NOTE: Okay, there may have been just a little bit of squealing when I wrote this. What can I say, the first bit is just so darn cute and I've been waiting to write the second since I first came up with this story.

I don't own Stargate…*sigh*

Chapter 8: Sleeping

A hand clapped down on Daniel's shoulder. He looked around to see Cam was standing next to him with a comforting smile.

"Doc says she's going to be fine Jackson. Stop worrying."

Daniel turned back to the hospital bed where Vala was sleeping. "I know," he whispered, "I just haven't seen her in a while." A dark bruise had risen on the right hand side of her neck. Her arm was in a sling but he'd been told that it was only a slight pull and would be better in a day of so.

"Gawd Jackson, you look terrible. Have you slept at all since you came in here last?"

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut. "Not much." He moved away from Vala's bed so as not to disturb her. "The dream's every night now."

"Well dream or not," Cam pointed at the empty bed next to Vala's, "you need rest."

Daniel clenched his jaw. Not really wanting to answer he looked away to Vala as she slept peacefully despite her weathered appearance. He thought about how nice it must be for her; not being afraid of her dreams.

"Jackson, so help me I will make It an order." Cam was a little feed up with his friend's stubbornness. "She's going to be here when you wake up. Lam says she's not going to discharge her until at least an hour when people are meant to be awake so I think you can manage a few hours of shut eye."

Daniel nodded defeated. "Guess your right." his voice grew more and more distant as he fell sideways onto the pillow. As frightened as he was of seeing that place and that woman again his eyes felt heavy and his mind was screaming at him to rest.

Cam could only hear mumbles from Daniel and the nothing at all. With a chuckle he walked out the door of the infirmary with a mumble of his own: "Night, night Jackson."

*****

Elsewhere in the base, as Daniel drifted off into silent sleep, someone else was waking up.

It all started with a pounding head. She quickly focused on the pain, feeling all the little pin pricks of light in that part of her body converge and heal the screaming neurons. She hated head aches, they were always fiddly but leaving them just to run their course was unbearably annoying. As the lights spread out once more they faded into dormancy, leaving perfect brain cell behind. She did the quick cheek of all the other systems that she'd gone through a thousand times before.

Nothing else terribly wrong with the brain, a few hormone imbalances that were a synch to fix. All the other organs seemed to be perfect. They shouldn't be this perfect. Something was wrong. She'd been unconscious for who knows how long, there should be some deterioration.

Come to think of it, why had she been unconscious? Where had she been when she woke up? That was right; she was in the back chamber of the sanctuary at Aberon. What had she been doing there? She'd been in that blasted sarcophagus hadn't she. No wonder all of her was in such good condition. It had been healing her. That also explained the hormone imbalances. Oh, how she hated that thing. It also meant that there was no real way to tell how long she'd been out of things.

Now she'd remembered where she had been, time to focus on where she was.

She opened her eyes and then quickly closed them again, sending the lights in her to her eyes to mend the burning nerve ends. More slowly she opened her eyes again. Everything was grey at first, when she could see anything at all. A soft beeping that was perfectly timed to her heart beat was echoing in the room.

She tried to sit up but couldn't. Something was tight across her neck. She tried to pull it away but she couldn't move her arms. Things were tight around her wrists and her ankles too.

Well this couldn't be good.

Looking around some more she saw a large mirror in front and above her, tilted inwards so it gave her a full view of herself. She was laid out on a bed. Thick restraints held her legs, arms and neck in place. She wasn't wearing what she had at Aberon when the Jaffa had come for them. It was the most intact of the few things that she had, though that wasn't saying much.

What had happened there? All she could remember was running to the Stargate. What had happened then? How did she end up in the sanctuary?

"Well," she said quietly, her voice ringing true and pure in the silence, "this is new."

Behind the mirror her newly healed eyes could see the outline of a shape ad it moved.

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