Disclaimer: None of the characters of the Stargate, Buffy or Angel belong to me. I mean no copywrite infringement, I am doing this for entertainment purposes only and am receiving no income as a result.

Author's Note: The first scene takes place during Green Day. The second between Lost Warrior and Instinct. The last two take place directly after Innocence Lost and Survival.

The first time someone from her team woke her for snoring she almost died of embarrassment. Of course, it had to be her first mission with her new team and, of course, it had to be after she made the monumental mistake of going to the ‘bathroom’ alone.

After that debacle, all Willow wanted was for everything else on the mission to go exactly right. Otherwise she was sure Kawalsky, Hayes and Grogan were going to insist that she never be left alone on any mission (it was bad enough that they were all sleeping in the one hut). Things had to be perfect. Which meant, naturally, that she had to humiliate herself beyond the telling of it.

Although, to be honest, she didn’t think her humiliation would come in the form of her snoring so loudly Major Kawalsky had to wake her up.

“You with me now, Rosenberg?”

Her heart was trying furiously to calm down as Kawalsky came into view. She was shaking as well, she noted. Her body trembling in a way that made her wonder, briefly, if snoring was the only thing she had been doing. Her uniform was drenched in sweat.

All telltale signs that she had a nightmare.

Except she couldn’t remember any dreams and Kawalsky wasn’t acting like she had a nightmare. No, he was acting like an annoyed Major who couldn’t sleep because his newest team member was a snorer.

Why didn’t anyone tell her she was that bad prior to this? No one in training ever mentioned it…

“Yes, sir.” She sat up, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Sorry I woke you up, sir.”

He studied her for a moment before lying back down on the cot adjacent to hers. “Don’t sweat it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The second time a member of her team woke up because she was snoring was right after Hayes went missing on a rescue. Again, probably one of the times when she wanted, more than anything, to be in her team’s good graces. After all, they knew she was ‘different’ now. Before they had been suspicious, now they knew her knack for finding people was more than just good training.

At least this time it was Grogan who woke her, not Kawalsky. Although, in a way, it was worse. They were friends and she had lied to him.

Lied to all of them.

His eyes weren’t as friendly as they usually were when she met them. Not exactly unfriendly, just hurt.

“You’re snoring,” he said, glancing towards the front of the Tel’tac where both Hayes and Kawalsky sat, flying them home.

And again, like before, she was shaking and covered in sweat. Except, this time, she had a vague recollection of a nightmare. One where they hadn’t reached Hayes in time…

She eyed him warily. “I was snoring?”

He didn’t meet her eyes when he nodded. “Yeah.”

She was pretty sure he was lying, but she wasn’t exactly in the position to say anything. Not after she had been lying to them.

“I wouldn’t stress about it, though,” Grogan said, making himself comfortable on the wall next to her. “Kawalsky woke Hayes because he snoring about twenty minutes ago.”

Willow remained silent.

“He was snoring louder than you.”

The third time one of her team woke her because she was ‘snoring’, she was in Captain Hayes’ car in the parking lot of the SGC. Her entire body was vibrating with fear and adrenaline. Hayes had his hand firmly on her shoulder, like he was trying hold her in place – as though she had been thrashing around in her sleep (like she often did when she had nightmares). It wasn’t surprising she had fallen asleep on the drive back to the SGC. She hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours and, if she had her way, she would never sleep again.

The three men she killed wouldn’t be sleeping again, and it hardly seemed fair that she could.

“It’s all right, Rosenberg,” Hayes said, relaxing his grip. “We’re at the SGC.”

She nodded, sitting up in the seat but not making a move to undo her seatbelt. If she undid her seatbelt, that meant they would have to go inside the SGC and she just wasn’t ready for that. God, she wished Daniel had never called Kawalsky to tell him that he ‘found’ her in a bar. “Was I snoring, sir?” She wasn’t sure why it was so important to know.

The smile he gave her held no amusement, just sympathy and understanding. “A little.”

If the nightmare hadn’t been so clear, so vivid, and if her mind wasn’t so damn numb, she was pretty sure she would have let herself continue believing him – all of them – about her snoring problem. But right now, she was too busy fighting memories to keep up the denial.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Did you want to take a second before we go inside?” Hayes asked.

Inside where Kawalsky and General O’Neill – probably Grogan as well – would want to talk to her. She knew she wasn’t in trouble for taking off, for leaving the base when Kawalsky had asked her not to, and a part of her almost wished she was. Yelling was far easier to deal with than pity.

“Yes, sir.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before she turned Hayes. “Sir?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Can you not tell Grogan and the Major I was snoring again?”

The first time Willow woke one of her team members because they were ‘snoring’ was exactly a week after Hayes last woke her for the very same reason. It was past midnight when she heard the first panicked murmurs from the recliner next to hers. Quietly, she sat up in the recliner and moved next to Grogan.

For a second, she didn’t know what to do. They were at Kawalsky’s house and, while the living room was dark, she could see the light spilling out from under the kitchen door. Kawalsky and Hayes would both be awake, probably still going over the mission – trying to determine if there had been away they could have prevented her from having to kill to keep them all alive.

Trying to determine how much they were to blame for the two incredibly fucked up Lieutenants in their team.

If Grogan ‘snored’ a little too loud, they would come running and Grogan would probably want to die as much as she usually did whenever they woke her up.

Taking a breath, Willow shook her friend. “Hey Grogan, wake up.”

He woke with a start, breathing hard, the nightmare probably still lingering in his mind. She could feel him shaking under her hand. “Rosenberg?” He sat up, slightly panicked. “What’s wrong?”

She could call him on it, tell him he was having a nightmare. They were close now, closer than she was with Hayes and Kawalsky, closer than they had been when he did this for her, but… sometimes pretending was easier.

Pretence was easier to deal with than pity, weakness.

“You were snoring.”

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