Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1 or BTVS/ATS. All of the people that own those shows make far more money than I do. The witches from Charmed appear in this chapter; I don't own that t.v. show, either – I'm just borrowing them for this one chapter.
Warnings: Discussions of child abuse and sexual abuse. Foul language – it's Jack O'Neill, people. Hurray for canon slash with Willow; I haven't decided if I will include male slash in here as well; I'll change the warnings per chapter if that happens. I HAVE decided that in keeping with my Xander's characterization in this story, he will not be included in any male slash pairing, period. That doesn't mean I won't be picking on someone else though…
Chapter 10: Better Take That Call
Faith left the room, muttering something under her breath that was incomprehensible to the rest of the people present.
A cell phone started chiming. Jack ignored the sound, staring at his son. Pissed-off lion prides?
Daniel rolled his eyes, reached into Jack's jacket, and pulled a cell phone out from an inner pocket. "I don't know why you keep the stupid thing if you're not going to answer it…" he muttered, flipping it open. "This is Dr. Jackson." Daniel's eyes went wide with shock, and he swallowed, catching everyone's attention. "Y-yes, sir." He passed the phone to Jack. "It's the President," he hissed, and Jack's own eyes widened.
"Sir?" he asked nervously, taking the phone.
"He's probably going to be a while," Xander said quietly to the others.
Sam's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Xander sighed, and motioned for the others to follow him into a separate sitting room to allow Jack quiet. When they had, he began, "You've seen that the Slayers have super-powered strength and hyper sixth senses when it comes to nonhumans. Some of them also have psychic abilities – dreams that give them warnings of things that will happen soon, or things that are close by that they need to take care of. One of the biggest reasons Ari and Janie are so attached to me is that for both of them, I was the first person to tell them that the dreams were real. That they weren't going crazy, and yes, they were right about innocent people being in danger."
Fascinated, Sam asked, "Has anyone ever tried to measure these dreams? Is there a pattern as to how they appear, or a genetic disposition that a Slayer needs to have?"
"You have to have a genetic predisposition to be called as a Slayer in the first place, so I honestly don't know if that extends to the Slayer dreams as well. The only pattern Giles and Wills have been able to figure out is that the more action a Slayer sees, the more likely she is to develop the dream ability. Slayers, when first Called, rarely have the ability. Ari and Janie were exceptions to that rule." Xander brushed a hand through the small African's hair. She looked up at him with a small smile, and the others realized, to a small extent, just what Xander meant to her. To a seven-year-old child tormented by nightmares of demons and monsters, Xander's quiet acceptance of her must have made him a savior in her eyes. "The point to my bringing this up is that last night, Buffy had a Slayer dream. Her dreams started off mild, but now every time Buffy gets a Slayer dream, it is LITERALLY of apocalyptic proportions." He sighed, and muttered, "And it isn't even May."
"What does it not being May have to do with anything?" Daniel wanted to know.
"May is apocalypse season," Xander explained.
There was a short silence.
Teal'c spoke. "There is a particular…season for the end of the world?"
Xander nodded matter-of-factly. "Yep. Most of the demons, hellgods, evil wizards, and whatnot that want to plunge the world into a living hell seem to attack in May – it's this pattern me, Buff, and Wills noticed back in high school. 'Course, that last year in Sunnydale, there was a would-be apocalypse nearly every two weeks, but was because the Hellmouth had gone nuclear, and the friggin' First-" He stopped. "Never mind that. Back on topic: Buffy had a Slayer dream, and your Go-oobers-"
"Go'auld," Sam and Daniel corrected together.
Xander raised an eyebrow. "Like I was saying, your Go-oobers were mentioned. So Buffy called Wills, who called the Watcherettes, and they did the research thing, then Buff called at the friggin' buttcrack of this morning – like, two thirty or three or something – and we had this long conversation in which I told her about you guys-"
"You what?" shouted Janet, Sam, and Daniel in one breath. Teal'c didn't shout, but his spine snapped even more stiff than it already was.
"Chill, the President okayed it, and the cell phones we use are mojoed by Wills – nobody can hack into 'em and listen in. So Buffy told me to talk to you guys and get your help with the Go-oobers, 'cause whatever we're dealing with is gonna hit in two months, and the Go-oobers are coming with it."
"Our help as in just us, or does your Buffy want to deal with the entire SGC?" Jack asked from the doorway.
Xander glanced toward him. "President get you up to speed?"
"Yeah, he did. Xander, why not just tell us this on your own?"
Xander looked Jack squarely in the eyes. "Would you have believed me?"
Jack was silent for a moment, then said quietly, "I honestly don't know. You've told us some pretty unbelievable shit so far kid, but you've had proof to back it up. Where's the proof about these dreams?"
"The reason the President jumps when we call him about Buffy's Slayer dreams is that one of the dreams she had saved his life directly," Xander said quietly. "We'd called the President's security detail a couple of days in advance, but they didn't take us seriously, so we sent a couple of girls to the…event just in case. A fifteen-year-old saved the President's life when a half-dozen trained Navy SEAL bodyguards were taken down."
Janet asked mildly, "And why didn't we hear about this? The others-" she inclined her head to the team, "may spend a great deal of their time off-planet, but I stay on base and on call. Surely the military would have heard of such a fiasco, if not the general public."
Xander smiled tightly. "The Secretary of Defense ordered a complete lockdown of all the information regarding the little party – at the SWIC's request. You'd have to call him regarding the details – and it would take you months, if not years, to get the clearance for the documentation."
"Why did the SWIC make that request?" Daniel asked. Xander just stared at him. A minute passed, the Daniel said sheepishly, "That was a stupid question, wasn't it?"
Xander very kindly did not respond to that. Instead, he said, "Ask the President some time just what it was that fifteen-year-old stopped." He focused on Jack. "Buffy's told me to deal with you guys how I want, and she'll back me up. I'm not sure yet how far I want to get involved with your program. Is it possible to have access to the program's data without dealing with anyone other than your guys and your commander?"
"It's possible. But kid," Jack sat down across from Xander and leaned forward. "if you've got information on a pending Go'auld attack, it involves the entire SGC. We've been fighting these bastards since the beginning – your SWIC just heard of 'em."
Xander did not back down. "Teenagers, Jack. My fighters are nearly all teenagers," he said shortly. "I'm not putting children in the way of friggin' ALIENS and GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS unless the world is REALLY in danger of ending."
Jack started to glare. "Listen kid, you don't know what you're dealing with. The Go'auld have massive fleets-"
"Which is WHY I want to get as much information as possible," Xander interrupted, his own patience beginning to wear thin. "The Slayers can't fight unless they know what they're up against, and the threat Buffy's dream described is WAY beyond the United States Military's ability to deal. If you want fighters that AREN'T locked up in some military testing facility as labrats-"
"Why the FUCK are thinking about sending children to fight these kinds of battles?" Jack snarled, the anger he'd been feeling boiling up. "It's not RIGHT! You claim to care about these kids by running these SCHOOLS, but you're going to send them to fight aliens and – and DEMONS that can destroy this world and the rest of the galaxy?! The Go-auld are monsters! They don't care who they torture and destroy, as long as-"
"No, it's not right," Xander snarled right back, cutting him off again. "But we don't have a CHOICE, Jack! Slayers have to be trained, or they'll be killed. Didn't you hear what I said in the weapons' room? They're Called to fight evil! Being Called marks them as different, as stronger and faster and TASTIER PREY!" he shouted, and the eyes of them all widened. "Every vampire and demon worth its salt can sense a Slayer's presence, and every evil vampire and demon will kill first and ask questions never! Slayers are genetically built to kill evil creatures, and the creatures know that! They've known that for thousands of years!" Xander was on his feet now, as was Ari, her eyes fierce and ready. She may not have understood the majority of Xander's words, but she understood the anger in his tone well enough. "You want us to keep children off the battlefield," Xander said, his voice quieting, "But if we do that, the children won't learn to fight. They'll be left as helpless prey to the creatures they were created to destroy." Xander's lip curled bitterly. "Which would leave you with what you wanted Jack – innocent children, but they would be dead children as well in a very short span of time. The demons on this world have ready access to the humans, unlike your aliens."
There was a long silence following Xander's outburst.
Daniel, who of all of them had watched the emotions on Xander's face during his shouting the closest, finally said quietly, "You hate the idea of sending children into battle as much as we do."
"Yes," Xander agreed heavily, and pain filled his expression for a moment. "I told you, about the spell Willow cast to awaken the Slayers. I was the one who had to command those new baby Slayers in that first battle." Anguish filled his tone, but his words remained steady. "I was the one who told all those rookies what they were and why they were there, and when they watched their fellow sister Slayers have their guts spilled by claws and fangs, I was the one who kept telling them to fight the good fight." SG1 and Janet took in the raw, wounded look on Xander's face, and none of them were able to find any words to say. "I was living with all of those girls for weeks prior to that battle, Jack. I listened to them gossip and giggle together and fight over the bathroom, and talk about their dreams. When Sunnydale went down, I hand-carved a grave marker for each girl we lost."
"How many?" Jack asked, finally understanding the despair in Xander's outburst. This wasn't the guilt of a person who had stood on the sidelines and felt bad – this was a commander's guilt for sending rookies that had no idea of the realities of war into battle. Jack had felt that kind of guilt – knew how soul-tearing it could be. For Xander to be suffering it because of children…
"Fourteen. That was more than half our forces, Jack. There were twenty-seven Potentials living with Buffy when Sunnydale finally became a crater. Those fourteen bought us the time we needed for Willow to finish the awakening spell, seal the Hellmouth, and let the rest of us get out of there alive." Xander sat down, the anger draining from him. "The ones that survived are here in Cleveland. We figured that trial by fire made them the best choice for guarding the next potential nuclear Hellmouth."
"Why didn't you send them farther away?" Sam whispered. "Why should they have to suffer more?"
"The genetic predisposition to become a Slayer isn't a common one," Xander muttered. "Every Slayer we find is precious and desperately needed. Ever since Sunnydale went down, the measurements of evil creatures becoming active in human-populated zones have sky-rocketed. The SWIC is containing them, for now. The Slayer dream Buffy had told us that in two months' time, a magical shield that has surrounded the Earth for several thousand years is going to come down. There's nothing we can do to stop it, and there's no way for us to recast it. When that shield comes down, it will leave the Earth vulnerable not only to the Go'auld, but to the demons that live on the worlds other than earth in this universe – the worlds that have no Slayers, and thus have had nothing to keep them from growing more powerful through the eons."
This time the silence stretched even longer, as SG1 finally began to understand just why the SWIC might be worried about a potential Go'auld invasion. It wasn't that particular race of aliens that was bothering them – it was what would follow.
A sudden jangling of a house phone ringing had all of them jerking in surprise. Faith cam into the room, talking on the cordless. "Yeah…yeah…here he is." She handed the phone to Xander. "It's B." She looked over the shell-shocked SG1 carefully, having overheard the majority of Xander's outburst. All of them looked as though…they didn't know what to think. Well, they'd see for themselves soon enough.
"Yeah…all right…what about my girls? Okay…all right, I'm coming. Got the portal ready?...See you." Xander hung up, his expression grim.
"What?" Jack demanded.
"My sisters need me in London," Xander said shortly. "A demon's trying to resurrect his dead master, and if that happens we'll have another apocalypse on our hands. I've got to head up the Watchers there – Giles is stuck in the field with Buffy and no one else knows
how to deal with this many problems all at once. Tell Andrew he's Watcher stand-in if the girls need anything," he said to Faith, who raised her eyebrows but nodded silently. She wasn't going to question Xander's choice in front of the visitors, though she did wonder what he was thinking, giving the geek that much power, even if it was only temporary.
Xander saw her look. "He knows enough, Faith," he said quietly, then looked at Ari, "My sisters need me in another place. I need you to stay here. The one I place in charge does not have the skills that I do. He will need a protector," he said in her tongue.
"I am YOUR protector," she said softly.
"The First Slayer is one of my sisters," Xander reminded her, still speaking the African tongue. "I will have warriors at my side. I will not be fighting, but looking for information for the fighters to use."
Ari's lips tightened, then slowly she nodded.
Xander walked out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom, where he began throwing a spare set of clothing and some toiletries into a bag.
"Hold up kid, what's going on?" Jack demanded, having followed him.
"Willow's going to open a magical portal between London and here to let me get to their school," Xander said shortly. "I'm the only Watcher with enough experience to handle the chaos they've got over there right now. We'll have to finish our oh-so-lovely conversation another time."
"Waitaminute – there's an apocalypse going on in London RIGHT NOW?"
"It's going to hit apocalyptic level soon," Xander said, still shortly. He pulled a large, two-handed battle axe out from under his bed, and twin wooden stakes from under his pillow. The stakes went into his boots. He slung the axe over his shoulder, grabbed the bag, and moved to the doorway of his bedroom, which was blocked by Jack. "Move, Jack, I don't have the time!"
Jack moved, but followed him with sudden, sharp determination. "I'm coming with you!"
Xander stiffened. "What?"