Chapter 9

Turning away from Xander, Colonel Jack O'Neill looked towards General Hammond as the alarm reached a crescendo and restarted.

Hammond met Jack's gaze and stood from his chair before saying, "First we should figure out what's going on."

He then led the group to the security office a few doors down from them. Upon entering the room, Sg-1 and co. were greeted by two exteremly anxious and confused servicemen.

"What's the situation," Hammond demanded before Jack had the opportunity.

"Umm… we're not sure," one of the men sitting at the monitors in front of them said, quivering slightly when he noticed to whom he as speaking. "Something broke through from the surface. Base security went to confront it, but every team that's met it had gone silent."

"What're we dealing with here?" Jack asked, leaning in to get a better view of the security monitors. The screens showed a black and white display of a few servicemen in defensive positions in a base hallway. Jack knew what they were supposed to be, but on the monitors they were barely distinguishable from pixelated blobs. He really felt like a top secret government base should be supplied with better cameras.

"There's no way it's human," the second guard spoke up, interrupting Jack's musings. "It moves so fast. It's just a blur and then the men fall down."

As Jack puzzled at the explanation, basically exactly that played out on the monitor before him. A blurry, pixelated thing crossed into the view of the camera and collided with one of the pixelated servicemen. Then he collapsed. The others attempted to raise their weapons at the blur, but it was on them too fast and they couldn't even fire for worry of shooting each other.

Watching that scene play out, Jack bit his lip. "Whatever it is, we can't let it get to the gate," he declared. Summoning a grim determination, Jack grabbed one of the Zats hung on the back wall. Then he left the room before the General or his teammates could talk him out of it.

Free from the confines of the dark security office, Jack was running down one of the base's hallways, headed towards the entrance. Whatever the intruder was, it didn't seem to know the base. However, if he just kept moving towards the top levels, eventually their paths should cross.

As Jack considered that, he finally noticed a set of footsteps echoing through the hallway directly behind him. When he turned to look, he found Xander's eye-patched face looking back at him. The boy was keeping pace with Jack and he held his own Zat in his right hand.

"The rest of your team should be headed to the armory," Xander answered Jack's unasked question.

"Then I guess we'll have to hold the line until we get there," Jack responded with a smile.

"I don't think I'm qualified for that," Xander declared, showing his own grin. "I'm a civilian contractor. The best I can do is prop up the line."

"Then that'll have to do," Jack replied, turning back to face forward.

After the two moved up three flights of stairs, they could hear brief bursts of gunshots which all came to abrupt ends. Shifting their direction slightly, they headed for that sound. A few seconds later, they started to hear thuds and groans as men were seemingly being thrown into walls and slammed into the floor.

Jack quickened his pace and Xander followed suit. Then they rounded a corner and saw it… her. A girl. She couldn't be older than twenty five. She had brown, shoulder length hair and was wearing depressingly unpractical shoes. That alone would make her a curiosity on a secret military base. Add in the fact that she was currently holding up a 200 lbs. serviceman by his collar and even Jack had to be taken aback.

Before Jack could decide she was the tenth Goa'uld to be secretly hiding on earth, Xander stepped forward and called out, "Faith…?"

That drew the woman's attention and, as soon as she met Xander's eye, she echoed the sentiment. Taking two steps towards them, she muttered, "Xander?"

Looking alternately between the two, it was obvious there was some kind of history. For the time being, however, safe was better than sorry. In a long practiced motion, Jack readied the zat and pulled the trigger. After the blue flow of electricity struck the girl, it traversed her body a few times before she finally collapsed onto the floor.

Opening her eyes, Faith found herself in a small concrete room dominated by what was certainly a one-way mirror and a single metal table with three chairs. It wasn't her first time sitting at such a table. It wasn't her first time having her hands cuffed to said table. However, this time she wasn't there for anything illegal… well, not for anything bad-guyish at least.

"I see you're up. Feeling all right?" The grey-haired gentleman sitting across from her asked when he saw her moving. He was handsome enough and wore a gentile smile that had a charming quality to it. Of course, all of that was blown away by the uniform he was wearing. No way she would trust someone from the government. Especially in this situation.

For a moment, Faith weighed her options. She had a lot of them, in spite of her situation. That had been a fundamental fact for most of Faith's life. She always made sure to have a lot of options. In this specific instance, though, she was only here for one reason. May as well focus on that first.

"Where's Xander?" She demanded, narrowing her eyes to give him a glare. This was the look that always made vamps and the literal type of horny men all cower. Normal dudes, on the other hand, only ever responded with a bemused smile. Good for getting the drop on them, but not good for getting information. Not without breaking a few of their teeth first… that was probably a thought she wasn't supposed to have anymore.

"He had a bit of an accident," Mr. Smiley answered, neither showing her fear or bemusement. Merely continuing to grin at her. "You know how slippery stairs can get sometimes."

"If anyone were to fall and break their hip, I would've guessed it be you," Faith responded, crossing her arms and leaning back as far as her restraints would let her.

The smile slowly faded from the man's face and he leaned forward to stare straight into her eyes before saying, "Has anyone ever taught you that words can hurt?"

For a moment, Faith's mind went blank. Up until this point, she'd never met a fed or G.I. or whatever that wasn't entirely predictable. In fact, most people were entirely predictable.

"I'm not that old," the old man continued, leaning back once again. "Still in the prime of my life."

"If you're in your prime, would that make me a newborn?" Faith asked catching up with the conversation on her second attempt.

"You're just being mean for no reason at this point," the man decried in mock dejection.

"I have plenty of reasons."

"Daddy issues?"

"I'm an ex-con and a high school dropout," Faith declared with a roll of her eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think this is starting to sound familiar… except the ex-con part… or the high school dropout thing." He frowned at himself before lamely finishing, "I guess it's the same in spirit?"

"You've lost me," Faith declared, unfolding her arms to run her fingers through her hair.

As the man was about to respond, the room's door was flung open and Xander easily stepped into the room asking, "Did I miss anything?"

"The third step," the man answered without a moment's thought.

"I didn't miss it! Something tripped me!" Xander cried out, flailing his one ambulatory arm.

"You tripped yourself, kid."

Faith looked over this interaction curiously. Xander still seemed to be in one piece, at least. Well, there was the eye. Plus, he was in a cast, but he had a habit of breaking himself since long ago. Besides, his head seemed about as functional as it normally was. Though that wasn't saying much.

Having finished his exchange with the older man, Xander slowly turned towards Faith. Suddenly, he felt a lot less self-assured and a lot more awkward. He refused to make eye contact, slightly raising his working arm in a wave before saying, "Hey, Faith. How ya doin'?"

"Not the best," Faith answered, raising her wrists to show of the restraints.

"To be fair, you did break into a military base," Xander responded sheepishly. "That wasn't the best of ideas."

"And who's fault was that, do you think?"

"…I guess there aren't a lot of reasons for you to bust into a mountain in Colorado Springs."

"Nah, I just wanted to stay up on my fashion." Faith shot back sarcastically. "Get myself one of those bitchin green shirts."

"I could get you one if you want," Xander attempted with a smile.

Faith responded with a cold glare.

Xander sighed and turned to back to the older man. "Jack, could we have some privacy?"

"Relationship drama?" the man asked with a mocking grin. "You know, I can… I'm really not qualified at all to help you with that, actually."

"I was thinking more super-secret discussions," Xander responded calmly.

The man gave a light chuckle at the phrasing. Then a light of understanding flashed in his eyes and he nodded before standing and saying, "I'll see what I can do for you."

"Thanks," Xander replied, watching as the man left the room.

Once they were alone, Xander walked over to one of the chairs and quickly dragged it to a corner of the small room. Standing on top of it, he reached up to fiddle with the camera above him. After a few seconds of smooth and self-assured work, he stopped and let his hand fall back to his side.

"They always unplug them in the movies. When they're like going to have a secret talk of something," Xander gave Faith a helpless look as he spoke. Then he turned his gaze back up to the camera before adding, "That's really wired in there. I don't think there're any plugs at all."

"It's when they're going to beat people that they unplug the cameras," Faith observed slowly.

"So you think they have special beating rooms where they can be unplugged?" Xander asked hopefully. "Should we go ask for a transfer?"

Faith simply raised one eyebrow in response.

Seeing that, Xander hurriedly waved his hand in front of him, saying, "Not that I was planning on… obviously…"

As Xander struggled to defend himself, the lights in the room suddenly switched off, leaving them in darkness. Then, the one-way mirror became a lot less mirrored as the lights in the room behind it flipped on.

Inside the newly visible room stood the grey haired man alone. He gave a couple waves. Then he leaned forward to press the intercom. "I've turned off the camera," he declared loudly.

"'Kay, Thanks," Xander shouted back at the glass. Then he hopped off the chair, dragged it back to the table, and took a seat. "So… What're you doing here?" he asked, still visibly uncomfortable in the conversation.

"Why do you think?" Faith asked the same question again.

"I guess people were worried or whatever, but why?"

"You haven't called them in a month and a half and you're surprised they worried?" Faith asked, shaking her head at his idiocy.

"That's hardly unprecedented. They've never wigged out before. Not this much before."

"Maybe you just weren't there for it," Faith responded, trying out an accusatory glance. Then she shrugged and added, "Plus, you hadn't moved from Colorado Springs in all that time."

"Wait, did they place a GPS tracker on me?" Xander asked, leaning forward incredulously.

"Willow placed some wards. I thought you knew about that."

"I thought those ran out a long time ago…" Xander responded thoughtfully, settling back into his seat.

"Apparently you disappeared for like ten hours a few weeks ago before reappearing back in Colorado Springs. That's when she started to get really worried." Faith remembered the tone Willow had used when asking for this favor. She wondered if she could properly communicated that desperate anxiety to this fool… or if that was even her job.

"Three weeks is a long time to sit on something like that," Xander observed.

"Buffy and them have been busy trying to stop a cult from opening a portal to the sun."

"Why?" Xander asked incredulously.

"Because if they didn't, the whole earth would get burned up."

"No, I meant the other one,"

Faith shrugged. "Why do cults do anything?"

"Sex, drugs, and rock and roll?" Xander ventured.

"Point is, they were busy." Faith got them back on track while shaking some of her hair out of her face. "So Willow asked me to check in when I was coming back from some work of my own."

"…I guess that makes sense," Xander answered before falling into an uncomfortable silence.

"Now it's my turn," Faith declared, sitting up and leaning over the cold, metallic table. "What's going on here, Xander? Why are you under a mountain, wearing military fatigues?"

"Well, when you live under a mountain your wardrobe options are limited," Xander answered with his typical deflecting smile.

"What's going on, Xander?" Faith asked persistently. "Walking around military bases, telling people to give you private interviews. You aren't going all… whoever… on us, are you?"

"Whoever?"

"You guys told me about it, but I wasn't there for the initiative stuff. I don't remember any of their names."

"Fair enough…" Xander responded with a faint smile. Then it faded from his face as he continued, "And no. This isn't some initiative 2: electric boogaloo."

"So what is it, then?"

"I can't tell you."

Faith raised a critical eyebrow, but Xander remained strong.

"I can't tell you about them in the same way I can't tell them about what you are."

"And here I thought we were friends… mostly friends…

"You can be loyal to two people at the same time." Xander declared, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You can't. It even says so in the Bible." Faith dismissed with a wave of her hand. "You can't suck two dicks at once."

"That sentence is nowhere in the Bible."

"It's the same sentiment."

"Also, logistically you can… really depends on how well the two guys get along."

"Xander, what's going on?" Faith attempted again, this time narrowing her eyes and staring with a little more pressure.

"I'm not scared of you, Faith," Xander declared, his voice audibly raising a couple octaves.

Faith remained silent and continued to stare at him.

"I'm not telling you anything," Xander continued obstinately, turning his face away from her. "All I'll say is that they're doing important work and I decided to help them a bit. At least for a while."

"And that has nothing to do with vampires and demons?"

"Nothing," Xander answered, turning back to stare directly into Faith's eyes.

Faith pursed her lips and then stretched as much as her restraints would allow before asking, "So this is your retirement? Hunting down terrorists in Colorado?"

"…Something like that."

"And that's what I'm going to tell Willow?"

"Tell her I'm doing fine."

"You have a broken arm," Faith pointed out, gesturing towards the cast.

"…She doesn't need to know about that."

Faith couldn't help giving a light nod in response to that. Willow really didn't need to worry any more than she already was.

After a few seconds of more comfortable silence, Xander stood up and said, "These people are pretty used to bending rules and you didn't do any permanent damage. I think I can get them to let you go. Especially with Reilly's help."

"Is that it?" Faith asked with a slight frown.

"The longer you're here, the harder it'll be to pretend you never were," Xander answered with a shrug. "It's been nice seeing you, though and I appreciate the rescue attempt. Even if it wasn't needed."

"Somehow that feels really patronizing," Faith complained bitterly.

"Yeah, I couldn't think of a way to say it where it wouldn't," Xander responded. Then he took a couple steps towards the door before stopping to add, "If you end up spending the night in town, there's a dinner on the east side that has pretty good eggs. You should try them out."

With that, he exited the room and Faith was left alone. After about an hour of solitary confinement, some nervous servicemen came to release her and escort her off the base. Once she was back in her car, she weighed her options before moving to look up the nearest motel. Something fishy was going on. Too many mind control eggs and things existed for her to take Xander at his words.