Time itself, or perhaps it was of Fate.
Daniel struggled to stay awake, to fend off the dark waves of sleep that were washing over him, but to no avail. At last he succumbed, and drifted off into sleep with a deep sigh, feeling the waters pulling at him as he drifted away, far away, and everything he had ever loved slipped from his grasp and vanished in the distance.
~*~
The days passed, the stars spun in the heavens, and soon summer was gone, and it was autumn. Daniel was stronger now, and he could walk outside the house, though he had to be careful not to stray too far from the house. Once his hands left the comforting solidity of its walls, there were only trees and wide open fields. There was nothing to guide him. He had to be careful, to be slow, to learn to live in darkness as he had in light. He was making progress, but it was very hard. Sometimes he would open his eyes in the morning, expecting to see the sunlight dancing on the leaves, the jewelled wings of the birds as they flew by his window, and Sha’re’s face above him. He could not get used to it, he never could, living in a perpetual darkness that was without a glimmer of light, without any relief. Sometimes he thought he would go mad with the horror of it, with that sense of being trapped in a prison from which there was no escape. But whenever he did, whenever he thought he could bear no more, he would dream of Sha’re.
He dreamt of her often, more and more as time went on. Sometimes he was waking, sometimes he was asleep, and sometimes he was in a strange land between the two that could be the most vivid of all. She was always beside him, the only companion in his loneliness, the only joy in his sad existence. Many times he would see her in his dreams, but even when he didn’t, he knew she was always with him.
He would wake in the morning and feel her presence, stretch out a hand and feel her take it in her soft, warm one. He would go through the day knowing she was beside him always, her presence a warmth in his heart, sharing every pain, every joy, every moment of every day with him. When the pain in his heart grew too great, he would call to her, and at once she would be there to comfort him, to soothe away his suffering with her love. And she would sing to him, songs of peace and love that he had known long ago -- somewhere, somehow. Her songs held no shadow of sorrow or of loss, only of beauty and trust and love that would never end.
He would lie awake in the night and talk to her before he fell into sleep. She was always there to help him, always there to shower him with love and soothe the pain of his life. And he loved her, more than he could ever say.
As time went on and he dreamed of her more and more, Daniel could remember her face even after the dreams had ended. He kept it always before him, like a beacon to light his way in this dark world, like a star above him in the sky that would never be moved. He could think of her and see her face, the eyes darkly bright and full of love, the red lips, slightly parted, the shining glory of her black hair around her and her delicate eyebrows like birds’ wings. He could remember, and the memory of her face was a comfort to him even in the darkest days of his soul.
He still could not remember who she was, or if she was even real, but he didn’t care. How could that matter, when she loved him so much, when she was always with him to help if he needed her? It didn’t matter if she was real or not, and he didn’t need to know. He loved her, and that was enough.
Daniel would walk in the fields and among the trees, feeling the wind on his face and hearing the leaves crackle beneath his feet. He could smell the scent of autumn all around him, the season of change, of the memory of things forever lost. It was a sad time, a sad season, but not for him, for he had Sha’re.
At night, he could hear the wind blowing harder, feel the cold through the blankets draped over him. It howled around the house as if it loathed it, yearning to bury it in oblivion. Sometimes the storms would rage about it, until the thunder crashed above his head in a wild terror of chaos. Sometimes the rain would fall, its gentle drops falling softly upon the roof, or pelting it until he could hear nothing else. Autumn was here, the season of change.
~*~
Daniel woke one night from a terrible nightmare. He had seen fire, and faces he knew, and the fire consumed them as they cried out for him to help them. He did not understand what it could mean, for he could not remember. He still could not remember.
Daniel woke and Rebecca was beside him, her hand gently caressing his brow as she spoke to him and comforted him like a child.
Daniel opened his eyes, but he could not see her, and his eyes moved with a strange aimlessness over her face, restlessly. "What happened?"
He could hear the smile in her voice as she answered him. "You had a bad dream, Daniel. I heard you cry out, so I came to you and woke you. Have no fear, for it is over now."
Daniel covered his face with his hands and shuddered uncontrollably at her words, at the memory of what he had seen.
"What is it, Daniel? What did you see?"
Daniel lowered his hands and sought again for her face, his eyes blank and unseeing. "I saw fire, and I saw people I knew, people I cared about, dying in the flames. They were asking me to help them, holding out their hands – " His voice faltered and he shuddered again and said no more.
There was a moment of silence, then Rebecca spoke to him again. "That was a memory, Daniel, you are starting to remember."
Daniel could feel the horror rising in him again, along with a sense of terrible, irreparable loss that he did not understand. He did not know who they were, but his heart rebelled at the thought that they could be dead. They must have meant a great deal to him.
He could not speak, but Rebecca answered his unspoken question. "You watched them die, and you could not help them. It was not your fault, Daniel."
"Who were they?" His voice was like raven’s harsh croak, but at least he could make the words understood.
"Strangers, only strangers. They were travelling here from another place far away, and you never saw them before the day they died. There was a prairie fire, and they were caught in the middle of it. You tried to help them, but there was nothing you could do."
Daniel was shaking his head, his heart confused but hot with denial. "No, no."
Rebecca’s voice was gentle in his ear. "What, Daniel?"
"I knew them, I knew them! They were my friends, we travelled together to... I don’t know, but we did. They were the only friends I had."
"No, you never met them before."
"Rebecca, you don’t understand. I don’t know how I met them, but I know I did. I know they’re my friends. I can almost... almost remember their names, but not quite."
"Daniel," she spoke softly but firmly, as if to a child that insists he sees monsters in the night. "Daniel, you never knew their names."
But he did, he knew he did. For hours he tried to remember them, to pull their names out of the black waters of darkness that filled his head. For hours he tried, but it was only when he went to sleep again and dreamed of Sha’re that he remembered. And he woke with their names firm and safe in his memory, names he knew almost as well as he had known his own. He repeated them constantly so that he wouldn’t forget, so that he wouldn’t lose them again. He did not tell Rebecca because she would not understand, would not believe him, and he repeated their names over and over until they were engraved in his mind. If he closed his eyes, he could see them there, written in letters of fire:
Teal’c, Samantha Carter... and Jack O’Neill.
~*~
Time went on, and the last of the leaves fell from the trees and lay dead upon the ground. Winter was coming, and the wind blew cold and harsh at night, finding a way through the boards of the house so that there was no escape anywhere. Daniel would lie, covered by blankets at night, shivering uncontrollably. He would complain of the cold and Rebecca would pile more blankets on, but he could not get warm. Every night he lay trapped in a cold hell like a prison of ice, and he was growing so weary with the sleepless nights that there seemed to be no reason to go on living. Even Sha’re’s presence at night could not warm him enough, and all joy he had had in life paled, and the world was very dark.
And one day, the world ended. He had been walking in the trees, talking to Sha’re as he went. And as he walked, he had lost himself in the woods, and he could not find his way home again. He wandered, lost and alone, for a long while, and the sun went down, and it grew very cold, and he shivered as he walked.
But Rebecca came to him in the night and led him home. And that night, he slept deeply, even in the cold, and as he slept, he dreamed of fire. He saw great weapons arching into the sky with smoke trailing behind them. He saw peaceful lands, fields and farmhouses, and where the weapons landed, there was only fire and destruction. He saw the entire planet consumed in flames, burning to a cinder and leaving none alive.
His first thought was to warn the leaders of the planet, but Rebecca said that they would not listen, for they were the ones who would destroy it. It was then he knew that all he could do was to save Rebecca, that only they would survive the coming destruction.
They did not stop even to take their coats when they went, for they did not know how soon the time of their destruction would come. Rebecca took him by the hand and led him, and he went stumbling over the uneven ground in their haste to be gone.
Daniel was tired and panting when they reached the Stargate, and Rebecca turned to him with a familiar rustle of her long dress.
"You must give me the code," she said urgently.
Daniel didn’t remember, couldn’t remember. He didn’t even know if he should remember. "What?"
"The code," she repeated, her hand cool on his. "The code to open the Tau’ri Stargate. I must have it or we will both die here."
Out of the depths of his mind, something was rising, something great and grand and full. Something very large, very important was coming back to him, coming all at once. And suddenly he knew, he remembered what he had been before.
Daniel turned blue, sightless eyes to Rebecca, and his eyes were so piercing and so steady that it was almost as if they could see again. "I can’t do that," he said slowly.
"But you must!" she said, and her voice was rising to sharp hysteria, changing so that he hardly knew it any longer.
"Why? There are other worlds we can go to. I know the addresses."
"But, Daniel," she told him, with difficulty restraining the impatience in her voice. "You cannot see, and the address of the Tau’ri is the only one I know. You must give me the code or we will both die!"
"I could tell you – " Daniel began, but she broke in impatiently, her voice high and shrill.
"There is no time. You must give me the code. Do you understand that it is you who have brought us to this pass?"
Daniel’s mind was reeling, tossing in a sea of blackness. "What?"
Rebecca laughed strangely, horribly, and her voice changed as Daniel shrank back in horror.
"You fool!" she cried out, and all around them the wind rose as if at her command. "You fool!" she cried again to the skies, and her voice rang shrilly through the sound of the howling wind. "Only a blind man can see what others cannot, only a blind man can see the truth!" And she laughed again, while Daniel stood frozen and listened. "It is because you are blind that you have brought us to this. Daniel, you have seen our fate, and so it shall happen. You have been the one to bring this upon us!"
Daniel shook his head in denial, his unseeing eyes wide. "No! No, it can’t be!"
Rebecca laughed once more, and her laughter was like the screeching of wicked nightbirds in the darkness. It blent with the howling of the wind until the two voices were one, and the wind blew harder. Daniel could hear her long dress crackling in the wind, and in his mind’s eye he could see her, her arms upraised and her hair blowing like a banner behind her, bright against the storm clouds in the sky.
"Do you not see, Daniel?" Her voice was terrible now. Daniel shuddered at the sound, and she laughed again as the wind dashed him to the ground. "Do you not understand? Yes, it is true that the Fates are blind, Daniel. But hear this and hear it well: The Fates are blind, and yet they see!"
Thunder crashed above him and Daniel cried out in blind terror at what was happening. She laughed once more, differently now, and in that instant, it seemed to him that her voice echoed strangely in his ears, and he knew without a doubt that if he could have seen her, her eyes would have glowed white. And in that instant, everything came back to him, everything, and he remembered, once and for all.
Slowly, deliberately, he stood, and his head was raised, his jaw clenched bravely. "This isn’t real." His voice was soft, and yet it carried through the storm, over the wailing of the wind and the crash of the thunder.
Rebecca stopped laughing, and in that instant everything was very still, with a great breathless hush like the calm before the storm.
Daniel tightened his lips and spoke again, looking into Rebecca’s face as if he could see her. "This isn’t real. None of this is real. It never was. The whole thing was just a trick to get the iris code from me." There was no reply, and he raised his voice to shout aloud to the silent sky. "Well, it won’t work! I won’t give it to you, no matter what you do to me!"
There was a sudden snarl of fury, as of a wild animal, and everything whirled around Daniel so that he fell to the ground. He could feel the ground spinning, tilting and rocking unsteadily beneath him, and he covered his head with his arms. And suddenly the movement stopped and there was nothing, and Daniel fell into a great blackness.
~*~
"Daniel! Daniel, can you hear me? C’mon, Danny boy!"
Daniel opened his eyes, and found that he could see again. Jack was there above him, his face anxious, shaking Daniel and looking into his face. And at that moment, Jack’s face was the most wonderful thing Daniel had ever seen, because it meant that he wasn’t blind anymore, and that his friends weren’t dead. It meant that everything was going to be all right. Daniel smiled a little and the tears came into his eyes at the thought that he could see again, that he was not blind anymore. He tried to stop them, but he wasn’t strong enough, and so he just let them fall, pouring down his face like rain. He could see again.
Jack’s face above him tightened in pain at the sight of Daniel’s tears, and his voice was very gentle. Daniel even thought that there were tears in Jack’s hard eyes, but he could never be sure.
"God, Daniel," Jack said, "what did they do to you?"
With difficulty, Daniel stopped crying, and suddenly he was laughing hysterically, without being able to do anything about it. Jack’s lips grew tight and his mouth was hard.
"Okay, Daniel, let’s get you out of this." Slowly, he lifted Daniel up from where he was lying and laid one of Daniel’s arms across his shoulders. They were in a strange room that looked somehow familiar, and yet not familiar. Daniel turned to Jack questioningly, and Jack answered that look. It was good to be back, Daniel decided, and good to be with Jack again.
"You’re in one of Sokar’s ships, Daniel. You disappeared on a routine mission, and we’ve been tracking you ever since. It wasn’t easy, but you’re gonna be fine now."
Daniel managed to control himself enough to speak, but his voice still sounded terrible. "How long?"
Jack raised his eyebrows. "How long, Daniel? Look, kid, I’m sorry, but it’s been about a week. We looked for you, but we couldn’t get to you any sooner. God, Daniel, I’m so sorry."
Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "It seemed longer, a lot longer."
"How long, Danny?"
"Months, I don’t know. A long time. I... I thought I was blind." And Daniel laughed a little, with a touch of hysteria, and opened his eyes again as if he couldn’t get enough of using them.
Jack’s eyes softened and he reached out a hand to ruffle Daniel’s hair in a familiar gesture that did Daniel’s heart good. "God, Daniel," he said gruffly, "that must have been bad. I’m real sorry we couldn’t get here sooner."
Daniel looked into Jack’s face, his eyes wide and very blue. "That’s all right, Jack. The important thing is that you got here. Besides, it wasn’t real."
They were moving across the room as they talked, but it was very large and Daniel’s progress was slow.
Jack looked into Daniel’s eyes again and then away. "Any idea what Sokar wanted you for?"
"He wanted the Earth iris code. I didn’t give it to him."
"What?!"
"The whole thing was a trick, Jack. He built me another life, and then tried to make me tell the code to someone I trusted. When I wouldn’t do it, it all went away, and then I was back here."
Jack nodded, his mouth grim and hard, but the eyes he turned to Daniel were radiating pride. "Good going, Danny boy. I knew you could do it."
Daniel’s face broke into a grin, as he basked in the pride in Jack’s eyes and voice, and knew that he had done well.
"Sam and Teal’c?"
Jack forced his face into a semblance of its normal expression, but the eyes were still sad and haunted. "They’re outside, holding the fort. Don’t worry, we’ll have time to get out. They got all the Jaffa out of here on a wild goose chase. Those guys’ll be gone for hours."
Daniel chuckled at the thought, and his eyes lit up with their old fire.
Some of the haunted look went out of Jack’s eyes, and he smiled lopsidedly. "Let’s get out of here, okay?"
"Sure, Jack."
But at the door, Daniel turned to look at the room he had been trapped in for so long. He didn’t even remember being brought there, but he had probably been unconscious at the time. The room was nearly empty, large and echoing like a cathedral. But at the far end, there was something that sent chills up Daniel’s spine.
It was a kind of bed, a black bed that seemed to glow with its own pallid, baleful light. There were straps on it, and Daniel realised suddenly that he had been held there, strapped to that... thing for a whole week, while a strange scenario played in his head and Sokar tried to trick him into betraying his world to the Goa’uld.
He shuddered, and Jack turned to him anxiously, a look of concern on his face. "Hey, you okay?"
Daniel recovered himself and smiled. "I’m fine, Jack, I’m fine. Thanks to you."
A fond smile was playing on Jack’s face. "Just don’t make a habit of it, Daniel."
"I won’t, trust me on that one."
But as they turned to go, Daniel cast a last look behind him at the black thing lying there, spider-like and evil. But he drew himself up and leaned on Jack’s shoulder, turning his face resolutely towards the door and freedom, back towards his own life once more. And he knew suddenly how precious it was, his life, how wonderful it was. For he had lived through months of blindness, of never knowing who he was or what he had done. He had been useless, and he hoped that would never be the case again. He had been alone for so long, and now he was back with his friends.
Jack turned to him with a raised eyebrow, asking a silent question, and Daniel nodded slowly, his eyes glad and full of light.
"Let’s go home, Jack."
© September 29, 2004 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.