Welcome to My World.
There was a black car parked right in front of his building when Daniel left his front door for work that morning, which was something he'd been expecting for a good six months, now. Admittedly, he'd never figured that the NID would lower themselves to drive something so blatantly cool as the vintage convertible that was waiting for him, but you could never tell with them. They were sneaky bastards.
"Dr. Jackson," the driver said. He didn't look much like NID either, dressed in worn jeans and a tight black t-shirt, with longish brown hair that curled over the back of his neck, a snazzy little goatee, and shades that were way cooler that Jack's beloved pair sliding down his nose. The man grinned at him as his eyes sparkled over the rims of the shades. "Late riser, huh?"
Daniel looked left, looked right. He rented a house in the 'burbs, yeah, but there were plenty of people around. Which meant that this wasn't a blatant kidnapping. "Never got used to waking up with the sun," he said, coming over to lean against the passenger-side door. "Mornings aren't my thing."
"Hey, I'm a Cali slacker, born and bred," the man said. "You're preaching to the choir, here."
"Right," Daniel said. "You spend your free time surfing. And that's why you're in Colorado Springs."
"Well, I've always been better with an axe than a surfboard, but yeah, I'm here on business. But then again, you already knew that, didn't you?"
Axe? No, wait. He didn't want to know. "I had a suspicion, yes," Daniel said dryly. "I take it I'm number one on your agenda?"
"Something like that," the man said easily. "Though you're not the only one. I'm a diverse sort of guy, you know? I'm interested in all sorts of things."
Daniel didn't doubt it for a minute. "Well, go ahead and cross me off your list," he said. "'Cause I'm pretty much done with the NID for life, thanks."
He straightened away from the car, but the man held up a hand, laughing in surprise. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he said. "I'm not NID. They wouldn't have me as a gift." He grinned at Daniel, stretching a proprietory arm along the back of the seat. "Besides, I'd have to give up my baby, and I've worked damn hard for her."
Daniel didn't want to be charmed. Really, he didn't. "Well, if you're not NID, then who are you, and what the hell do you want with me?"
The man sighed and shook his head mournfully. "All business, I see. Ah, well, I can work with that."
"Work faster," Daniel suggested, when he didn't say anything more.
"Impatient, too? Man. Waste of a pretty face, you ask me. Which nobody did. Anyway, I'm not NID. I'm not government at all."
"If you're working for a millionaire with a terminal disease, you can just drive off now and save yourself a little trouble," Daniel said. "We've had our fill of those."
"Xander Harris, Watcher's Council, Field Agent first class," the man finally introduced himself. "I saved the world for the first time when I was sixteen, if that's enough street cred for ya. I hear you do that sort of thing a lot."
"Once or twice," Daniel allowed.
"Though you die more often than that," Xander said. "Sound like a friend of mine. She's on her… shit, third life? Might be fourth by now. Anyway, not the point. I represent an organization that does pretty much the same thing on Earth that you do on a galactic scale. My superiors contacted yours, wanted to broker a little exchange sort of deal, and you and I got picked to talk the talk."
"Why me?" Daniel asked. Jack knew the ins and outs of the program better than he did. Supposing that Xander was actually telling the truth, he was the better person to ask.
"Well, Daniel- can I call you Daniel?- you're pretty well known for being good with your mouth," Xander said, a sly grin on his face, his eyes dancing behind the shades.
"I suppose you're going to have to, if you're going to be coming on to me," Daniel shot back.
"That wasn't a come-on, that was an assessment of your verbal skills. Trust me, when I'm making a pass, you'll know it."
"Fantastic," Daniel said, and tilted his head up to address the sky. "Could maybe something normal happen to me?" he asked it casually. "Just, you know, once?"
"Welcome to my life," Xander said. "So, come on, get in the car. My partner's waiting back at the motel. He gets cranky when I make him wait."
"So why isn't he here, with you?"
"He's even less fond of sunlight than you are," Xander said. "Besides, he's a little too… abrasive for a first meet. Doesn't have my sunny personality." Xander flashed him a Colgate-white smile to illustrate.
"Right," Daniel said. "So I'm supposed to just, what, hop in the car with you? Let you drive off with me with no idea where I'm going?"
"Take your gun," Xander said. "If it makes your feel better."
"Thank you, I will," Daniel said, and when he took his gun out of his backpack and Xander gave him a thumbs-up, he couldn't help but grin back.
"So, gorgeous, let's take a ride," Xander said, and Daniel, despite all his better instincts and the knowledge that Jack was going to kick his ass if this turned out to be a trick, got into the car.
"Just make it fast," he said, as he buckled himself in. "I've got to gate out at seventeen hundred."
Xander tilted his head Daniel's direction. "Different planet?" he asked casually.
"Different planet," Daniel confirmed.
"Huh. Cool. Weird, but cool."
"Welcome to my world," Daniel said. "So who's this partner of yours? He anything like you?"
"Not quite," Xander said dryly. "He's a couple hundred years older and at least an order of magnitude more irritating. Plus he chain-smokes when he's in a mood."
"A couple hundred?" Daniel asked, eyebrows arched. It wasn't that much weirder than most of the stuff he saw on a daily basis… and yet…
"Oh yeah, forgot to mention. He's a vampire," Xander said.
"Vampire, huh," Daniel said, feeling his heart beat faster. "That's different."
"Yeah," Xander said. Then he flashed Daniel the same slightly-crazy, laughing smile that Jack did every single time he got ready to shoot someone. "Well, Dr. Jackson," he said, sliding his glasses back up his nose and taking the wheel, "Welcome to my world."
Then he put the car in drive and floored it.