Chapter 7: Revealing the Slayer

A/N: It's finally happening, after a couple false tries. Gibbs learns about the supernatural and that the mother of his baby is a Slayer…albeit a semi-retired one. References 'Reptile Boy' from season 2 BtVS.

Challenge: #3064 'conception by conspiracy *non-stargate*' by shelli.

Thanks to my betas: zigpal and AshDawnSoulmates.

Disclaimer: BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. NCIS characters belong to Donald Bellisario, Don McGill and CBS Paramount Television. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.


NCIS Bullpen

A month later…

Buffy strolled (yup, in her mind, she was strolling, not waddling) into the bullpen, looking for Jethro- er, Gibbs since he was at work now, so they could go to lunch. Surprisingly, his team was all gone; not even a single one of them was in the area. She moved over to his desk to sit down; the baby was being especially annoying lately.

The last month since she and Jethro made with the smoochies was equal parts fantastic and frustrating as hell. On the plus side, now she knew where she stood with him, and vice versa. On the negative side, the doctor was concerned about how big she was getting and some other medical stuff, so he restricted her 'activities' until it was safe for her to deliver. That meant they were limited to smoochies only until after the baby was born.

Setting her purse down, Buffy accidentally hit the clicker thing that put case info up on the screen. She couldn't help it if her eyes were drawn to the autopsy photos that came up. Her blood froze in the few seconds it took for her to recognize what she was seeing. With trembling fingers, she grabbed her phone and speed-dialed Giles. "I need you to come to NCIS right away…and bring volume 37," she demanded.

"Volume 37? But isn't that the book on-" Giles' bewildered voice began to ask.

Buffy cut him off, remembering the momentary feeling of being helpless when she was chained to the wall, "Machida's back. Or somebody is trying to bring him/it back. Can it come back?" she started babbling nervously. In her condition, she wasn't sure she could fight that thing again.

"I'll be there as fast as I can," Giles promised.

After she hung up, Buffy stared at the four bodies with runes carved in them. Four of the seven sacrifices needed to summon Machida the first time. That meant they were over halfway through with the blood sacrifices, then the three live sacrifices – which happened seven days after the last blood sacrifice.

How did she know the details? Simple, the nightmares she had afterward forced her to do a little research on her own, which led her to studying the summoning requirements for the big snake guy that almost ate her, Cordy and that other girl her junior year. And these markings were identical to the ones in Volume 37.

On the chest, there was one large diamond in the center with two smaller ones placed on the side and slightly higher; on each arm, there was another small diamond; and finally, on the back, it was the same as the front, but with slightly smaller center diamond.

The former Slayer ran through the different possibilities in her mind:

She didn't really kill Machida. That wasn't likely since she chopped its head off.

Machida was a species of demon, not a name. She really hoped that wasn't the case.

The people trying to summon Machida didn't know it was dead and couldn't be summoned again. Not so good for the 10 people already murdered, but this was the best possibility she could think of.

She needed to meditate.

Well, actually, she needed to pound the heck out of something, but since that was out of the question at the moment, she was left with meditating. So she left a note on Gibbs' desk in case he came back and headed down to the gym.


NCIS Gym

Once she settled down, Buffy cleared her mind of all her worries. Then she let them back in, one by one, until she came to a rather startling – but kinda obvious – conclusion. She wasn't really worried about Machida…not really. If it really required a Slayer to handle, she could always call Chloe to come take care of it.

No, what she was scared of was having to tell Gibbs about the supernatural. She had promised herself long ago that when it came time to telling him about vamps and demons, she wouldn't lie about her being the Slayer – even if she wasn't going to be active anymore. That was doubly true now that they were becoming romantically involved.

Guess it was too much to hope for that she wouldn't have to come clean until after the baby was born. At least this wasn't happening around Halloween, which was last month; that would have just been lame, in her opinion. She would have had to beat up the people responsible even more for that. Well, if she were allowed to hit any of them.

But since it involved Marines and sailors, that meant NCIS was involved; and since NCIS was involved, that meant Jethro and his people were involved. And that meant she was screwed.

At least she had proof she wasn't insane. That had to help, right? She looked at her watch, seeing that Giles was probably near the Navy Yard, if he wasn't already there. So she'd better get changed and head back upstairs.


Conference room

Finishing up their presentation about Slayers and demons, Giles asked the stunned agents, "Any questions?" To his credit, he managed the words without so much as a smirk.

Buffy quickly added, "That aren't along the lines of 'Are you crazy?'"

"Shoot! I don't then," Tony muttered, looking around for any hidden cameras that he might not have known about before. This had all the earmarks of an Alan Funt skit.

Since nobody else was talking, Ducky inquired, "Why are you telling us this now?"

Biting her lip nervously, Buffy replied, "Because I think we have information important to your latest case; the one with the runes carved in bodies drained of blood?"

Morrow glanced at Gibbs, expecting him to ask the obvious follow-up question. When Gibbs didn't, he did, "How did you find out about that?"

Buffy held up her hands in self defense. "Totally by accident. When I put my purse on Gibbs' desk earlier, it flicked on that clicker thingy. I saw the runes and recognized them," she explained.

"Umm, I'm not sure how to ask you this without possibly upsetting you, but are you-?" Kate cut off abruptly when she realized there wasn't a tactful way to ask.

Which left it up to Tony to finish the question, "…Sure that this isn't some kind of pregnancy-induced delusion?"

"Yeah, 'cause that won't upset her," McGee muttered under his breath, even though he was grateful that Tony dealt with the elephant in the room. They were all forgetting that Giles did most of the talking, and he certainly wasn't pregnant.

Giles saw that his Slayer was trying to read Gibbs' expression, so she wasn't listening real closely to the conversation at the moment – although he knew that didn't mean she didn't hear it. Still, he answered for her, "Buffy has faced the creature these people are attempting to summon. The good news is that it appears that they will fail – seeing as how she killed Machida about three years ago."

Even though she wasn't sure she wanted the answer, Abby had to ask, "What's the bad news?"

"That four people, possibly five have died already," Buffy stated the obvious, having given up on Gibbs for the moment. "And there'll be seven total blood sacrifices. Not to mention the three live sacrifices that they probably already have chained up." When they still looked skeptically at them, she gestured to her Watcher and his book. "Giles, show them the passage on Machida; that should prove to them that we aren't just making this up."

Several minutes later, Kate rubbed her eyes to clear the images from the page that were burned in her brain now. Knowing they only saw the start of this thing bothered her more than she wanted to admit. "Wow. It's almost exactly what we've found already," she finally managed to say.

Morrow had other concerns to think about – like catching the bastards responsible. "Do you have any idea how we can stop the last three- what did you call them: blood sacrifices?"

Buffy didn't want to admit she wasn't sure, so she explained, "Umm, when I faced Machida before, it had already been successfully summoned before. My friend and I were just two of the three- uhh, maintenance sacrifices its followers had to make each year." Then she thought about the situation from a research standpoint and came up with something they could use to look for the right dwelling. "But based on what there was in that frat house, they needed a hole that was at least 50 feet deep, right, Giles?"

"That's correct," Giles concurred, then added, "And the followers had similar runes carved into their skin as well."

It was something to look for, so Tony offered, "So we should check for any reports of odd wounds."

She was pretty sure they had already thought about this, but Buffy suggested, "It's just a guess, but if all the victims were military, it could mean that the people behind it are too. You'd want to look for a group that values success to an extreme. I know that winning is important to all military types – for obvious reasons – but the guys who did this before had to be the best at everything they tried. We're talking uber-competitiveness here," she tried to impress on them just how competitive she meant. By their expressions, they understood.

"You won't mind helping us with this if we have any further questions, will you?" Morrow requested, glancing at Gibbs who still hadn't said a single word since their guests began their explanation earlier. Something was eating at him, but he holding back for the time being.

Giles answered for both of them, "Of course not, Director."

Buffy tried to catch Gibbs before he left the room, "Jethro? Gibbs?"

All he said to her before turning away was, "We have work to do."


The team finally located members of an elite group of Seals who were gearing up for a special assignment, and wanted to ensure that they'd be successful – not just for that assignment, but for their entire careers. Their justification for killing fellow servicemembers was that women wouldn't/shouldn't be serving in combat situations, so they weren't critical to the mission and were expendable.

Their CO was stunned that he had missed such a clear problem, but after looking into it a little more, the agents discovered that the team members involved were very careful to hide their plans from him or the others. One of the wives was into dark magick and suggested the idea to her husband, who passed it on until they had a consensus.

Despite the supernatural aspect, there was still enough evidence tying them to the murders and kidnappings to charge them. They'd never disgrace the uniform again in this lifetime.


Summers/Giles home

A couple nights later…

"Thought we should talk," Gibbs said without greeting, pushing past her to walk into the living room.

His cold attitude worried Buffy as she sat down on the couch. "Okay. So I take it you're upset about the Slayer thing," she stated more than asked.

The seemingly casual way she said it pissed him off even more, making him yell at her, "Ya think? Why didn't you tell me this before?"

Buffy kept looking at her hands, trying not to get emotional. She thought it wouldn't help if she started crying. She managed a fairly even voice when she answered, "Seeing as how it's not exactly the easiest thing to bring up, I just wanted to wait."

Still she was being calm, pushing him even more. "Until when? Some demon snatches our child? I told you about Shannon and Kelly, goddammit!" Gibbs shouted angrily.

"I'm sorry, Jethro, but telling me that your family was killed because of some drug dealer isn't the same thing as me telling you that everything you thought about good and evil is, at best, incomplete!" Buffy felt her control slip away from her, and she demanded to know, "If I didn't have hard evidence to back me up, what would you have thought?" When he didn't say anything, she shouted, "Exactly!"

Ironically, the fact she was getting angry calmed Gibbs down…a little. "You still should have found a way – especially after last month," he pointed out – not petulantly 'cause he would never be petulant.

She shrugged at the charge, knowing she should have. "Okay, so maybe you're right, but there isn't exactly precedence for telling the father of your child that you're a Slayer. I'm not even sure any Slayers have had kids before," she admitted. She and Giles hadn't found any evidence of recent Slayers and kids.

"Why wouldn't they?" he shouted, startling Buffy with his abrupt return to anger.

That made her shout back, "'Cause they're lucky to reach their 18th birthday!"

Gibbs looked like he had been punched in the gut. "You mean-?" he stopped, unable to finish the thought.

So Buffy completed it for him, "That I'm old for a Slayer? Yeah."

He stood up and walked to the door. When he got there, he turned back and said quietly, "I just don't know if I can trust you…not if you can keep something like this from me."


Once the door closed, Joyce and Giles came in from the other room, where they had been eavesdropping in case Buffy needed them to break things up if they got too ugly.

Seeing his Slayer cry, Giles asked, hoping to make her smile, if nothing else, "Do you want me to call up the others so we can make good on our threats?"

Buffy just shook her head despondently, "He's right; it's my fault for not telling him."

"Sweetie…just give him a little time to deal with this," Joyce suggested, hugging her baby tightly. "I didn't react all that well when you told me, but we eventually worked it out," she reminded Buffy of less happy times that turned out okay in the end. "Maybe he should know the trouble you've had telling people before; it might help him understand why you hesitated."

Curling into her mother's arms, Buffy whispered, "Thanks, Mommy. Maybe when he's cooled off. If I know him at all, he won't listen until he's calmed down a bit. Hopefully it won't take too long. I'd kinda like us to be talking to each other before the baby's born."


Somewhere that's elsewhere and elsewhen…

"Thank you, Mr. Haswari. As you requested, half the money is in your account already; the other half you'll get upon completion of your task," a voice said from the darkness.

Ari mentally rolled his eyes at the theatrics of these people. However, money was money, and he never turned down a challenging job. To make it even better, this would pit him against Leroy Jethro Gibbs again. He rolled his shoulder to relieve the phantom pain from where he was shot the previous year. This would be a perfect opportunity to see his old 'friend' again.

After the Mossad agent/Hamas terrorist exited the room, a second voice asked the first, "Shouldn't we have told him that she's a Slayer?"

"No," the first voice answered curtly, unaccustomed to being questioned by a subordinate. "If he knew about Slayers, he wouldn't risk getting close to her, and we want her drugged until she gives birth, not killed. If he doesn't know about Slayers, he would think we're madmen and not take the job."

A third voice entered the conversation at that point, "He's right; it's better this way. As an added bonus, if she happens to kill him, we'll have the proof we need she's dangerous, and the others will have to give us their support to drag her into custody."


A/N: Personally, I don't think that anyone who's in the Seal Program would do what these guys did. I hope that servicemembers won't be too angry with me for making them the bad guys.

A/N2: Next…Ari's folly.