The Life We Live

There and Back Again

As SG-1 looked through the treasure they found in England, they found a strange device. It had a blue crystal at the top and several spaces for these egg-shaped stones, one of which Jack had come across some time ago and saw images of a barber.

It was brought back to the SGC where they ran some tests to see what it was. Sam thought it maybe some kind of teleportation device, but they weren't sure where it would lead.

Daniel and Vala chose to put the stones in since they had to stay together. They got the bracelets taken off a little while before, but the effects would remain for some time.

When they had the go-ahead, Daniel and Vala placed the black, egg-shaped stones in two of the spaces indicated on the device at the same time.

Within seconds of putting the stones in the slots, Vala and Daniel collapsed. They were put on beds and hooked up to machines to monitor them.

Katelyn sat next to Daniel as he lay unconscious in a bed. It was not a place she liked to be, but it seemed to be a place she found herself quite often.

Daniel and Vala were hoping to find Ancients, but when they woke up they weren't at the SGC anymore and they weren't themselves.

Vala was a somewhat thick, blonde-haired woman in a dress and Daniel was a very frail-looking, skinny man. It seemed they were inside the bodies of some people from a small local village.

Daniel and Vala realized after some deliberation that they had to play the part of these people so as not to raise suspicion. They looked outside to see a simple village.

"This isn't what I imagined a village of gate builders would look like," Vala whispered to Daniel. He agreed with her but just rolled his eyes.

Daniel and Vala tried to play the parts the best they could, but Vala said something that made the village think she was possessed by evil. Daniel should have seen that coming with the mouth on her.

Vala was chained to a stone in the middle of the village like they had been swept back to the dark ages. Some men poured burning, flammable liquid into the stone where it slowly made its way to Vala.

Vala watched in terror as it got closer and closer. She screamed for Daniel to help her and he tried his hardest to get to her, but two men held him back and all he could do was watch on in horror.

First, Vala's dress caught on fire and soon her whole body was engulfed in flames. She screamed in pain.

"Stop! You're killing an innocent woman!" Daniel shouted. A strange-looking man who was pale with tattoos on his face came to watch the burning of Vala.

Back on Earth, Vala's body started to seize and soon she flat-lined. Katelyn and the new doctor General Landry hired to replace Katelyn tried to save her, but it was no use.

Soon Vala was gone and all that remained was her charred body. The men let Daniel go. He walked up to her slowly and held her scorched body in his arms as tears streaked down his face.

Daniel and Vala were not friends exactly, but he cared about her and it was more than his humanity, for some unknown reason he really cared for Vala and didn't want to see her go through this. He had lost too many people he cared about.

Daniel explained who he and Vala were through tears though he was angry and his words sounded begrudging. The strange man unchained Vala with a wave of his staff and Vala's body slowly became whole again.

Katelyn was about to announce the time of death when Vala's heartbeat slowly beeped on the monitor again. Katelyn smiled to herself hoping that was how it was going to stay.