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

The Ghost in the Team

Walking along the street behind his teammates, Spike had to admit that he was feeling a bit let-down at how things had gone so far; his first official mission, and all he was doing was going around talking with the locals about the dangers of the Ori without any sign that they had actually done anything dangerous here yet.

"He was very persuasive," the man who had introduced himself as Tevaris said, the Book of Origin under his arm as he walked while speaking with the rest of Spike's team; Spike thought he was the leader, but the precise term he'd used to define his role wasn't one that Spike recognised.

"Convert or die," Mitchell said pointedly. "Yeah I'd say that's got some bite."

"He said nothing of death, only salvation and life eternal," Tevaris said, looking curiously at Mitchell. "The blessings of the Ori."

"He didn't threaten you?" Vala said, looking suspiciously at the older man.

"He spoke of the religion," Tevaris said, holding out the book in his hand. "Left this book with us to read and consider. Said he'd be back today to hear our answer."

"Well, you're not alone," Sam said. "This is happening all over the galaxy."

"Are you saying this Prior's claims are false?" Tevaris asked, as Mitchell and Sam fell into position on either side of him, Vala immediately behind while Spike and Teal'c brought up the rear.

"As fake as Da Vinci Code," Spike said firmly.

"As far as we know, anyway," Vala said, looking at Spike with a slight smile; they'd taken to debating a few aspects of modern popular culture in their spare time, but Spike's knowledge of history provided Vala with enough factual information not to make too many incorrect assumptions, even if she still favoured the more outlandish explanation when possible.

"What evidence do you have to support your position?" Tevaris asked, looking curiously at them as he stopped walking.

"Well, we really don't…have any," Sam said, caught off-guard at the question. "And we can't tell you what to do…"

"Except to say that we're right behind you if these buggers are trying to force you into going along with the party line," Spike said, looking firmly at the other man.

"Not that we can make many promises," Mitchell said, "but we've seen a number of villages just like this one wiped out."

"As I have said," Tevaris replied solemnly, "the Prior made no such threat, and spoke upon the positive merits of Origin as true salvation."

"Soft sell," Mitchell said, leaning over to address Sam in a low voice that Spike only heard thanks to his enhanced hearing. "That's a new approach."

"The Prior of Ori returns!" a voice called out from further along the street.

"Listen," Mitchell said, "no matter which way you're gonna come down on this, it's probably best if that Prior doesn't know we're around."

"You may hide here," Tevaris said, showing them to a nearby building with a tent-like hood over its entrance. As the team took up position, they were able to see the villagers gathering around the street as the tall, robe-clad figure of a Prior approached, staff in hand, moving solemnly through the street.

"Welcome back," Tevaris said, walking forward to greet the robed arrival.

"Thank you, Tevaris," the Prior said, in a voice that Spike found worryingly familiar (And that chin looked like he'd seen it before too). "Have you contemplated your divine right?"

"We have, Prior," Tevaris said. "We wish to hear more of your wisdom."

"It is not my wisdom," the Prior said, removing a book from his robes as he pushed back his hood, "but the wisdom of the ages passed on to us by the only true gods…"

As the face of Daniel Jackson was revealed, hair grey and eyes a milky white like most of the Priors he'd witnessed so far, Spike wondered if this was how people felt when meeting the vampire version of what had been their friend in life for the first time.

"Hallowed are the Ori," Daniel- or the thing that had once been Daniel- said, the four words leaving the vampire feeling more sick to his stomach.

After everything he'd heard about his new friend- the guy who'd opened the Stargate to Earth and risked everything to stop Ra on his first trip, the guy who'd dedicated his early missions to trying to find his wife when nobody could have blamed him for giving up on her, the guy who'd played such a big role in stopping the Replicators and Anubis, the guy who'd accepted his presence and helped convince the others to give him a chance-, Daniel had fallen in with the enemy?

God, this sucked…


"Adria must have done something to him," Vala said as SG-1 sat around the conference room, talking with General Landry about what they had witnessed during their mission. "I mean, before turning him into a Prior."

"You mean she brainwashed him somehow?" Landry asked.

"We're talking about a deranged lunatic with some impressive people skills focused on worshipping her dads and telepathy that means the only person she can't read is me; I wouldn't put anything past her," Spike said grimly.

"Daniel would never willingly become one of them," Sam said firmly, nodding in agreement of Spike's assessment. "Their beliefs are nothing but a lie, and he knows that."

"He's damn good at selling them, anyway," Mitchell said grimly. "Had those people eating out of his hands without issuing one tiny little genocidal threat."

"That's what makes me think there's still a part of Daniel in there somewhere," Vala said, pointing at Mitchell. "H-he's better than all this!"

"Yes," Sam said, even as she looked grimly around at the rest of the team. "But we still have to face the very real possibility that it's not even really Daniel anymore. Having Merlin's consciousness downloaded into his mind could've overshadowed Daniel completely, weakened him to the point where Adria could do this."

"So… you think holding two people in there meant that neither of 'em were tough enough to resist her?" Spike asked, looking curiously at Sam.

"Regardless, we cannot abandon him," Teal'c said grimly.

"So, what do we do?" Landry asked.

"We go get him," Mitchell said, his tone making it clear that alternatives weren't an option. "Try to figure out what happened; try to undo it. Turn him back."

"That's going to be very risky," Landry said, glancing over at Spike. "I can't nbelieve I'm asking this, but I don't suppose that you… know any…. spells…?"

"That could help us get Danny-boy back?" Spike finished for the general, shaking his head grimly. "Couple of things spring to mind, but they're all mainly focused around purging demonic influence; not sure how they'd work here, considering that what you've told me about Priors suggests that they're still who they were as people 'stead of bein' taken over by something, and I'm not good enough at it to want to try 'em myself anyway."

"Besides…" Vala said, looking solemnly at the group around the table, "I hate to say it, but we are remembering that this could be exactly what Adria's hoping for? She knows how much we all consider him a… friend; she might be using him to get to us."

"Still, it's Daniel," Sam said, a slightly wistful smile on her face at the thought of what they were proposing even if there was also a slight pleading edge to her voice. "If there's any chance…"

"We have no choice," Teal'c said grimly.

It wasn't the most positive atmosphere for a mission, but this was an unprecedentedly difficult situation and they weren't exactly blessed with a surplus of options.


Considering the concern they'd had about the capture earlier, Spike had to admit that the aftermath was actually somewhat anti-climactic. He'd only been stationed outside the room where they were teleporting Daniel just in case he was needed to stop an escape, but in the end all they'd needed to do was beam the archaeologist up and zat him after exposing him to the anti-Prior device, leaving him unconscious and ready to be interrogated. With Daniel now tied up, Spike had donned his usual attire to ensure that he didn't tip Daniel off to his now-corporeal status until he had to, and was currently standing around Daniel with the rest of SG-1 and a couple of guards as the archaeologist lay strapped to a chair, arms and legs held down by metal bands and dressed in a blue prisoner jumpsuit as opposed to the brown Prior robes he'd been wearing earlier.

Almost as soon as Spike walked into the room, Daniel's eyes opened, quickly scanning his surroundings.

"Guys?" he said impatiently.

"Daniel?" Sam said, walking uncertainly towards him.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked, wincing as he moved his head forward.

"Bit of a 'pot-meets-kettle' question, that," Spike said, looking grimly at the archaeologist as Daniel looked down at his arms as though he had only just realised his currently-confined condition.

"OK," he said, looking up at his teammates as he tapped his fingers against the chair and moved it slightly to test its strength, "this is not necessary."

"No offence, but have you looked in the mirror lately?" Mitchell asked.

"I'm not a threat to you," Daniel said firmly.

"In case you change your mind, you should know there is someone with a finger poised over a button waiting to beam you out into space," Mitchell said.

"We had to let this happen," Daniel said, leaning back in the chair. "It's part of the plan."

"'We'?" Spike repeated. "What's with the sudden pretentiousness?"

"Not 'we' as in 'the royal we'," Daniel said, looking over at the vampire. "'We' as in myself… and Merlin."

"Merlin?" Spike repeated, eyes widening as he processed the name; he'd thought that the chance to talk to the guy had been lost, but if the original wizard was still hanging around inside Daniel's head…

"He's still inside you?" Vala asked sceptically, her tone bringing Spike back to the reality of the threat facing them; they had no way of knowing if Daniel was being honest and a lot to lose if they just blindly went about accepting his word.

"Yeah," Daniel said. "You remember back on the planet when Adria and I were fighting it out?"

"Yeah," Mitchell said, nodding briefly at Daniel. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"Yeah, it's a good thing you guys got out too," Daniel said. "She was…way too powerful for me. But I couldn't just let Merlin's weapon fall into her hands. I know it's our only chance of destroying the Ori."

"You gave in," Vala said.

"More or less," Daniel confirmed. "Once I was taken to her ship, Adria spent most of her time talking about how the act of Origin allowed the Ori to draw on the power of their worshippers in order to give them the strength to resist the Ancients' attempts to destroy them; she claimed that the Ancients hoarded their power and knowledge and manipulated others to prevent anyone equalling them…"

He shook his head slightly at the memory. "She seemed to know everything about me, and she had a…a tremendous power of persuasion. It was almost as if I could hear her voice inside my head telling me what to believe… so I let her believe that she was getting to me, turning me."

"Why?" Mitchell asked, after a moment's silence that left Sam looking particularly disturbed and contemplative at that news.

"Because I needed her to trust me," Daniel replied.

"And did she?" Vala asked, letting out a brief self-deprecating laugh before she continued. "Well, I mean, don't get me wrong, you're not a terrible liar, but you're nowhere near as good as me."

"Point," Spike noted. "From what I hear, Adria saw through everything Val did to try and trick her, and you're not exactly hard to read yourself, so why'd she buy it?"

"I was able to protect Daniel," Daniel said, his tone suddenly more formal after he leaned back in the chair for a moment. "Make Adria think he had succumbed to her will."

"Merlin?" Sam said, looking at Daniel uncertainly.

"It was necessary," Daniel/Merlin/whoever said, nodding in confirmation of Sam's guess before he continued speaking. "If we had not convinced her, she would not have transformed Daniel in this manner."

"So… she trusted you enough to turn you into a Prior?" Vala asked, looking sceptically at the archaeologist.

"She had to," Daniel said, apparently back in control of himself.

"Why, exactly?" Mitchell asked.

"Because she knew I was her best chance at converting Earth," Daniel replied.

"And me," Vala noted, looking anxiously over at Spike at that thought (Not that Spike could blame her; after what he'd been through when he was captured by the First, he knew that psychological games could really suck).

"Well, that would explain why she wanted to believe you, not why she had to," Sam pointed out.

"She had Merlin's weapon, she just didn't know how to finish it," Daniel explained.

"I thought she knew everything?" Mitchell interjected.

"She didn't know who or what I was," Spike pointed out, glancing over at Mitchell as he put a comforting arm around Vala, the slight tenseness of her shoulders showing how hard this was for (He'd done this a couple of times before, so Daniel shouldn't suspect anything if he wasn't being totally honest). "Probably only so much you can get in one head before it can't take it, no matter where you're getting your facts from."

"But she knew that Merlin would know," Sam concluded, nodding briefly in acknowledgement of Spike's guess while focusing her attention on Daniel.

"It was a quick and easy way to avoid an all-out war between the Ori and the Ancients," Daniel explained. "She knows the device can be used to wipe out the Ancients, so I told her I would finish it for her."

"Did you?" Spike asked, starting to feel particularly uncomfortable about this new information.

"Not exactly, but close," Daniel admitted. "I needed to have the rest of my plan in place before I finished it."

"Which is?" Mitchell asked.

"I needed her to make me a Prior-" Daniel began

"Which you've already done-" Spike interjected.

"So I could steal an Ori ship and fly it through the Supergate to the Ori galaxy with the weapon on board and destroy them," the archaeologist-turned-Prior quickly finished.

Spike couldn't help but blink in surprise.

That was one very ambitious plan he had there…

"OK," Sam said, looking awkwardly at Daniel. "Uh, one small flaw in that plan…"

"I know, there's a wormhole blocking the Supergate," Daniel finished. "That's why I'm here. I need you guys to shut it down."

Spike might have joined the team after the mission to deal with the Supergate, but he'd read enough of the files to know that they were being asked to do wasn't exactly a small favour…