Chapter Three

Sam walked through the corridors in a daze. She was pale and shaken and it was obvious that she had been crying. She had just spent the last several hours in closed conference with General Hammond and Major Davis, learning that, not only was the world she knew not as comfortably explainable as she'd always believed, but her daughter, her daughter, had been the only thing keeping the monsters in the shadows where they belonged. She had been fighting virtually alone, with just the help of children still in school.

She was currently heading for the infirmary, barely paying attention to, much less acknowledging, anyone in her path. She had told Major Davis that, although this was a matter of security, this was also personal and about her child, and she needed to be able to talk to someone. Janet had been Sam's best friend since the brunette had first arrived at Stargate Command. It had always been Janet that Sam had turned to instead of the base psychologist, and she was the only one outside of then General that knew that Sam had a child. She had managed to convince the Major that Janet could and would keep this to herself.

Seeing that Janet was examining a member of SG-9, Sam went directly into her office without saying a word. She didn't know if the CMO had seen her, but she knew that Janet would eventually make her way in here and, until then, she could use the time to think.

"Sam? Sam??"

Sam jerked awake. She looked groggily into the soft brown hovering over her. "Janet?"

"Are you okay?" Her friend looked like the world was ending. Unfortunately, in their line of work, that could very well be true.

Sam shook the cobwebs from her head. Glancing out the open office door, she saw that the infirmary was empty. Remembering why she was haunting Janet's office instead of her own, she looked pleadingly at her friend. "Want to go for a hike with me after shift?"

Janet blinked, recognizing their signal that Sam needed to talk about something personal and private. "Sure." She answered, glancing at the clock on her desk. "My shift is over in about an hour."

Sam nodded. Taking a deep breath, she rose and left her friend's office. Making her way back to her own, she shut down the projects that she was working on, knowing that she would never be able to concentrate. Instead, she used the temporary access given to her by Major Davis and began downloading the classified files to her personal computer.

- - - BtVS - - SG-1 - - -

Buffy was still sitting on the deck, staring blanking over the ocean, when Willow found her early the next morning.

"Hey, Buffy, how was your night?" The witch asked. "Buffy?"

The blonde Slayer didn't respond, just kept staring out over the water. To the redhead, her friend looked like she was in shock. Dragging one of the other chairs around the table, she took Buffy's cold hand into her own.

"Buffy, what's wrong?" She asked, worriedly. "What's happened?"

"I got a visit from Whistler." Buffy said softly. "He had some news for me."

Willow knew about the balance demon from previous visits, so she knew that the news probably wasn't of the good. "What did he say? Do I need to turn him inside out?"

Buffy smiled at her best friend's vehemence. Even when things were strained between them, Willow had always been willing to go to bat for her. Then she sighed and her smile faded. Except for the one time she really needed it. Mentally shaking away those thoughts, she answered her friend. "He came with an apology from the Powers. They killed Mom. They didn't mean to, but when the memories of Dawn were inserted into her memories, it accidentally made the tumor in her head malignant."

"WHAT!!!"

"Don't tell Dawn, okay." Buffy whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It would kill her if she knew. Whistler said that it wasn't intended, and they actually apologized."

Willow abandoned her chair to squeeze in next to Buffy. Wrapping her friend in a tight hug, she cried with her over the death of the woman who'd practically adopted her and Xander all those years ago. "What else did he say?"

"I don't want everyone to know." Buffy wiped the tears from her eyes. "We need to get the Scoobies together, including Faith, without all the others."

Buffy took a few deep breaths to regain her composure. "So, how did your date go last night?"

Willow smiled. "It was nice. We went to dinner, then went dancing."

It was the tone of Willow's voice that alerted her. "What's wrong, Will? What happened?"

Willow shook her head. "It's probably nothing."

"If it's bothering you, then it's not nothing, Will." Buffy said firmly. "I'm your best friend, aren't I? We're supposed to talk about these things."

"Are we, Buffy?" The redhead's eyes were suddenly filled with tears. "After everything that's happened, are we still best friends?"

Buffy thought about that, hard. Being ripped out of heaven, Willow nearly destroying the world, the Scoobies turning their backs on her and throwing her out of her own house. Finally, the Slayer sighed, feeling again the anger from that night. "We've got some things to work out, but you'll always be my best friend, Willow. So, tell me what's wrong."

Willow fidgeted in her seat. "Well, all throughout dinner, Kennedy kept checking out other women in the restaurant as they passed our table. Not just, you know, noticing that a beautiful woman just walked by, because, I mean, everyone does that, even me. Kennedy was really eyeing them, practically undressing them with her eyes."

Buffy nodded for her to continue.

"I've only been with Oz, then Tara, you know. Neither of them ever did that when we went out. Is that usual?"

"I'm not really sure, Will." Buffy told her. "My dating experience is about the same as yours. First there was Angel, then Riley and finally Spike. I didn't exactly go out of 'dates' with any of them, remember. Do you think she was interesting in more than just looking?"

Willow shrugged. "I don't know. I just kinda felt like, when we first got together, we were in the middle of a fight for our lives, you know, and now, it's like, she's seeing that she has more choices than just me."

Buffy could not believe that she was about to say this but, Willow was her best friend, and she deserved happiness if she could find it. "Give her a chance, Will. She's young and this is probably the first serious relationship she's had. She may not realize how she's making you feel. Talk to her."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, actually I do."

"Thanks, Buffy." Willow said gratefully. "I know you don't like her."

"No, I don't." Buffy agreed. "But you didn't like Angel, so I think we're even."

Buffy reached over and hugged her friend, ignoring the pain that flared through her. "C'mon, let's get the others and go out for breakfast. This news isn't something that can be put off."

- - - BtVS - - SG-1 - - -

"So, is this about that meeting with General Hammond?" Janet started as they started up one of the less-traveled paths.

"Yeah." Sam sighed. "It's about my daughter."

Janet stopped mid-step, nearly falling over before she compensated and put her foot down. "What? Is she all right?"

"We're not sure. The town she was living in collapse into a sinkhole. It's been verified that she, Dawn and their friends made it as far as LA, but then they just disappeared."

Janet waited. That news, while not good, wasn't enough to have them come up this mountain.

"Major Davis brought the news." Sam continued after a moment. "He wanted to know if I had any idea why Buffy would be in the US Military Database under Presidential Security with a Security Clearance higher than Colonel O'Neill's."

For the second time in only ten minutes, Janet nearly landed face first on the path as she stumbled once again. "Umm, Sam, she can't be more than twenty-one or twenty-two. How can she have any of that?"

Sam's face twisted with angry self-recrimination. "Apparently, while I've jumping all over the fucking galaxy, my kid has been fighting for her life and everyone in the whole damn world every night for the last seven years."

As Sam began to explain, Janet sat down on a fallen log and pulled her friend down next to her. Sam told her about Buffy burning down her high school gym and resulting institutionalization, told her the explanation that Buffy had given that no one had believed. Joyce's divorce and decision to move to Sunnydale. Buffy running away one summer after a fight, but returning 3 months later. Buffy graduating high school and going to college.

Janet remembered when Sam had proudly shown her and Cassie Buffy's graduation picture. It had shown a smiling blonde with her arm wrapped a smiling redhead. Behind them with his arms hanging off of both girls' shoulder was a goofily grinning young man.

Then Sam told her friend what Major Davis had just told her. Janet listened in growing horror as Sam told her that the brightly smiling young woman in the picture, and her friends, had been fighting night after night, for the better part of the last decade, against monsters she'd seen only in horror movies and her own nightmares, at least the ones that she'd had before the Stargate Program.

Dying at 16.

Sending her boyfriend to Hell at 17.

Blowing up the High School at 18.

Destroying a military created monstrosity at 19.

Defeating a real God, not a Goa'uld impersonating at god, and dying, again, at 20.

Talking her best friend out of destroying the world at 21.

Now, apparently winning a battle that no one knew was happening, which resulted in the collapse of an entire town.

Janet listened to it all with interrupting. My God, she thought, and I thought Cassie's life was hard.