There were sounds, fragments of memory.

"Fix that restraint now! I need the body still!"

A high-pitched, blood-curdling shriek.

"Calm yourself, Doktor, they are still waiting..."

A metal door clanging closed.

"Where is the bloody chip?"

Someone whistling Englandlied. Very badly.

At long last it was quiet, quiet and dark.

She still felt the pain, but her mind was numb to it now. Still, it was better than whatever had come before. She didn't really want to remember.

It was cold too, and felt somehow familiar. Oh, that's right. She had been near to death before, her body frozen by Dok's miraculous prowess until he could fix her damaged mind. Why had he bothered with her so?

This cold though, it wasn't unpleasant exactly. It emanated from her pores, her being. Maybe it wasn't pain after all that she felt. It was just…cold.

So she embraced the quiet, the dark, and the cold.

But now someone was hitting her cheek incessantly. Annoyingly.

"…you hear me? Wake up!"

Her blue eyes flew open wide.

A sigh of relief came from the other occupant in the dimly lit room. "Guten Abend. Don't try to move right now, you are still restrained. How do you feel?"

Rip Van Winkle tried to lick dry lips but her tongue was heavy and sore.

"Drink," was all she could cough out.

The doctor helped give her a small sip through a flexible straw.

"Better?"

"Mmhm," she replied gratefully, sighing and licking the excess off her teeth. "Oh!"

"Careful now, they're very sharp."

"How long was I…?"

"Almost a week. Today is Sunday."

"May I sit up, Doktor?"

He agreed to manually raise the angle of the bed so that she could look around and get her bearings. It wasn't the surgical table she was strapped to anymore, but a normal hospital-style bed in one of the private recesses of the infirmary. Her hands were now at her sides instead of outstretched but they were in metal handcuffs. A pale blue hospital gown was covering most of her, mercifully, though it was unlaced in the front.

The doctor checked a few basic reflexes and performed a cursory vision test. He grumbled under his breath about his time being wasted as he retrieved her glasses and slid them back onto her face. Her eyesight had not improved at all.

Rip was mostly in a daze throughout, though she did pay attention when he sliced through a few layers of skin on her leg. She hissed during the cut, but it was not as intense as she anticipated. She was also surprised to see the ends of the wound slowly pull together, closing completely in a matter of minutes. Shortly after, there was no trace of the incision, just pale and smooth skin, which seemed to improve the doctor's mood.

"Still, we'll have to do more extreme tests to see the extent of your new healing ability," he said matter-of-factly, capping a vial with the blood he had managed to capture during the test. Rip couldn't help but make a sour face to which he offered, "Not for a while, anyway. We are going to take things slowly. You are, too."

There were so many thoughts and disjointed memories of her ordeal running through her mind that she was trying to make sense of.

"You're very quiet this evening. Lieutenant."

That snapped her out of it and back to the present. "Then I was promoted after all?"

The doctor raised an eyebrow at the sudden display of enthusiasm.

"Tentatively yes, provided your behavior is acceptable during a probationary period."

So the memory of the Major calling her by the new title was real. Lost in her daydream of those stolen moments with him, she hardly heard the doctor's warnings about the security chip implanted into her new vampire body, and what would happen if she deserted Millennium or otherwise got out of control.

"…with me at all times. Do you understand everything I've just told you?"

"Yes."

He looked severely at her. "Yes?"

"Yes Sir!" Rip straightened her back and lifted her chin as if she were standing at attention. "Sorry, Sir, it's just I…well, it's good to be back!" she finished with a smile, the new teeth interlocking rather nicely.

Dok harrumphed at the emotional outburst, but Rip did not change position, obediently awaiting his next command. He stroked his chin and mouth for several seconds, reflecting on her condition, then wordlessly pulled a key out of his lab coat and unlocked the cuff on her right hand.

"I have some time-sensitive reports to fill out." He pulled open the privacy curtain that surrounded the area around her bed. "Stay hydrated until I get back."

Shutting the semi-circle of curtains again, he left, his footsteps fading down the corridor and into his office, the same one she had left her clothing behind in what seemed a lifetime ago. She could hear the movement of his chair and each tap on the typewriter as clearly as if they were happening in front of her. It seemed she had somehow been gifted with some sharper hearing. This was getting interesting, but she could afford to take her time, to take it slow as he had suggested.

Suddenly remembering something important, Rip's free hand shot up to the back of her head. There was hair there and – yes! – she still had a long braid. Mentally, she thanked God for letting her keep this feature she liked most about herself. Hopefully it would look good with the new teeth.

Rip turned her attention to a bedside table on the right side. There were only two items on it, one of which was a blood packet with a flexible tube. The other was a pure silver swastika which would fit perfectly inside the palm of a hand. She reached for that first and happily began to hum a little Tchaikovsky.