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 story 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: This chapter, which take place between 'Uninvited' and '200' for SG-1, is exactly nineteen days after Sunnydale collapsed, just after Daniel's returned from England, where he's been researching information on Merlin and Morgan le Fay to try and find information about Merlin's anti-Ori weapon

The Ghost in the Team

As he strode back into his office following his recent research mission in England- a mission that, much to his annoyance, had failed to turn up anything useful to help them track Merlin's Anti-Ori Weapon- Daniel Jackson sighed in frustration as he saw the mail that had piled up on his desk during his absence.

There were times, he had to admit, when it felt as though paperwork was one of the few universal constants. In any society advanced enough to pose a threat to the Goa'uld or the Ori, but not yet advanced to the level of, say, the Ancients or the Asgard, there would always be paperwork of some kind to deal with, there would always be at least one idiot who wanted to acquire more power than he actually deserved to hold, and there would always some people who disagreed about how to use what they had for the good of the majority.

He was never entirely sure which one of the three was the most annoying, he had to admit; the latter two were definitely problematic, but the sheer amount of paperwork he had these days sometimes made him want to shoot himself. If he'd ever needed another reason to get frustrated at Vala's presence, it was the fact that her constant attempts to turn everything into a romantic encounter cut into the time he had available to deal with the paperwork for his department- and he didn't have that much time for it to start with.

Still, all in all, it didn't look like it was anything too bad awaiting him this time around; the staff in the department often went through his mail while he was away, removing any junk mail and leaving him with only those things that didn't look immediately important and seemed to be interesting (If bills came, of course, they sometimes offered to cover them themselves, a fact for which he was always grateful even if he always ended up giving them the money as soon as he learned about the bills). Shrugging off his remaining frustration at his inability to find anything useful in England or in Merlin's library on Camelot, Daniel sat down at his desk and began to study the paperwork.

It was at moments like this that he sometimes wondered how things would have gone if he'd accepted that job offer a couple of years before he joined the Stargate program. The man who'd approached him- a 'Quentin Travers', he recalled the name had been- hadn't really given him much information about the organisation he called the 'Watchers' Council', but had told Daniel that it had access to a great deal of knowledge that most of the world had no idea even existed; the chances were good that they might have had something about Merlin and Morgan le Fay that would have helped his current problem.

At the time, of course, Daniel had just rejected the job offer, politely but firmly making it clear that he wasn't interested in working with the 'Council'. He'd been tempted by the possibilities the job seemed to include according to Travers' description, of course- what archaeologist wouldn't have been interested in access to historical knowledge?- but when he'd learned that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone outside the 'Council' about the knowledge in question, he'd turned the offer down. As far as he was concerned, if knowledge couldn't be shared with the rest of the world, there wasn't much point in having access to it, and he refused to join an organisation that actively encouraged the suppression of knowledge.

OK, so the knowledge he gained in the Stargate program wasn't exactly accessible to the general public, but at least it was being used by some people to improve Earth, even if it was mostly in secret; nothing Travers had told him suggested the Watchers' Council did anything with their information other than keep an eye on it. After all, it was thanks to the knowledge gained on their travels through the Stargate that Earth had acquired the knowledge and technology that enabled their scientists to construct such ships as the Prometheus and the Daedelus, to say nothing of the F-302s and their predecessors.

The information gained by the Stargate may not be public yet, but at least it was being used, no matter that its use was secret, to help the world. Besides, whatever else happened, Daniel could be quietly confident that, some day, the knowledge gained by the Stargate would be available for all to use. Maybe not any day soon- the threat the Ori posed to the galaxy was still a prominent issue, and it would hardly be a good idea to expose humanity as a whole to the knowledge that a bunch of beings on the higher planes of reality were trying to conquer the galaxy- but, maybe after the Ori were gone…

Well, he was part of the Stargate Program rather than the Watcher's Council now, and he couldn't start wishing that things had turned out differently. The situation was as it was; he'd just have to make do with the resources he had available to him and hope for the best.

It was about half way through the pile that Daniel came across a particularly intriguing-looking piece of mail. It was a relatively large brown envelope with a distinctive bulge in the centre, as though it was holding something large, with the table on the front saying simply "Dr Daniel Jackson, C/O Stargate Command". Attached to the envelope was a smaller, white envelope, held onto the main package with sellotape, and "PRIVATE- for the eyes of DOCTOR JACKSON ONLY" written on one side in thick black pen. Attached to the envelope was a Post-it note from one of his staff, saying "Found under your door while you were gone; scans show only a disc-shaped artefact; seems to be harmless; nothing remarkable about the letter; left for you to open."

His curiosity piqued, Daniel pulled the white envelope off the main package and, picking up the letter opener, tore it open and, standing up and walking around to the front of the desk to get better access to the main light, began to read the hastily scribbled letter; evidently, whoever had written it had been somewhat pressed for time for some reason, making the writing rather hard to read if he was just sitting on his desk (His reading lamp had apparently been broken during that incident with Ba'al's clones while he'd been away).

To Dr Jackson

We have never met, but I have heard much of you and your colleagues on SG-1; I was once approached about a position in the SGC, but declined for personal reasons. However, I have kept up-to-date with the files on your project, and retain the necessary security clearance to regularly access any information on the threats currently faced by your Program.

On a recent clean-up mission, I have discovered something that I believe may prove beneficial to you in your current crisis. Should you seek further information regarding the contents of this package, contact the NID and ask for the contact details of Agent R Finn, formerly of the DRI; I will be available to answer any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

R Finn.

The DRI? Daniel asked himself, raising a puzzled eyebrow as he stared at the writing before him. What's that all about?

He vaguely recalled reading something about the DRI in one of the files that had been received about the NID- it was some kind of sub-division of the NID, relegated to their command despite the fact that they'd been around since World War Two, the reasoning being something about the threats the NID had to deal with being more immediate problems than what was regularly tackled by the DRI- but he couldn't recall what the name stood for, nor what their connection had been to the NID. He couldn't even remember what it was that the DRI had been created to deal with in the first place; he couldn't even be sure that the original file he'd read about their existence had even said what the DRI were created to investigate in the first place.

AN: Should anyone wish clarification, the DRI- Demon Research Initiative- was the original name for the Initiative (The demon-hunting organisation that featured heavily in Season 4 of Buffy) when it was set up during World War Two, as revealed in the Angel episode 'Why We Fight' during flashbacks to a time when Angel was forcible recruited by the group to recover a sunken German U-boat that had been stolen by American forces; as a vampire, he was the only person who could cope with the conditions that far down under the sea. I'm assuming that 'Demon Research Initiative' is still its full, official name in the government on paper, but people generally shortened it to 'the Initiative' because it was cooler than just DRI (After all, it could prompt a selection of bad jokes about drivers, when you think about it).

Still, he couldn't deny that the information in the letter added to his curiosity about the contents of the main envelope. If this 'R Finn' had indeed kept up-to-date with information on the problem that currently faced the Stargate program, and at least thought that he'd discovered something that could help them against the Ori, they were in no position to turn down even the slightest chance of an advantage. Even if it turned out to be nothing, it could help point them in the right direction to find out something more about how to battle the Ori; given their present inability to discover anything about Merlin's Anti-Ori weapon, any kind of progress would be good right about now.

Picking up the letter opener once again, Daniel picked up the envelope and sliced it cleanly open, tilting it upside down as he moved one hand underneath the envelope to catch the contents. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to remove the letter-opener from his other hand, and, as a result, when he attempted to catch the contents of the envelope as it fell into his hand- an amulet with an unknown gem in the centre, apparently meant to be worn around the neck, with writing around it that he couldn't quite make out- he wasn't able to catch it due to the brief surprise caused by the letter-opener's presence, and ended up dropping both objects onto the floor.

Sighing slightly at his own clumsiness- it reminded him too much of the early days before Jack and Sam had managed to give him some lessons in using guns at sort notice, when he'd worried about being a liability on SG-1's missions in a fight- Daniel moved to pick it up, but stopped as the amulet suddenly began to glow a brilliant orange colour. As soon as he'd registered the glow in question, Daniel backed up anxiously as fast as he could go; in his experience, any time a gem-like object glowed, somebody was inevitably meant to get hurt somehow, and he'd rather not find out what this 'gem' was meant to do first-hand.

He'd only just made it to the door, his eyes fixed on the amulet all the while in case something happened, when suddenly a miniature… tornado was the only word he could find, even if the mental image conjured up by that word was of something much larger… of black particles appeared above the amulet, swirling rapidly around as the remaining papers on his desk shook and rustled as though the wind had suddenly picked up inside his office.

As Daniel stared at the tornado before him in confusion, the papers and remaining envelopes on his desk caught up in the disturbance it had created, the energy in question began to dissipate, revealing what started out as a badly burned human skeleton before it literally seemed to heal itself. Before Daniel's eyes, the skeleton's flesh began to knit itself back together, its muscles bulging out as they returned to full health, clothes spreading out to cover the flesh as the body beneath them became healthy once again, a loud scream of pain suddenly mixing in with the noise caused by the tornado itself as the process reached a point where the subject's vocal chords could work once again.

Finally, the scream faded as the process seemed to complete itself, revealing the healthy form of a fully-grown human male, apparently in his mid to late twenties. The man was dressed in a long leather coat that came down to around his knees, dark trousers, and a tight black T-shirt. His hair was an unnaturally pale shade, almost white, and slicked back, and a small scar adorned his left eyebrow. As soon as his last injury had healed itself- a rather unpleasant-looking hole in his right cheek- the man stopped screaming and leaned forward, seemingly gasping for breath as he stared around himself in confusion and shock.

"Uh… hello?" Daniel said, after a moment's pause had made it clear that his strangely-arrived visitor wasn't going to start a conversation at the moment.

Apparently only just realising that there was somebody else in the room with him, the man looked up at Daniel in confusion, shock evident on his face as he stared at the archaeologist.

"Wh-what the bloody hell happened to me?" he said, looking at Daniel in an almost imploring manner; a part of Daniel noted the speaker's lower-class British accent with no small amount of surprise, but decided now wasn't the time to ask about it. "A-And who the hell are you?"

"Uh… I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson," Daniel replied, trying to look as though he had at least some control over the situation currently facing him, rather than being just as in the dark as the man seemed to be. "I received an envelope with an amulet in it, and when I opened it… well, you appeared."

Remembering the letter that had accompanied the package in question, Daniel decided to try another line of enquiry just in case. "Just to make sure… you wouldn't happen to know an 'R Finn', would you?"

"Finn?" the man yelled, staring incredulously at Daniel, his initial confusion now apparently replaced with anger. "You saying Captain Cornfed did this to me? That bloody-!"

"No, I only asked because-" Daniel began, but he and the man both stopped at the shock of what happened next; in his sudden rage, the man had lashed out at the nearest object in the room- one of the chairs Daniel kept in his office- with a powerful kick, and his leg had just passed right through the chair.

Daniel and the man both blinked in surprise at that, silence reigning in the room for a moment before the man looked up at Daniel in shock and confusion.

"Bugger," he said, his voice low as he walked over to the chair to stand- literally- in it, staring at the place where his legs passed through the chair as though waiting for them to become solid or wanting some kind of evidence that this wasn't actually happening. When nothing showed signs of happening, the man look back at Daniel, an almost scared expression on his face as he wrapped his arms around himself in an almost pathetic-looking self-hug.

"Am- am I in Hell?" he whispered, his eyes wide and pleading in a manner that almost reminded Daniel of the look he'd seen in the mirror shortly after his parents had died.

He was grateful that, in this instance, he was able to give this man- whoever he was- the answer that he wanted to hear.

"Uh… no," he said, shaking his head. He nearly raised his arm to give the man a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but stopped himself in time; having his hand go through this guy right now wouldn't do anything to help the situation they were in right now. "Generally, there's meant to be more fire and brimstone- if Sokar's attempts to create his own version were anything like the reality of it, that is."

"Uh… what?" the man said, staring at Daniel in confusion. "Sokar? What are you talking about?"

Daniel cursed slightly at his own foolishness; he'd grown so used to people in the SGC already knowing about the Goa'uld that he'd forgotten that this man wasn't a normal visitor and had apparently no idea what the Stargate was. Sighing, he took a deep breath, looked at the man uncertainly for a moment or two, and then nodded in quiet resolution.

"Look, could you just… come with me?" he said, indicating the door to his office in a slightly hesitant manner. "It's just… well, I'm as confused about all this as you are, trust me… but I think I know someone who might be able to help figure out what's… well, what happened to you."

The man looked uncertainly at Daniel for a moment, as though trying to decide whether he could trust the man before him or not, prompting Daniel to continue speaking. "I'll try and answer any questions you have about… well, where you are and how you got here… but I think we'd both prefer to know the how and why of whatever happened to you before we have to deal with those issues."

The man simply continued to stare at him for a moment, and then, after a few moments of hesitation, nodded grimly.

"All right, fine," he said, nodding grimly as he studied the office once more before heading for the door. "After all, I'm not going to bloody well drop in on Buffy before I can say what the sodding hell's happened to me after that whole bloody mess…"

Whether more was said after that, Daniel couldn't be sure, as it was during that sentence that the man walked through his door- literally through the door; he'd shut it when he'd originally entered his office- and, as a result, what else he might have said was unknown to Daniel. Sighing slightly, Daniel opened his door and, after quickly glancing around, saw the 'man' walking down another corridor. After making sure there was nobody around he needed to explain the man's presence to at the moment, Daniel hurried after his spectral visitor, slowing down as he finally caught up with the non-corporeal blond.

"Uh… who's Buffy?" he asked, looking curiously at the amulet's apparent 'passenger' as the two men fell into step; the man still seemed to be moving slightly faster than Daniel, but he nevertheless seemed content to follow Daniel's lead.

"Love of my un-life," the leather-clad man replied simply, looking at the archaeologist with an expression that made it clear he wasn't going to answer any further questions about the matter.

Of course, Daniel wasn't going to leave it at that for long- if nothing else, he wouldn't mind knowing what his strangely intangible visitor meant by the phrase 'un-life'- but, for the moment, he was prepared to leave it and focus on the more immediate matter of working out what had happened to the man to leave him in this condition in the first place.

Still, his words definitely left Daniel with something to think about…