Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this series came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Considering certain details, I feel I should go on record to clarify that I'm operating on the assumption that the events of the Buffy/Angel crossover novel 'Monster Island' took place in this world, thus accounting for Angel's team recognising Spike. Also, you'll probably recognise where this takes place in Angel's timeline by the time the chapter concludes, but let me know if you want clarification on anything else

The Old One

Walking out of the elevator into the main office, Spike was left with further doubts about the accuracy of his source; this place looked far too modern for Angel to be in charge (His grandsire might not live in a crypt, but he wasn't exactly comfortable with modern technology either).

OK, so the guy on the ground floor had confirmed that 'Mr Angel' was in his office on this level, but that really didn't mean much…

"Blondie-Bear?" a familiar voice said from behind him.

"Wha- Harmony?" Spike yelled, turning to stare in shock at the blonde vampire sitting behind the reception desk; of everyone he'd expected to recognise in this place, this ex hadn't even made the list. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I work here," Harmony said, looking pointedly at him. "What the hell are you doing here, Spike… and what's with these guys?"

"Oh, we work with him," Vala said, walking up to Harmony with a smile as she held out a hand. "Vala Mal Doran; I'm dating Spike."

"Dating?" Harmony repeated.

"Uh… like Spike said, we work with him," Daniel said, looking apologetically at the blonde vampire, evidently wanting to get the conversation away from that issue. "I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson, and this is Colonel Samantha Carter; we need to speak to Angel about… well, it's complicated."

"Colonel?" Harmony repeated, looking at Sam in surprise before she turned to Spike. "You're working with-"

"They're not with Captain Cardboard's old crew, Harm… and I'm not talking to you about this, so could you just let us in?" Spike asked, indicating the door just as it opened to reveal Angel, dressed in a dark suit and shirt, staring at him in surprise.

"Spike?" he said, looking incredulously at the other vampire. "You're alive?"

"Have been for a bit now… well, as alive as we ever get, anyway," Spike said, smiling slightly at his grandsire before he shrugged and indicated his new associates. "Anyway, me and my team here need to talk with you for a bit 'bout something; can we come in?"

"Uh… OK," Angel said, clearly bemused at Spike's manner even as he stepped aside to let him into the office.

On reflection, Spike supposed that he couldn't blame Angel for being surprised at his attitude; the time was that he and his grandsire would have started exchanging verbal if not physical blows the moment they were in the same room, and here he was, showing up with three strangers and no sign that he wanted a fight.

"OK," he said, looking curiously at the other vampire as Angel closed the door of his office, "first things first; what the hell is Harmony doing as your secretary?"

"That was Wes's idea," Angel said, shaking his head slightly at the memory. "He thought that I'd… appreciate a familiar face."

"You met Harm?" Spike asked.

"She showed up here a few years ago and tried to work with the agency before selling us out to a vampire pyramid scheme," Angel said.

"A vampire pyramid scheme?" Sam repeated, looking at Angel in confusion. "How would that work?"

"One vampire turns two people and captures at least one more person for the group's blood bank," Angel clarified, before looking at Sam in confusion. "And who are you?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter," Sam replied, smiling politely at Angel. "These are my… teammates, Doctor Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran; Spike's become a member of our team since he joined us."

"Since he… joined you?" Angel said, shaking his head before he looked at Spike. "OK, first things first, how are you still alive? Buffy… she told me that you were destroyed using that amulet…"

"I was," Spike said, shrugging slightly. "Don't know how, but somehow the thing just absorbed me until it spat me out as a ghost after it was delivered to these sods by Captain Cardboard-"

"Riley sent you to the military?" Angel interjected, eyes widening in surprise. "I knew you two didn't get on, but-"

"Actually, Major Finn just intended to send us the amulet because he… thought we might find it useful," Sam interrupted. "I'd explain more, but you'd need to sign some confidentiality forms before you're cleared to hear all that."

"Confidentiality forms?" Angel repeated.

"Trust me, they're serious 'bout their paperwork back at base," Spike said. "I was aware of their secrets for ages before I got my body back, and they still made me sign all of the damn things once I could…"

"Got your body back?" Angel said, shaking his head in confusion as he focused his attention back on Spike. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, when I first got out of the amulet I was in some kind of weird intangible state- spent a lot of time walking through walls and occasionally hitting stuff- but managed to get past that after some whole… thing happened that I can't talk about," Spike said, shrugging as he looked at his grandsire. "Like I said, it's a whole complicated story that they're not authorised to tell you without the right paperwork; all you need to know right now is that they deal with some weird stuff without repeating Cornfed's mistake of thinking they know it all already."

"I… see," Angel said, looking sceptically at Spike for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, you may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I doubt you'd fall for the same stunt twice."

"Twice?" Daniel asked.

"Spike was captured by the Nazis in 1943 with claims of a free virgin blood party," Angel answered, smiling slightly at the memory. "They were going to use him as part of demon-related experiments before the Americans captured the sub he was on and I helped them get it back to port-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but I just have to clarify something," Vala said, looking at Spike in surprise. "You fell for a story like that?"

"I had a… very interesting life, but I wasn't always the sharp one of the bunch," Spike said, shrugging awkwardly at Vala before he looked back at Angel. "And talking of interesting lives… where's Buffy?"

"Europe, last I heard," Angel replied, looking probingly at Spike. "And if you're-"

"I'm not goin' after her," Spike interrupted.

"You're not?" Angel said, confusion overshadowed by surprise at that news.

"Had some time to think while I was away, and… well, I like to think I've moved on a bit," Spike said, smiling slightly awkwardly at Angel; a century of habit was rebelling against him even being this open with his grandsire, but at the same time he knew that this had to be said. "You tell anyone else I told you this and I'll deny it 'til the cows come home, but when I was here during that whole thing with the Coalition… you made a good point when we were talkin' after you nearly got flash-fried by that Axtius bloke's trap and you accused me of wantin' to be you."

"I did?" Angel said, looking at his grandchilde in surprise. "And you admit it?"

"Like I said, I'll deny it if you talk 'bout it outside these walls, but you were right; everything I did since bein' turned was done because I wanted to beat you at your own game," Spike said, lost for anything better to say as he looked at his fellow vampire. "These last few months, though… well, I'm not sayin' anything about them until I can, but I'll just tell you know that I've made an interestin' life for myself since I ended up workin' with these guys, and I'm not goin' to mess that up by trying to dig into a past that'll never be what I really wanted."

"Oh," Angel said, lost for anything better to say. "That's… surprisingly mature of you."

"I've been through a lot," Spike said, before his eyes narrowed. "By the way, what are you even doin' here? Last time I checked, Wolfram & Hart represented most of the evil on this plane; what are you doing in charge of it?"

"Actually, I'm just in charge of this branch," Angel explained. "And to answer your question, the original staff were all killed by a particularly powerful demon and we were offered control of the firm after we ended world peace."

"You ended world peace?" Daniel repeated in surprise.

"It was world peace at the cost of slavish loyalty to a former higher power who ate a dozen or so people a day and rendered humanity incapable of doing anything more than worshipping her all the time," Angel clarified as he looked firmly at the archaeologist. "Maybe people weren't being forced into anything, but I wasn't going to let humanity lose free will just because it was easier."

"Ah," Sam said, shaking her head as she looked contemplatively at Angel. "And I thought we dealt with some weird things…"

"For what it's worth, I'm sure we all agree with you," Daniel said.

"And considering that this guy was briefly trusted with the power and knowledge of Merlin, I think we can agree he's a good egg," Spike added.

"Merlin?" Angel said.

"That's… a complicated story," Daniel said, shrugging as he looked at the vampire. "Anyway, we had another reason for being here; we wondered if you knew anything about someone called 'Doyle'?"

"Doyle?" Angel repeated, looking sharply at Daniel. "What do you mean?"

"Few weeks ago, some long-haired git dressed like an urban cowboy showed up, claiming that he wanted to talk to me about my destiny and asking me to meet him in this city," Spike explained. "He claimed to have tried to make me corporeal again with a spell he'd sent me in a cardboard box a while back- stupid sod thought I'd go along with his suggestions because he claimed he'd been tryin' to help me- and wanted me to ditch what I was doing to go along with what he expected."

"And you weren't interested, I take it?" Angel asked, smiling slightly as he looked at the other vampire.

"Aside from the fact that the sod hadn't really done anything to help me, Danny here was currently AWOL after being abducted by a psychopath with religious-related delusions," Spike answered, indicating the archaeologist with a slight smile. "Guy'd been a big help to me while I was settling into the team; I wasn't about to just leave him hanging out there if there was anything I could do to get him back…"

He shrugged. "Point is, now that Danny's back and things are wrapped up- again, something you'll need to fill in those forms to learn more about- I wondered if you had any idea what Doyle was talking about?"

"You said that this… 'Doyle'… wanted you to come to Los Angeles to help people?" Angel asked, looking thoughtfully at Spike.

"Seemed to be leading up to that point," Spike confirmed. "Why?"

"Is this him?" Angel asked, tapping a few quick keys on his computer and turning it around to reveal what seemed to be a staff photograph for a 'Lindsey McDonald'.

"Yeah…" Spike said, suddenly looking suspiciously at Angel. "He works for you?"

"Actually, he worked for Wolfram & Hart about three years ago," Angel replied, smiling slightly at the memory. "He was basically the company's golden boy until he became disillusioned with some of their more ruthless policies; he went off to go find himself, and I never knew what happened to him until he came back a few months ago trying to sabotage my position here. He ended up trying to unleash some kind of monster that the Senior Partners had set up in case I proved too difficult to control a couple of weeks ago, but we defeated him and destroy the protective sigils he was using to shield himself from the Senior Partners; last time I saw him, he had been taken by the Senior Partners to be interrogated about his actions."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding in understanding. "Well… that makes sense."

"So… why would he call himself 'Doyle'?" Sam asked.

"Doyle was the name of a friend of mine back when I started living here," Angel explained, his expression suddenly grim. "He had visions of people in trouble, until he sacrificed himself to save a ship full of half-demons from a group of demon supremacists known as the Scourge; I'm guessing that Lindsey was trying to get you to supplant me as the vampire champion so that the Senior Partners would think they'd made a mistake putting me in charge; from what he said when I found him, he was just angry that I'd basically been handed everything he'd tried so hard to get on his own."

"And he thought seeing me be you would help him do that?" Spike asked.

"That's… an indirect way of mounting an attack," Daniel noted.

"That was Lindsey for you," Angel said with a shrug. "He tended to avoid direct action until he had to."

"But the important thing is that he's gone and Spike doesn't have to worry about him any more?" Vala asked.

"Unlikely," Angel said, nodding briefly at her before he looked curiously at the other three. "So… you work for the government, you know that Spike's a vampire… and you're just… OK with that?"

"It's been a strange adjustment, but we concluded that he… offered some advantages that we couldn't easily overlook," Sam explained, shrugging slightly at Angel. "I'd give you more, but like I said, what we do is highly classified-"

"Get medical!" someone suddenly yelled from the hall outside. "Someone get medical NOW!"

As Angel ran out of his office to investigate the source of the yell, their current conversation clearly forgotten in favour of this new matter, the other four only needed a moment's glance before they were following the vampire. It was easy enough to identify the source of the distressed call; a man who seemed be slightly younger than Daniel was crouched half-way up a set of stairs, holding a convulsing young brunette in his arms as a man with green skin and red horns stared anxiously at them.

"Fred?" Angel said, looking anxiously at the young woman as he crouched down beside the two. "Wes, what happened?"

"I-I don't know," the man- 'Wes'- said, looking shakily up at Angel. "She said that she inhaled mummy dust earlier, but medical said she was fine…"

"Mummy dust?" Daniel repeated, looking curiously at the other man. "From what?"

"I-I don't…" Wes began, before he looked up and seemed to realise that he didn't know who this new arrival was. "Who are-?"

"He's with me," Spike said, nodding briefly at Wes as he joined the group. "Wes, this is Doctor Daniel Jackson, brilliant archaeologist; you got any kind of mummy, odds are he's read about it and can take a look-"

"We'll talk about what you're doing here later, Spike," Wes said, glaring briefly at the vampire before he picked Fred up in his arms and began to run back up the stairs and along another corridor, the purpose in his manner making it clear that he was heading for the aforementioned medical division.

"Angelcakes, what's-?" the green man began.

"Later, Lorne," Angel said, before he turned to Daniel. "You as good as Spike said you are?"

"Yes," Daniel said, nodding at the other vampire.

"Lorne, take Doctor Jackson here to the science lab so that he can check out that sarcophagus," Angel said, before he looked at Spike, Vala and Sam. "For the moment, you're staying with me until we can sort this out; clear?"

"You can't think we-?" Vala began.

"I don't," Angel said, looking over at Spike as Daniel and Lorne departed for the lab. "No offence, but even if you were lying about everything you've been doing to try and catch me off-guard, you wouldn't be this indirect about attacking me."

"Thanks… I guess," Spike said, before he shrugged slightly as he looked at Angel. "That said, I take it you want us to stay close to stop anyone accusing us of anything?"

"Considering what you were up to the last time you were in my city, that's probably for the best," Angel said, before he turned to look at the two women. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about this."

"We understand," Sam said, nodding in acknowledgement at Angel before she looked up the stairs after Wes and the girl.

Spike may still be new to the team, but he and Sam had spent enough time together in that other reality for him to know what she was thinking right now; regardless of the confidentiality issues, if there was anything that they could do to save that girl, they were going to do it.