Leaves in a Windy Mind

by Shadow Master

(Drabbles, multiple crossovers) Decided to resurrect my old habit of putting any new crossover plot ideas into Drabble form rather than jump right into a full fledged story. Hope it'll help me focus on my in progress works and not get distracted. Please vote for the ones you want to see continued either as a Drabble or a true story.

4. There is a Price to Pay For Everything

"There is a Price to Pay For Everything You Do" by Shadow Master

(BtVS/Original CoD:MW Trilogy/Elements of CoD:BO/Other)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who who enjoy reading my works. Therefore please no lawsuits or court orders to cease and desist.

Note: As always positive reviews will be warmly received, constructive criticism will be considered but not necessarily acted on and negative/bashing reviews will either be ignored or burned as fuel to keep things going.

Note 2: Got the idea for this when I watched some CoD:MW videos. The more my muse and my imagination played with the idea the more interesting it became. Chatted with Holyknight to flesh out the idea to improve it even more. That being said I am in no way a CoD expert, a military expert or a gun expert. That means that there will likely be some mistakes in one or all of those fields. I ask for your tolerance and if this Drabble is liked enough to warrant a full story your help in making it better. Point out websites that would have the info I need, provide facts that I got wrong and if you want suggest scenes that'd make the story cool.

Now on with the show…

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There is a Price to Pay For Everything You Do

---

The Initiative Facility Beneath Lowell House, UCS Campus

Director's Office

Maggie Walsh' POV

Is it worth the risk?

It was a question she'd been asking herself ever since Miss Summers' demonstration with her capture teams and while the scientist in her said it was for the potential gains her instincts said otherwise. Yes finding out how the young lady could do what she did so it could potentially be replicated in the soldiers under her command would be a boon. She'd already reached the limits of what could be achieved through drugs and retroviral gene mods leaving only the enhancements she was developing on her own to improve the soldiers. However despite her confidence in her work it was always sound judgment to have a second option to keep the bureaucrats at bay.

Her instincts though warned her that Summers was a civilian and a teenager both qualities that could potentially lead to headaches down the road. She'd read the files on previous encounters between civilians and HSTs and in almost all cases irrational behaviour followed often leading to fatal consequences. As for teenagers, well, there was a reason why she had no intention of having children of her own. Teenagers were driven entirely by their hormones or possessed so little wisdom that mistakes were all but certain. If she allowed Summers to enter the facility and take part in capture missions the potential for trouble was considerable.

Then of course there was the way that Captain Finn acted around her.

Once she'd finished work on the prototype and confirmed the reliability of the upgrades Finn would be the first in line to receive them. Indeed of all the soldiers that'd undergone her drug programs and gene mods his body had been the one to accept them the best with few if any signs of trouble. She was confident that once the procedures were done her superiors would consider her project a success clearing the way for mass production. It would give birth to a military force that no enemy of America would be able to oppose without access to her data. Best of all with the cybernetic implants the soldiers would be unable to refuse orders ensuring that the will of the military and government would be followed.

Finn had been obedient and trusting so far but then again his compliance had never really been put to the test with orders that ran contrary to conventional morality.

It wouldn't do to have him go AWOL because of Summers. She thought irritated at the strength of the possibility.

In the end she decided that it'd be easier to simply pass follow established military procedure. This was a top secret military project and as such whether it was someone her superiors had chosen or a civilian with useful information all needed to undergo an extensive background check before being brought into the fold. Colonel Haviland had told her how what they were doing could be viewed as a violation of certain foreign agreements and if word spread beyond those authorized it'd mean trouble for America. Given that it was an accepted truth that even amongst allies there were spies in all camps steps had to be taken to ensure that none learned of the Initiative. Making sure that anyone being considered for assignment to the Initiative was safe via an extensive background check was one of them.

Unless the prospect passed with flying colours they were crossed off for assignment to the Initiative.

Let them decide whether Summers should be brought in or kept out. She thought going down the list of steps for requesting an extensive background check.

Not only would the process take time allowing her to focus on her work but with any luck something would pop up to cross Summers off the list and she could deliver the 'bad news'.

---

One Week Later

Location: Classified

Late Evening

"Cap! Got General MacMillan on the line. Says it's important." Lieutenant Steed yelled from the other side of the room.

"Keep it down you muppet." He said turning away from the scope locked on the target location across the street, "Their ears work perfectly fine and officially we aren't here. Got it?"

"Yes sir." Steed said lowering his voice realizing he'd been stupid.

It was always like this with someone who just got reassigned from the frontlines to something more covert. On the battlefield noise wasn't a problem since there was usually a ton of shooting and explosions to cover it up. On missions like this though? Silence was essential not just because it'd give the target a chance to get away it could also bring hell down on top of you if you were in hostile territory.

Still Mac cleared him for the mission so he'd let things play out before he considered the kid a lost cause for black ops work.

Walking over to secure cell phone he brought it up to his ear wondering what the 'important' thing was. Had to have been something that'd popped up after leaving home for the shithole he was standing on now and that was less than a week ago. He really hoped that some shit hadn't gone down but his instincts told him that it couldn't be too big otherwise the mission he was would've been scrubbed. It wasn't a high priority mission, just tracking down intel on some shady dealings rumoured to be linked to the Ultranationalist party of Russia, but it was important enough to get him assigned to the job with a team for support. If something big had gone down that made this small potatoes the whole thing would've been called off with orders to report to the ex-fil location.

So what was it?

"This is Bravo One." He said keeping things short.

"There's been a development Bravo One." Mac said over the phone in a tone that had him take things serious.

Whenever Mac talked to him in that tone it meant things weren't official but personal.

Not good. Every operator worth their pay check knew to keep business and personal separate because if you didn't things went to shit really fast. Normally if it was something personal Mac would wait until he was back on home soil but if his mentor was calling him while on mission it had to be important.

"Understood. Send package." He said telling his friend to say what he had to say.

"Featherless Avian's been sniffing around the clubhouse. More specifically your room." Mac said keeping the words ambiguous in case of eavesdroppers.

The encryption on the phone was good but not perfect.

It'd been cracked before.

He recognized the codewords though. Featherless Avian was a reference to Americans on account of their famous national bird the Bald Eagle. The clubhouse meant SAS HQ and referring to his room meant his file rather than an actual place like an office or a bedroom. While he couldn't think of a reason why the Americans would be trying to access his file that didn't mean there wasn't one.

"You ID the scent?" He asked wondering if Mac had already figured out what piece of intel the Americans were after.

"Negative Bravo One. Looks like they were after everything you had." Mac replied without the tone changing, "Had our boys counting footprints. The last one…it was in El Dorado."

El…Dorado…

Mac had run a trace on the people trying to get access to his file and it ended in California? His instincts flared within him since he could think of only one thing there that was connected to him but his mind rebelled at the idea. There was only one person that fit the bill and he hadn't seen her in almost two decades. Even while on mission he'd never been in America but even as he scrambled for some alternate possibility it all came back to that ONE person.

He hoped he was wrong.

"What's the status of the rose gold?" He asked using the codeword that'd been chosen for that one thing.

"So far nothing but negatives Bravo One." Mac replied sounding sure of that, "The Grey Fox might've lost some teeth but his eyes work just fine."

Good.

Rose Gold was the codename given to the one person whose current address was in California but beyond that he didn't know much. It was a miracle that the suits had even clued him in on as much as they had when his clearance level came up for an upgrade.

After that he'd spoken with Mac about it and they'd decided to put an asset of their own on the woman to make sure she stayed safe. It'd been instinct more than logical thought but it'd been the right decision nonetheless. Even if he'd only known her for a few months it'd been enough to have him thinking about the path not travelled. He'd decided a long time ago that he was in the military for the long haul and didn't plan on applying for retirement anytime soon. Of course that never kept any soldier from considering what might have been. For him it'd been the whole house, picket fence and family dream with her at the core. It'd never been more than a dream for him both because of his career choice and because she had issues of her own that made anything between them impossible.

For the good dream and because the people scouting him for an elevation of duties thought she was worth looking into they'd asked 'Grey Fox' to relocate and keep tabs on her.

And now the Americans had somehow managed to find a connection from her to him.

Worse than that the fact that they were 'sniffing' rather than formally requesting the information through official channels meant that whoever made the request was up to something shady. If America had a legitimate reason for wanting his file they'd be using official channels instead of trying to get it behind SAS's back.

That did not sit well with him.

"Acknowledged. What do we do?" He asked even though he knew what he wanted to do.

Mac probably knew too.

"Prep for a pawn swap Bravo One." Mac replied with the authority of his position, "Be at RP Beta in three hours for ex-fil. Understood?"

"Copy that. RP Beta in three hours." He replied already figuring out how to make everything go smoothly.

I owe you Mac. He thought realizing that if anyone else had been calling the shots he'd never have known anything much less been pulled from a mission.

But Mac knew he how he'd react if given bad news about Rose Gold if things went poorly.

With that he ended the call and turned to the support team to give them their orders until his replacement arrived to take over. Even as he spoke though he couldn't help but think of the possibilities behind America's actions and none of them were good. The connection between him and her was thin at best making him wonder what could be so important that they would dig so deep. That said he knew that SAS liked having complete files on their operators including possible pressure points that could be used against their people. It's why they tended to prefer bachelors to married men and when wedding bells happened after recruitment their assignment depended on their ability to get the job done regardless.

Mac hadn't said his file'd been accessed so that meant the search had been started by a reason on the other end of the line.

Something 'rose gold' had done had bought the wrong kind of attention and that'd led to the Americans trying to covertly access his file.

He planned on finding out what that something was and that meant one thing.

Time to take some 'holiday' time.

---

Sunnydale, California

Giles' Apartment

Buffy's POV

"I am not trying to be difficult Buffy." Giles said trying to approach the topic gently, "I simply believe we should be wary of the Initiative for the time being. There is too much we do not know about their goals and overall objective."

"Riley said they were all about capturing and studying demons." She said figuring that was all there was to it, "Not the smartest idea but if it can make things easier for normal people to fight the forces of badness then maybe it's a good thing."

For her the job was simple: find demons, slay demons.

But considering all the things that came with the Slayer Package she kinda had an unfair advantage over normal people when it came to kicking unholy ass. If they needed to go all sciencey to figure out some ways to even the playing field then she was fine with it so long as they didn't do anything stupid.

"I understand that Buffy but historically whenever a world government has tried to use modern means to combat supernatural threats it has ended in disaster for the most part. The few successes were overshadowed by the failures that often led to an entire facility and the surrounding territory needing to be bombed into oblivion." Giles said with enough seriousness that she chose to listen, "Sometimes it was an effort to use sorcery to enhance soldiers in order to make them comparable to a Slayer while other times they attempted to turn demons into mindless soldiers. However science and the supernatural do not operate under the same rules and determining how to make the two mesh…it is more often than not luck that brings about success rather than reason."

"So what do we do?" Xander asked from his chair on the other side of the table.

"While I am not thrilled by the idea Buffy has her proverbial foot in the door." Giles replied with a considering look, "The fact that she has not been told to mind her own business or handed legal paperwork forbidding her from revealing what she knows to anyone implies that Walsh is considering letting her in even further. We could use this as a chance to learn what they do not wish us to learn."

"You want Buffy to go undercover?" Xander asked with obvious skepticism, "Is that smart?"

"What do you mean?" She asked not liking his tone.

"No offence Buffy but you're very…direct. To the point. Spy movies make it pretty clear. Going undercover means being able to lie convincingly to everyone and not give them any reason to think you're up to something."

"I can do that."

After all she'd convincingly lied to the shrinks after her parents had her committed and that'd gotten her released from their drugs as well as their 'talks'. She'd lied to her own mother, someone who knew her better than anyone, for almost two whole years with the older woman being none the wiser until one of Angelus' minions forced the truth out into the open. If she could do all that then she could lie to complete strangers and if she had to she could lie to Riley if it was necessary but ONLY if it was necessary.

She liked him.

He was cool with her being the Slayer and was a soldier so he had the skills needed to fight by her side without her having to worry about him getting hurt.

Most of all though she didn't have to worry about him going all psycho if things got serious like it had with Angel.

Riley was a normal human being.

However judging from the looks of the others they weren't as confident about her ability to fool Walsh and the others in the Initiative. Willow looked supportive and optimistic but there was a small…something…in her eyes that looked similar to doubt. Giles was harder to read but she knew he considered it a risk to ask her to go into the Initiative to find out more and to know risk is to have doubts. Xander though was the most obvious of them all but it was not malicious doubt but rather honesty.

"You do a lot of things well Buffy but fooling trained soldiers and military bureaucrats aren't among them." Xander said with hard honesty, "You'll probably start out well enough but when you gotta ask questions about Room Three Fourteen you'll be about a subtle as a bull in a china shop."

"I wouldn't do it that badly." She said a little annoyed that her friend thought she couldn't be subtle, "I'm not stupid."

"L-let us first wait to see if you are approved for entry into the Initiative facility." Giles said diverting the conversation away from her undercover skills, "It would be pointless after all to debate your aptitude for infiltration if Walsh's superiors decide to deny you entry."

She nodded at that.

Even if she was sure that Riley trusted her the same couldn't be said about Walsh or her professor's bosses. Still if the suits knew as much about her as Walsh had before being clued in by her and Finn then in her mind they'd have little reason to see her as a threat. Hell! Their curiosity might just be what convinces them to let her into the Initiative if only to somehow get answers to their questions. However until Riley called her to give her the good news it probably was for the best to table what she should do once she got inside the Initiative.

"I guess you're right." She said getting out of her chair, "Well I'm off to see mom at the art gallery. She wanted me to take some stuff home while she works."

"Need any help?" Xander asked no doubt offering to carry anything.

"No. It's just a few things." She replied with a grin showing she appreciated the offer, "Slayer remember?"

With that she left Giles' apartment and charted a course for her mother's art gallery in her mind before casually walking down it. It was the weekend after all so there was no need to hurry there since according to her mom the items she was picking up weren't super important. Just a few odds and ends that needed to be removed from the gallery at the request of the artist. She'd asked her mom why she didn't just put the stuff in her office and lock the door and apparently the pieces were important enough that they needed to be kept close at hand. Something about the terms of the contract putting one helluva fine on her mom if anything happened to the pieces before they reached their buyer or got returned to the artist.

The good part though was that every piece would be put in a box with those foam pellets so unless she jumped up and down on them nothing would happen to the art.

If you could call that stuff art.

She'd seen a lot of the things at her mom's gallery but she didn't know if it could be called art.

Looked more like junk to her but if people wanted to give her mom money for them she didn't care what they were.

---

Art by Campfire Gallery

They've got eyes everywhere. He thought glad that he'd chosen a vehicle with tinted windows after arriving in L.A, Definitely more going on here than I thought.

As soon as he'd gotten back to SAS HQ he'd met with Mac to get briefed on everything his mentor knew about American efforts to get access to his file. As of his arrival the only thing that'd been accessed were the parts that had already been sanitized for viewing by those without the security clearance to know of his more 'interesting' missions. In most cases a person trying to get information on him would stop at that since the clean file crossed most of the ts and dotted the eyes. From his training in basic straight through to the present it provided a clear 'connect the dots' map for his activities.

So why were the Americans still looking?

Mac figured that whoever they had doing the investigating was smart enough to know a doctored file when he saw one. As a precaution his black ops hard copy file had been relocated to a higher security room and an 'I.T problem' had been manufactured to make getting the digital copy a Tsar Bomba sized headache. It wouldn't be something that could be kept up indefinitely though, SAS had work to do after all that needed its HQ system working, so he'd been given four days to find out what was going on. After that the 'problem' would be 'solved' and more obvious actions would need to be taken to keep his black ops missions secret.

Obvious as in it would be made clear to anyone with a brain that he wasn't your garden variety SAS operative causing their scrutiny of 'Rose Gold' to increase.

Getting out of the vehicle he pulled down the baseball cap a little bit more to hide his face from the concealed camera half a block away. He'd counted six of them since he entered Sunnydale and that was along the most direct route to the art gallery. According to the latest surveillance report sent by 'Grey Fox' the art gallery had been opened about three years prior and done fairly good business.

It was also where 'Rose Gold' worked.

It was easy enough for him to get inside, it being business hours after all, but he knew he needed to keep things looking normal until things moved to someplace more secure. Moving over to the first piece of art he gave it a look over but didn't really see it. The whole point was to make it look to any watching eyes that he was just another potential buyer looking over the various pieces on display. He'd wait for contact to be made before trying to persuade 'Rose Gold' to take the chat someplace that couldn't be eavesdropped from so easily.

Someplace with less windows and few places to hide any surveillance devices effectively.

While he wasn't a complete caveman some of the pieces looked like they'd been slapped together by a five year old. Looking at the price tags attached to some of the pieces he had to wince since while not in the ballpark of the rich and famous they'd definitely put a dent in the pocket book of most of the middle class workers. Still according to Mac sales were steady so someone was buying this 'art' so he guessed that he wasn't sophisticated enough to understand 'true art'.

He was on his third piece of art before he heard footsteps approaching him and while it could be someone else his instincts told him things were about to get interesting.

"Is there something I can help you with sir?" A woman's voice asked from behind him.

A voice he hadn't heard in years but at the same time it felt like yesterday.

Turning around he could tell the exact moment she recognized him from the shock on her face but he couldn't let any watchful eyes get too good a look so he moved to block the most likely angles. They needed to keep up the premise that he was a stranger, just another customer, as long as possible since once any eavesdroppers thought otherwise things could get complicated.

"Hello Joyce." He said putting on a smile meant to put her at ease, "Long time. How about we take this someplace little more private? The answers I've got aren't for anyone but you."

"R-right. Let's go to my office." She said quickly schooling her features in her best poker face.

Looked like even if it had been years Joyce aka 'Rose Gold' still remembered what he did for a living and probably what she suspected he did thanks to Simon's slip-up. Nothing sensitive of course but certain terms were used that thanks to Hollywood every Yank knew the meanings of. Take that and what he'd just suggested together probably painted quite the picture for the woman.

A minute later the door to the office closed behind him but he focused on examining the room for possible problems. Maybe he was being a bit paranoid but only someone in the intelligence business would be given the job of trying to access his file beyond the sanitized version. People like that were thorough so he wouldn't put it past them to have hidden microphones placed to listen in on any potential security leaks. Took him a little over two minutes but he managed to find them all and cut the connection in a way that could be perceived as being the fault of wear and tear or vermin. Couldn't let them realize that they had a professional in town or they might up their game.

"What are you doing here John?" Joyce asked sounding like she'd used up her patience waiting for him to speak, "I haven't seen you in years."

"I know and if some people had kept their noses out of my business I wouldn't be here." He said knowing that the lady wouldn't like being dragged into his world.

"What do you mean?" She asked looking confused.

"Someone's been trying to access my military file back home. All of it." He replied keeping certain details to himself, "A trace was run and the tracks led back here. You can guess what popped into my head at that news."

Looking at Joyce he spotted instantly the look a person had when their brains formed a connection between what they'd just heard and what they remembered. Given her willful ignorance of things that didn't fit with her preferred worldview this surprised him since he'd have expected her to avert her eyes while embracing ignorance. Instead she had an inkling of what he was talking about and possibly her own idea of what it was all about.

"What's going on Joyce?" He asked kindly yet firmly, "My job isn't one a lot of people know the details of and even fewer can get past the walls we've got to keep the wrong people out."

"I…I'm not sure. I mean I think I know what it could be but I've only got bits and pieces." She replied clearly conflicted over what she could reveal as well as what she knew.

"Then tell me what you can." He said not wanting to pressure her just yet.

It was entirely possible that she'd literally stumbled into trouble and only barely realized how bad it could be.

"I've…seen groups of people around town. Not out in the open on the sidewalk but in alleys or in the park." Joyce said after a moment, "At first I thought they were just some guys from the UCS in costumes doing paintball or something. It was mostly at night when I was coming home from the gallery but after enough times I couldn't figure out the schedule they were going by. There'd have to be a schedule right since they'd have classes and other things going on."

Assuming that it wasn't some college kids it'd definitely imply a military presence in Sunnydale and a covert one at that. Run by a bunch of muppets though from the sounds of it because if a civvie can see you moving from A to B you needed to go back to training. The whole point of covert operations is to NOT be seen either by civilians or by your targets until you have no other choice or it's part of the plan to be seen. If it hadn't been for someone in America trying to access the entirety of his file he'd have written off what Joyce had seen as a bunch of military fanboys playing make believe.

"Did you see anything? Hear anything?" He asked trying to find the point at which looking at his file would've been logical.

"I…I don't think so." She replied with a moment of hesitation, "When I saw them first I just thought they were college kids and after that I just ignored them. They weren't doing anything dangerous so I didn't see the need to look deeper or try to hear anything."

Understandable.

While that kind of ignorance in the armed forces would get you, your unit and maybe a lot of other people killed in a civilian at home it wasn't all that unexpected. Most people went about their lives not paying attention to anything that didn't directly involve them and willfully ignored bad things happening in the area in which they lived. It wasn't that they were bad people but rather they were being held back by the question 'what can one person really do' and the less than optimistic answer their minds came up with.

But the problem was that a single civilian just happening to spot a team of operators multiple times didn't justify someone sniffing around a file belonging to someone that hadn't interacted with the civilian in over a decade. Now if Joyce had become a skilled operator herself and had done the same sort of things he'd done THEN he could see them taking a very close look at her but he could tell with a glance that wasn't the case. She was precisely what he thought she was when he'd entered the gallery: a civilian leading a simple middle class life.

For a moment he considered pressing Joyce for more but seeing how much this was unsettling her he chose not to. Being a civilian it wasn't likely that she knew much more because she didn't have the training to recognize the important things or the desire to look for them. However he still had unanswered questions so he'd be staying in Sunnydale for awhile to see what else he could find that'd fill in the blanks. Pick out a surveillance spot for both Joyce's gallery and her home to see if anyone suspicious showed an unusual interest in her. When he found the most likely candidate he'd tail them to see where they went, who they spoke to and hopefully overhear the conversation.

Mac didn't let him have much in the way of gear and by that he meant barely anything but he'd worked with less before and was still alive to talk about it.

"Guess this won't be a quick visit after all." He said accepting that Joyce didn't know more, "Nice seeing you again Joyce."

Turning to the door though he didn't get more than two steps before it was opened from the other side to reveal a teenage blonde girl not more than eighteen years old or so. He had to think of something quick to keep things from looking out of the ordinary but Joyce beat him to it.

"Buffy! How many times have I told you to knock before coming into my office?" Joyce asked like a reprimanding mother, "I could've been in a meeting with a client."

Buffy? What kind of muppet name was Buffy?

"Sorry! I just wanted to ask you what you wanted taken home." Buffy asked defensively before looking at him, "Who's this? Looks like his idea of art is dogs playing poker."

Not too far off the mark with that. He thought when he considered the paintings he actually liked.

"This is Mister Price. He was thinking of doing some business here in Sunnydale." Joyce replied doing a good job of not giving a lot away.

"Price?" Buffy asked before the Californian teenager became something more suspicious, "He a Watcher?"

Watcher? Didn't sound like she was accusing him of watching birds or anything like that. It sounded more like a title or a job position. For a moment he tried to recall if he'd ever heard of it and a second later a possibility popped into his mind that he wanted to deny but found he couldn't since it fit both the location and the American activity.

The American military wouldn't be interested an art gallery owner who knew practically nothing but they WOULD be interested if she knew the Slayer.

And the Slayer was taught by a Watcher though some people would say controlled.

It'd been years since he'd been briefed on a side of the world that he hadn't known about and since then there had been few who were willing to say positive things about the Watchers. They claimed to be the dominant organization in their war and often let that opinion influence how they interacted with others.

The truth was quite different.

"No I'm not a Watcher young lady and I consider that a good thing." He replied letting his opinion of Watchers coat his words, "Bunch of muppets couldn't win a war if their lives depended on it."

To this the young lady smiled in agreement but from Joyce behind them there was a light groan of someone who'd been trying to keep something under wraps only for someone to throw it right into the spotlight.

"Buffy…I'm beginning to think Dawn's right about you." Joyce said with resigned disappointment, "That bleach really is getting through to your brain."

"MOOOMMM!" Buffy whined at the slight to her intelligence.

Mom?

Buffy was Joyce's daughter?

Looking at the young lady closer he examined her face for familiar features and found quite a few belonging to Joyce. But when his mind produced a possibility, one even worse than Joyce acquainted with the Slayer, his scrutiny increased as he looked for other features in the teenage girl's face. It was wild, like something out of a movie, but with every second that passed he found what he was looking for. They say that some traits define a bloodline and that was truer for some than others.

To say he was floored by the implications he was seeing would be the mother of all understatements.

He turned to Joyce with a look on his face that he imagined conveyed the question 'is it true? Is what I suspect in fact the truth?'.

"Let's…let's take this someplace else." Joyce said heading for the door like someone resigned to a LONG unpleasant day, "No way am I doing this without a drink."

To him that was pretty much the only confirmation that he needed and he found himself in complete agreement with the woman.

Definitely a drink.

A STIFF one.

---

Outside 1630 Revello Drive

Xander's POV

"Any idea what this is about?" Willow asked as they walked up the walkway leading to Buffy's front door.

"Sadly no but Buffy did seem rather insistent that we come." Giles said as they climbed up the front steps, "I can only presume that she had her reasons for doing so."

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

It only took a few moments before the door opened and revealed Buffy on the other side of the door looking a little wigged out. That only him that while she might not know the details she did know that something was going on and it had her as wary as he'd be if he found an expensive looking leather briefcase at the mouth of a dark alleyway. It put him on edge himself but he didn't let it show.

If there was one thing he'd learned well it was that it was definitely worth it to keep what was really going on in your head to yourself even when amongst allies.

When fighting against things that had abilities or could perform magic capable of altering both the mind as well as the body allies could be come enemies all too easily. While it'd be nice to think that human willpower and heart could be a valid route to resisting such changes he couldn't bring himself to put much stock in that belief. To him it was the same sort of thing as believing that a mother and father would always love their child and would never even consider raising a hand against them.

It might be the case for some but some did not mean all.

"Good. You guys're here." Buffy said gesturing for them to enter the house, "Mom's wigging big time and she won't say what's going on until everyone's here."

So it was Missus S who called the meeting?

That certainly put a new spin on things since while more informed than she'd been before she hadn't really gotten involved in defending Sunnydale like the rest of them. She was kept in the loop especially when the latest threat could potentially harm her but otherwise she maintained a normal life. To be honest it was the best place for her because one way or another she'd become a sort of den mother for the Scoobies and all of them could only really do their jobs if they knew she was safe.

It did't take long at all for them to reach the living room to find that the entire Summers family was present but there was also a stranger there that instantly put him on guard.

Male, six feet tall, blue eyes, brown hair and a sort of mustache that he think was called a cookie duster mustache but allowed to grow so far that it connected with the hair on his head. Honestly the image he had in his head was something you'd see back in the UK around the late eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds so it was seriously old school. However what had his undivided attention was the…feeling…the…aura…the guy was giving off because it screamed soldier to him and a damn good one. Most people might scoff at this but thanks to what happened on Halloween almost two years ago he had something of an insight in how a soldier looked.

Was he affiliated with the Initiative? Maybe the guy was here to tell Buffy that she'd been given security clearance to enter the Initiative facility?

No.

If it was something as small as letting them know what Walsh's bosses had decided that could've been done over the phone and the same could be said for telling Buffy she'd been rejected. Sure there was option number three and the guy was here to tell the Scoobies to butt out of Initiative business altogether. It didn't look like the guy had any non-disclosure agreements handy or a group of thugs for intimidation purposes but looks could be deceiving.

"Captain Price. I must admit I did not expect to see you here." Giles said revealing with words and tone that he knew this stranger, "It has been…six years has it not?"

"Rupert. Guess it's a good thing you're here." Captain Price replied relaxing a little, "If it was anyone but you I'd be a little upset."

"Why are you here?" Giles asked getting to the core of the matter, "What business does the SAS have here?"

The SAS? British special forces?

No matter how he looked at it he couldn't think of a single situation where the British special forces would be working hand in hand with the Initiative. Was this about something else? As if they needed something else to deal with on top of the Initiative.

"Officially the SAS is not involved in this." Captain Price replied in the same way anyone in power delivered the official stance of an organization.

"And unofficially?" Giles asked asked pressing for a more acceptable answer.

"Unofficially a week ago someone started poking around my file without going through the official channels. ALL of my file." Captain Price replied with clear meaning to his last statement, "Naturally this raised a few flags with my bosses so they backtracked it to its source. The last link in the chain was here in Sunnydale."

Interesting but not exactly troubling much less something worthy of getting all Scoobies to report to the Summers home. If there was any truth to what Hollywood had shown them it was that it was business as usual for the governments of the world to spy on each other. As long as you didn't get caught or poke around something that was too high security nothing really happened. The fact that the SAS was able to track things back here though implied that either he'd been led to Sunnydale or whoever was supposed to conceal the activity screwed up.

"Questions were asked but there was only one reason someone in California would be interested in me since I haven't been in the States in more than a decade." Captain Price said with seriousness before turning his head to look at Missus S.

"Mom? How do you know her?" Buffy asked looking back and forth between Price and her mother.

"Back…before you were born I was spending a lot of my time learning what I needed in order to make my love of art into a job." Missus S replied before Price could say anything, "Hank and I'd been going steady for awhile but we both had things we wanted to do so while I was in the UK he stayed back in the States working on getting his career going. That's when I met John. He was a lieutenant at the time and had just gotten back from a mission. We met at a tavern, made chit-chat and found we enjoyed each other's company. It was nice to just talk about our day and hear an outsider's prospective."

"Problem was we both had obligations we needed to get back to and…well…we just fell out of contact." Captain Price said showing some regret over the loss of contact.

"And this has to do with you coming here now?" Buffy asked clearly not seeing the connection between past and present, "Why would the men in black be digging around for info on you if you just hanged out with mom back in the eighties?"

He on the other hand did.

"They looked into him because he was connected to your mom and because she was connected to you Buffy." He said spelling it out for the bottle blonde, "Guess they really are doing a check on you and a heavy duty one if they're going two connections out from you and including people your mom hasn't seen in a decade."

"Takes paranoia to a whole new level." Dawn snarked with a half roll of her eyes.

"That's not it." Captain Price said sounding sure of himself, "Government bean counters don't like it when resources are wasted. You'd get called into to see your boss if you asked for a background check on a long shot connection."

Point.

Sure if you were high enough up in the chain of command or were good enough at your job that you had a rep he could see them letting you do whatever but not for anyone that asked. To him this meant that either Price was a captain in the SAS with an impressive resume or…

…or the connection between the man and Buffy wasn't as distant as everyone probably thought.

He had a bad feeling about this.

Looking to Giles it looked like the Brit was closer than the others to making the same connection he had but hadn't quite put two and two together just yet. As for the Summers family Dawn was definitely closer than Buffy but it was Missus S who looked not like she'd arrived at the right conclusion but rather that she'd been there for years.

Definitely a bad feeling.

"Joyce…tell me the truth." Price asked conveying how serious he was about getting an answer, "If people can make the connection one way they can make it the other way."

In response to this Missus S picked up a bottle that'd been on the table next to her, poured about a three quarter glass and then took a decent gulp of the stuff.

NOT a good sign.

While he wouldn't consider himself an expert in Missus S's habits and mannerisms what little he did know about adult behaviour knocking back a drink like that did not bode well.

"I wasn't supposed to be in London for as long as I was. One of the professors I had suddenly changed the topic of the final paper on the class ." Missus S said sounding like she was fighting to pull out every word, "No one liked this but the two people who tried to protest what he did only got its value on their final grade increased. It was only thanks to some outside intervention that the due date was changed. I called Hank that evening to let him know I'd be in London for awhile longer. But…but when the phone picked up on the other end it wasn't Hank. It was Lucy."

"Lucy?" Buffy asked sounding like the info on the name did exist in her mind but the connections weren't forming to bring it to the surface.

"One of the other interns at Hanks job." Missus S clarified with lingering bitterness, "At first I thought that I had the time difference wrong and that she was just there to pick something up. It'd happened before. Then…then I heard Hank in the background say…well let's just say it made it pretty clear what she was doing there and it wasn't to pick something up."

Hank Summers was the luckiest man on the planet that he wasn't within eyesight at that very moment.

"Dad cheated on you!?" Dawn exclaimed sounding like she was divided on how she felt about the news.

"That's what I believed at the time and I hung up almost immediately after hearing Hank talk." Missus S replied looking like an impulse to stop popped up but was shoved to the side, "I spent most of the day trying to understand why it'd happened and whose fault it was. In the end all I did was make myself want to forget the entire thing and my favourite tavern had a bottle of black label I'd wanted to try. I'd planned on trying ALL of it to see if that'd make things any easier."

"So that was what had you sloshed that night." Price said with understanding and a bit of dimmed amusement, "Thought you might've gotten a bad mark and a long shot way to get past it."

"I WISH!" Missus S declared ruefully, "It's when I saw you John that I got a better idea for how to deal with Lucy sleeping with Hank. I thought…I thought that if Hank could sleep with another woman and not feel a thing then I could sleep with another man and not be in the wrong."

"Fuck." Price said in the same tone most spoke when they realized that a past decision was a mistake even if it hadn't felt like one at the time.

For him the mistake had been in letting Faith have her way with him after rescuing her from the members of the Sisterhood. He should've realized that someone like her had come to believe that the only thing guys wanted from her was her body and a good time. He should've resisted, proved himself different from the guys she'd met in the past, but even with all the things leftover from Halloween he was still your typical Californian teenage guy.

As such the sight of a hot girl with a nice rack who wanted to take his virginity had been all that was needed to cause him to make the wrong choice.

Would things have been different if he'd resisted? Fought Faith off and proven to her that not all guys were perpetually on the hunt for a place to stick their dick. Sure she was a Slayer but he would've managed somehow and even if it'd left her a little pissed at him in the short term maybe it would've given her reason to think him different from most guys.

In the end though that was the past and now it was best to focus on the present as well as the possible futures.

"Honestly I don't remember a lot of what'd happened after we left the tavern but there are only so many ways to explain waking up naked in bed with someone." Missus S said the regret directed at her past decision, "Sorry I didn't stick around to wait for you to wake up John."

"Don't worry. Believe it or not I've had worse wake up calls." Price said sounding like he was reflecting on the past even as he kept tabs on the present.

"Well I had a rude one two months later when the only place I wanted to be was on my knees next to a toilet." Missus S said with a small smile, "Turns out I was pregnant. At the time I thought it was Hank's."

"Thought it was?" Willow asked showing her ability to pick up on the details.

"Yes. We 'celebrated' soon after I got back so the timing fit." Missus S replied the ghost of failure on her features, "Too bad things are never that simple."

Now he might be slow about some things but even he could connect the dots: Hank Summers wasn't Buffy's dad.

Captain Price was.

"No..no…NO!" Buffy said rejecting what was being laid out before her.

"I know it's not easy to hear Buffy but it's the truth." Missus S said trying to keep her daughter from retreating into denial.

"It couldn't have been all bad Buffy." Dawn said moving to comfort her big sister, "Hank might not've been related by blood but he still spoiled us rotten every chance he could. He loved us."

"Yeah. He did." Missus S said with a small smile, "It even had a side benefit. With a child to care for and raise any time he didn't spend working he spent with his family. Not time for that bitch Lucy! It wasn't until four years later that it started coming apart at the seams."

"What do you mean?" Dawn asked a tinge of dread barely perceivable in her voice.

"Your father got caught in an attack by Libyan terrorists and taken to hospital." Missus S replied after taking in another mouthful of liquor, "He wasn't badly hurt but the nature of the attack required he be given a full medical examination. It was at the end of that examination that the doctor began to list the various afflictions the tests revealed Hank had including much to our surprise that your father was sterile. Hank didn't take this well and started to go on about how much he hated the terrorists for what they'd done to him."

"Can't say I blame him." He said imagining if that'd happened to him, "Being told you can't have kids anymore isn't something any guy would take well."

"Hank and I felt the same way but then the doctor revealed that the sterility was not a new development. According to him Hank had likely been born sterile but the doctor wasn't ruling out that it was the result of something else." Missus S said looking down at her empty glass, contemplated refilling it but deciding against it, "The entire ride home Hank was silent but when we reached the driveway he let me know that he'd pieced it together. If he'd been infertile for years then Buffy couldn't be his daughter and so he wanted to know who I'd slept with.

"I told him it was just some guy I'd met in London after I'd found out he'd slept with Lucy." Missus S said with a lingering intensity that told him the discussion hadn't been pretty, "He couldn't very well yell at me for doing the same thing he'd done especially since he'd done it first. He'd still been angry and I'd known that if I didn't say something more it'd affect how he acted towards you Buffy. I told him that it didn't matter if he wasn't connected to you by blood because from the day you were born he'd been the only father you knew of. I told him that he was my husband and the man I wanted to raise my daughter and nothing would change that. It worked and he calmed down for the most part though it still took a few days before everything was back to normal."

Messy but the fact that Hank had taken Missus S's words to heart and acted on them told him that the guy really did care about his family.

Too bad that that didn't seem to be the end of it.

Not by a long shot.

"One day Hank surprised me with an all expenses paid trip overseas courtesy of his bosses. He said it'd be like a second honeymoon and that we could leave Buffy with Celia and her parents." Missus S said continuing the story of the secret she'd been keeping for over a decade, "It'd been a wonderful idea so I agreed hoping to rekindle a little more of the passion we'd had when we'd been dating. Hank had gone all out choosing some of the most romantic locations in Europe but that didn't mean we were spending money like there was no tomorrow. He liked to joke about how he'd be spending the next ten to twenty paying the trip back to his bosses.

"When we were in Spain I'd told him that I wanted to check out the local street markets but he managed to beg off of it by pointing out that he'd met his pack mule quota." Missus S said before the optimism that the trip's memories had brought back for her, "I let him figuring that he'd done enough on the trip that I could let him take it easy for once. I must've been out for two…three hours before heading back to the hotel with what I'd bought. I should've come back sooner."

Aw shit! He thought realizing where this was going.

Two steps forward and ten steps back for that asshole!

"Honestly it'd have been better if I'd heard them through the walls but instead I walked right into the room to see Hank plowing into one of the hotel maids from behind. Took both of them a whole ten seconds to realize I was there!" Missus S growled a the second act of infidelity on the part of her ex-husband, "The…woman was smart enough to run out of the room but all Hank did was look uncomfortable at being caught with his pants literally down. I let him have it of course but he tried to play it off like it didn't mean anything. In his mind since he couldn't get the maid pregnant it was 'no harm, no foul' and then tried to make me believe that the maid had seduced him! He tried to buy me off with an expensive dinner or something else but I didn't give an inch. It didn't matter that he couldn't get the maid pregnant and I had doubts that the maid had worked all that hard to get him to have some fun!

"I stormed out of the room and didn't plan on coming back until I stopped being pissed at him." Missus S said the embers of her old anger glowing a bit, "It wasn't until a little after sundown that I got inspired. With the sun going down the night crowd was coming out and I was reminded of how things used to be before I met Hank. Teenagers, college students and tourists all came out dressed for a night on the town with some dressed for expensive events while others clearly were heading to the wilder clubs. I was angry, hurt and probably not thinking all that straight. I decided for one night I'd stop being Joyce Summers and just be another lady in the crowd out to have some fun dancing the night away."

Well this isn't going to end well. He thought with a grimace even as he glanced at Buffy and Dawn, The timing, the dates and what happened the last time Hank couldn't keep his dick in his pants…she's going to do something stupid.

"The thing was I couldn't leave Joyce behind looking like I did. Even if I got dressed up in different clothes I'd still look the same." Joyce said contenting her tale for all to hear, "So I took what money I had and had a full makeover done as quickly as possible. Hair, make up, clothes and accessories. I had it all done until you'd have to look pretty close to figure out who I was. From there I went clubbing heading for whatever place looked the funnest but was not a place 'Joyce Summers' would every have gone to. I…honestly some of the places turned out to be a lot more fun than I'd thought while the others should've been shut down for health and safety violations. Still I tried what was popular and did my best to go with the flow but I think I might've overdone it…a lot."

It was then that she looked to Captain Price with an amused smirk on her face.

"But then you probably knew that better than most John." Joyce said before looking back down at the empty glass in her hands.

"I was in Spain around then. Had to deal with some people who didn't approve of the country joining NATO." Captain Price admitted though it looked like he only had suspicions rather than firm connections in his mind, "HQ cleared us for some R&R time after but I don't remember seeing you there Joyce."

Missus S just grunted with amusement before getting to her feet, a bit unsteadily for a few seconds, then moved over to a cabinet a short distance away. The head of the Summers family opened it up but then reached deep into it before beginning to scratch away at something before yanking out a piece plastic panelling that didn't look like it belonged at all. Color was wrong and he could tell from where he was sitting that whoever had cut it to fit hadn't possessed any skill beyond someone with a rough idea of what they wanted done. It was only when Missus S peeled a photo that'd been taped to the top of the piece that he realized the purpose of the plastic panelling: to conceal something the head of the house didn't want found.

A few steps later she was handing the photo to Captain Price for him to look at.

"Remember now?" Missus S asked taking some pleasure in the man's reaction.

"YOU were Jessie?!" John asked clearly shocked and making the rest of the room wonder just how good the 'not Joyce' look had been.

"Yeah. Not exactly an original name taking my initials and turning them into a name but I wasn't exactly caring about perfection at that point." Missus S replied before retaking her chair, "Thanks to my lack of restraint a lot of the night is blurry but I'm pretty sure we enjoyed ourselves. This time though when I woke up it was you who'd bailed early but I didn't mind too much. Felt like shit though so I took a shower, got a large cup of the strongest coffee I could get and headed back to me and Hank's hotel room. I was still mad at him but I'd calmed down enough to try and talk it through with him. For Buffy's sake."

While the others looked like they'd presumed that that was the end of the story he could tell from Joyce's expression that it wasn't over yet. Usually when someone has finished revealing a deep and dark secret there is a bit of relief on their faces since now the eight is no longer there but he still saw quite a few pounds on her face.

"A few months later though I was pregnant again with Dawn." Missus S said with emotion that made it clear that times hadn't been pleasant after the news broke, "I tried the same reasoning when he found out Buffy wasn't his but he'd had time to let the fact that he was sterile as a rock sink in. To say he was bitter would be putting it lightly. Having Buffy around was a big enough reminder that his wife had slept with another man but Dawn would've meant dealing with another one. I said everything I could and when that wasn't enough I suggested we go with option of last resort: marriage counselling. We'd meet with a professional and hope that between the three of us we could keep the marriage from imploding.

"So talking it out worked?" Willow asked completely captivated by the tale.

"No. It fell short of the mark. Hank wasn't as angry as he'd been in the beginning and was less inclined to take it out on others but he still wasn't sure if he had it in him to remain my husband." Missus S replied with a negative shake of her head, "In the end it took just one thing to convince him to dig deep and give our marriage one more chance: Buffy crying when she overheard him saying he was thinking about leaving. We didn't know she was anywhere close when we were talking but the second Hank said he was considering divorce she came in crying and begging him not to go. He could've lied to her, told her he wouldn't but get the paperwork started later, but he didn't. He stuck with it, made it work, and things got better for eight years until he proved to me that while I wanted the marriage to last he didn't. You know the rest."

"Not enough!" Buffy exclaimed with a mix of emotions that couldn't be separated much less identified, "If…if he's our real dad why didn't you tell me!? I get why you couldn't while Da-Hank was around but why not later!?"

"You'd just gotten out of…that place and were getting settled here in Sunnydale. I didn't want to make things harder for you." Missus S replied reading her eldest's emotional state and trying to encourage calmness with her tone, "Besides you know I was reading books on how to be a single mom. For all the good they did!"

He definitely agree with that.

Books about how people thought or acted might be helpful sometimes but mostly they were just a way to make money in his mind.

"And you! Where've you been!?" Buffy asked whirling on Captain Price as another target for emotional venting.

"I DIDN'T KNOW." Captain Price replied after Buffy's question brought him out of a dazed state of shock, "Never heard from Joyce after that time in London and I had no clue that she was Jessie."

Good. Keep calm. Don't feed your own emotions into the mix. He thought knowing that loosing your cool was a good way to turn things into a yelling match.

Volume didn't equal correctness.

"Well that's just great!" Buffy exclaimed clearly agitated, "The man I THOUGHT was my father turns out to be a cheating bastard and my mother's only way of coping with it is getting drunk and sleeping with whoever looks at her the right way!"

"Buffy!" Dawn exclaimed coming to the defence of Missus S.

"What? It's true! Finding out Hank's screwing other women doesn't give you the right to do the same!" Buffy said proving that she wasn't taking things well AT ALL, "You could've dumped his ass! You could've gone back to grandma and grandpa!"

Easy to say but not so easy to do.

"It is not that simple Buffy." Giles said speaking up hopefully as the voice of reason, "When something…terrible…occurs you do not think clearly. Solutions that would have worked better do not occur to you until quite a bit later. In your mother's case I imagine that the first time she was acting more on her emotions than reason. We have all done the same from time to time. As for the second time it is one thing to merely hear the damning evidence over a phone but it is quite another when it is standing right in front of you seemingly with little regret. As for your grandparents I cannot speak for them but I do know that if any of the women in my family committed similar acts it would not be received well by my grandparents. At best some understanding would be conveyed but the family would always look at you differently from then on. However if all good fortune abandoned them they would be disowned by the family with even the most distant relatives shunning you."

While he'd like to think that American grandparents wouldn't be quite as severe as British grandparents he doubted that it'd be too much sunnier. Old people were old school when it came to how they viewed things like dating, marriage and the like. It was all supposed to be done by the book and you were expected to soldier on through the unpleasantness since it'd be a source of shame if the truth got out.

"WHATEVER! I'm outta here!" Buffy declared before storming away and leaving the house soon after.

He had a distinct feeling that the local demons and vampires were about to have a VERY bad day.

The only problem with letting Buffy use the undead and unholy as punching bags was that in the state she was in she'd likely get a bit careless. He knew from experience that when you were pissed all you cared about was dealing out the pain and tended to dismiss anything that didn't help you with that. He didn't think she'd be stupid enough to abandon defence entirely for the sake of upping the offence but she'd be less aware of her surroundings.

Too bad in situations like that all it took was one clean attack to summon the Grim Reaper.

"I'll keep an eye on her." He said getting off the couch, "Make sure she doesn't get in over her head."

A nod from G-man was enough to know that the man was okay with that.

Good to know but not necessary.

He'd have gone either way.

---

Half an Hour Later

Joyce Summers' POV

I…I don't know what to do. She thought looking out at her backyard contemplating a fresh bottle of black label.

From the moment that she'd first recognized John she'd know that the day was going to go right down the toilet. She'd wanted to tell him to leave the moment she'd recognized him but her knowledge of what he did for a living stopped her. For him to come all the way here meant something important was going on that couldn't be handled over the phone.

She couldn't send him away without learning why he was here.

Never had she expected John to make the connection between himself and Buffy.

The entire way home she'd debated in her head what to say, how much to reveal, and saying she'd only talk once the 'Scoobies' were present had been more of a delaying action than anything else. She'd need more time to think but once they'd arrived it all just spilled out after John had explained what he could about the reasons why he was here. Secrets she'd done everything to keep hidden and had only ever considered revealing if her dying in the near future was all but a certainty. She'd known that neither Buffy or Dawn would react well to the truth because for the most part Hank had done a decent job spoiling his daughters. Even if they didn't have too many lingering good feelings towards Hank that didn't mean they'd take the revelation of such a personal secret well. A child's parents were the foundation of their world and key components for becoming who they'd be later on in life. To find out that one had lied to them and the other wasn't really blood related as well as chronically unfaithful shook the foundation pretty seriously.

Was it beyond the point of recovery? She couldn't say for certain but she had a feeling that even if they did forgive her they would never forget how she lied to them.

"She may be mad now but never doubt that she does love you."

Turning to see who spoke she saw Giles passing through the backdoor of the house onto the deck where she'd gone for some solitude.

"Love was never something I doubted my daughters had Giles." She said turning her gaze back to the yard and the fence, "But lies are poison and if they're big enough they can turn love into hate."

Did she think her daughters would come to hate her for lying to them all their lives? She'd like to think that even if they would be angry with her for awhile it wouldn't devolve into hate and certainly not the kind of hate that could destroy a family. Then again Buffy had proven capable of surprising her before and Dawn was no slouch in that department either. So what would be the best call? Try as hard as she could to show them that she loved them and how she planned on making it up to them? Give them space and let them work it out a bit for themselves while waiting for them to approach her when they were ready?

She didn't know.

Honestly all those books she'd purchased and read in order to be a good single mother hadn't been nearly as helpful as she'd hoped they would be when she'd purchased them. Sure a few times they worked out like cake but the rest of the time both her daughters had either looked at her in confusion or with 'you really thought THAT would work' looks.

"If the love is strong enough then poison cannot touch it." Giles said reassuringly, "Besides there are sufficient vampires and demons in Sunnydale for Buffy to vent a considerable amount of her anger on. When she is done I imagine she will be more rational and willing to listen to reason."

"Isn't that a bit much for a girl and boy to tackle?" John asked as he came to a stop alongside Giles, "I've got nothing but respect for those two for fighting against the monsters but you gotta know when to throw a punch and when to get scarce."

"Xander I will admit has a tendency to bite off more than he can safely chew but he has survived thus far." Giles said with a bit of ruefulness, "As for Buffy I actually pity the vampires she encounters. She is deadly enough when she's calm but anger her and she is a right terror with a blade."

"A teenage girl who couldn't have more than five years civilian training?" John asked with light incredulity, "No offence but I've seen trained soldiers lock horns with monsters like the kind that lurk here and the only reason they lived to tell about it was because they kept the fighting at range rather than up close."

"Well no offence to your soldiers but they were not Slayers." Giles said with a bit of pride in his words.

No surprise since Giles had been responsible for Buffy's training for the last three and a half years and had witnessed her abilities in person. She hadn't asked her daughter for all her adventures but she'd heard enough about them and been present for a few so she knew her eldest daughter could fight. As for Xander she knew that he'd do everything he could to back Buffy up and her eldest would save him if he got in over his head.

"Slayer? My daughter is a SLAYER?" Price asked looking both surprised as well as upswing angry.

"Of course she is." She replied feeling a little confused, "I thought you knew when she asked if you were a Watcher."

"No I didn't. I just thought it meant she'd met one or was working with one and their Slayer." John said with a look that made it clear that he thought he'd been denied 'need to know' intel by someone and wasn't happy about it, "SAS is supposed to be told by the Watchers who the latest Slayer is just in case we cross paths."

Made sense.

While Buffy might've been assigned to Sunnydale that didn't mean that she couldn't be reassigned at some point or pulled temporarily to carry out an important mission elsewhere. If that happened it wasn't impossible that Buffy could wind up having to work with or unexpectedly encountering soldiers of various nations. If the nations the Watchers Council was allied with were given the file on the current Slayer including a picture there'd be few if any friendly fire incidents.

That's what they called it in the movies right? When people on the same side accidentally fired on each other?

"Bloody pillock!" Giles growled in a way that caught everyone's attention.

"Giles?" She asked quickly regretting her question since she felt like it'd be another revelation and she'd had her fill so far today.

"Travers. He knew!" Giles replied sounding like he'd very much wish to inflict bodily harm on the man, "It IS standard Council protocol to inform all allied nations with divisions designated for fighting the supernatural of each newly Called Slayer within one month of her being positively identified. Joint operations between the Slayer and a nation's military are not uncommon as is unexpected encounters. Given my last encounter with Captain Price I can safely say that he has the necessary security clearance. There is only one reason I can think of as to why he wasn't informed prior to his trip here: Travers either withheld Buffy's status as the Slayer from the SAS or sent them a fabricated file to make it look like he was abiding by the agreements."

"And why would he do that?" Price asked sounding like he'd have one more target for his anger.

"Under Travers' leadership the Council tends to prefer Slayers that were found while they were still Potentials. It allows them to begin their training early and mold them into what they consider ideal warriors for the cause." Giles replied anger simmering in the background of his voice, "They want Slayers who are wholly dedicated to the Calling with minimal 'impediments' to get in the way. Buffy however was not found prior to being Called and slipped through the cracks. As such was is not thought highly of by either Travers or his supporters. This I suspect has been the motivation for the repeated denials of my requests for resources and increased support. I imagine that if Buffy were to perish because of this lack of support none of them would shed a tear and Travers would see it as freeing up the position for a Council raised Slayer."

"Rat bastard!" John growled with such hostility that she imagined that Travers might well be getting 'dancing on his grave' feeling at the moment.

If not she'd gladly contribute her own fury to make sure the asshole knew karma was coming for him.

"Indeed! He likely believed that if Buffy's status was not known to allied nations then she would be denied unexpected support and might just fall victim to friendly fire." Giles said making the foul mood unanimous, "I suspected that when Buffy was Called an investigation was carried out to learn as much as possible and more specifically identify potential security problems. It is one of the reasons the Council discourages the Slayer from having a social life of any kind and insists that family be kept in the dark. Operational security I believe it's called. I know not how they did it but I strongly suspect that they learned of Buffy's connection with you Captain Price and THAT was why the SAS was not informed of Buffy's status."

"He knew my bosses would do their own background check on her and Joyce." Captain Price said with frosty fury as facts fell into place, "If Mac knew my daughter was the Slayer he'd have told me. Maybe even done what he could to give her support under the table."

"And that'd increase Buffy's chances of surviving and keep him from getting his Council trained Slayer!" She growled furious at the idea that some self-important bastard was essentially trying to kill her daughter by deliberately stacking the deck against her while having backup drag its heels, "And you worked for the man?!"

"Not willingly. The Giles family has been a part of the Watcher's Council for three generations and as such it was expected that I too would become a Watcher from the moment I was born." Giles replied with bitterness towards the expectations of his family, "I rebelled against this as best I could but it only ended in tragedy causing me to return to my father with my tail between my legs. I never approved of Travers or how he chose to lead the Council but I was reassured by the Watchers like myself who did not view caring about the Slayer as a weakness. It was why I was fired because I was unable to remain detached during the Cruciamentum even with all the anomalies that cropped up. I stayed because I felt that Buffy still needed my help and I was determined to give her the support the Council would not."

Reigning in her anger on the matter she had to acknowledge that Giles had shown that he cared about Buffy in the past. It just infuriated her that a group that was supposed to support and train her daughter was instead doing what they could to ensure her death. All because she had a mind and will of her own!

"And you proved yourself a sight better than those bastards for doing it." Price said putting a respectful hand on Giles' shoulder, "Her being the Slayer clears up why someone state-side would dig so deep for information on her but it still doesn't tell me who they are. Any ideas?"

"Only one. Three months ago Buffy encountered a group of armed men with military equipment during an effort to put a stop to a female werewolf. A young musician by the name of Veruca was the human identity of the werewolf but rather than take precautions to ensure she did not harm anyone while in her transformed state she revelled in it." Giles replied his earlier anger being submerged in favour of the present situation, "We had seen similar groups earlier but had dismissed them as college students playing a game or something. Knowing this was significant we wanted to learn more but did not have the means to gain much information. It wasn't until an old enemy came to us for sanctuary that we learned more.

"We learned that the commandoes were part of a military project called 'The Initiative' whose focus was the non-human community of Sunnydale. While at first encouraged by the idea of a source of support being close by when we learned of their methods we were given reason for concern." Giles explained letting her know more than Buffy had seen fit to tell her, "Most of their operations in Sunnydale seemed to be focused on capturing and imprisoning demons for scientific examination as well as experimentation. This was troubling on its own since effective means of killing as well as countering known breeds of demon are already known with the sources readily accessible. It only became worse when our former enemy revealed that he had been implanted with a microchip designed to induce great pain if he tried to harm a human."

"That doesn't sound so bad. Get them in enough heads and Buffy could retire." She said approving of the idea.

"Buffy had a similar opinion but I pointed out to her that 'chipping' vampires opened the way to a very slippery slope where the technology could be adapted to other species including humans." Giles said showing his opposition to the method, "When we learned that Riley, Buffy's current boyfriend, was in fact a soldier in the Initiative we thought we'd found a way to learn more. It is likely that when both Buffy and Riley expressed an interest in her working more closely with the Initiative that a background check was ordered."

With that last bit of information all the dots were connected but it still left them wondering what to do now. If John hadn't known about the Initiative going on then it was highly likely that the SAS and perhaps the British government had not been informed about the Initiative. Not that she could think of a reason why a foreign government would need to be informed about an American secret project. What would be the best thing to do?

"I've got to make a call." John said turning to head inside, "Best if you stayed out here unless you want a stack of N. arriving in the mail."

She couldn't say that she liked the idea of secrets being kept from her she understood that some things were unavoidable when you were a soldier.

She just hoped that it wouldn't make matters worse for her and her family.

---

Captain John Price's POV

"C'mon, c'mon! Pick up you shit eater!" He growled after dialling a number from memory.

To say that he had quite a few people he'd love to feed their teeth to would be an understatement but he knew that wasn't practical for the moment. However there was one thing he refused to wait on and that's why he was making a long distance phone call to a secure number. He'd reimburse Joyce for whatever charges got added to her phone bill and then he'd take it out of the man he was calling first chance he got.

It was a little over fifteen rings later that the coward picked up on the other end and that gave him time to set up precisely what he wanted to say.

"Hello?" Came the voice of the man he'd expected on the other end.

"Don't 'hello' me you bloody muppet!" He growled into the phone concentrating the anger he felt into every word, "You got one chance to explain to me why you didn't tell me I had a daughter and that she was the Slayer. Make it count!"

"John! I…that is…it is standard policy to keep the number of people informed about the identity of the Slayer to a minimum." The man on the other end said scrambling to phrase things just right, "Even in the Council members are only given such information on a need to know basis. If any of the Council's enemies were to learn the name of the girl it would put her in serious jeopardy and potentially harm the Council itself. Besides according to the investigative team deployed once she'd been confirmed as the Slayer you haven't had any contact with her at all so there was really no need."

"Don't give me that Sean! We're family! SHE is family!" He said with fire making it clear his cousin had squandered his chance, "I might not've signed up to work for the Council like Da wanted but I never doubted that he'd be there for me and anyone in the family. We were Price's first and everything else second in his eyes!"

"I know! I…I knew you'd want to know the second I found out but Travers pulled me aside after the meeting and made it clear that I couldn't tell you anything." Sean said obviously realizing that the 'rules and protocol' shield would not serve him well here, "To him the mission, protecting humanity against the supernatural, takes priority over everything and the Council has been at the forefront of that mission for millennia. He didn't want the complications that'd come from you finding out about Slayer Summers especially since existing agreements with the British government wouldn't be enough to lock the SAS out like he wanted."

"Doesn't play well with others does he?" He asked getting plenty of ammunition for demanding an assassination mission from Mac for one Mister Travers.

"No. No he does not." Sean replied sounding like the wind was escaping his proverbial sails, "He believes that seniority equals rank and that as such the Council outranks everyone else. Add to that the various old treaties that the Council has with the world's most powerful countries and he likely sees himself as unchallengeable through legal channels. The moderates among us have been trying since he began his tenure as leader began to keep some of his more abrasive tendencies in check but their numbers have dwindled over the last two decades."

He knew types like this.

Being in the SAS you got to learn a great deal about the sort of people who managed to make it into places of power whether it was military power or economic power. This Travers bloke probably never took responsibility for his actions a day in his life choosing instead to drop the blame on others. He'd bet good odds that the Travers family was one of the more powerful and influential families in the Council making it hard to oppose them never mind hold them to account for their snafus.

Well the man would find out the hard way that no one gave a member of the Price family the short end of the stick on purpose without there being consequences.

Dire consequences.

Still that could happen later once the more immediate problem got taken care of.

"We'll do something about that later." He said deciding to move things along, "That bookworm education of yours include any agreements between the UK and America about the supernatural. I remember hearing something about that but I didn't get any particulars."

"Well there are a few that've been signed since the country was formed but the one you're likely remembering is the Accords of nineteen twenty-three. Essentially they were devised in response to the growing influence of science on society and how it might be applied to the supernatural." Sean said with the sound of ruffling papers in the background, "In the years prior the nations that agreed to sign the Accords had stumbled across a few crude attempts by warlocks and lesser nations to harness the supernatural for malicious purposes. It took almost a year before the final copy was ready for signing but when it was all the attending nations agreed to abide by it."

"The accords say anything about the capture, examination and experimentation of demons?" He asked remembering more about what he'd overheard years ago.

"They said rather a lot actually." Sean replied before the paper rustling came to an end, "It was one of three points of focus discussed by the signing nations before the Accords were signed. I won't bother you with the inane details but suffice it to say that if it's done in the service of finding better ways to kill hostile supernatural entities or protect humanity from harm by said entities than it would be permitted. However at no time would it be permitted for any activities to be carried out for the purpose of developing of methods that could be used against your fellow signing members or other nations."

"Seems like a blurry line to me." He said thinking of a few ways the meaning of the Accords could be creatively interpreted, "Something that could be harmful to demons and vampires would be plenty lethal to humans."

"There've been a number of revisions and amendments made to the Accords in the decades that followed that I don't quite recall." Sean said sounding like he agreed, "It will take me time to get the particulars but if you tell me what this is all about I might be able to be more precise."

"I've found out that there's an American military project located in Sunnydale." He replied confident that the precautions on Sean's side of things would keep this conversations secure, "It's called the Initiative and according to my source they've been capturing, studying and experimenting on their prisoners."

"While a bit disappointing that they're ignoring the information the Council has provided them on the subject such things are not in and of themselves violations of the Accords." Sean said sounding disappointed in the Americans, "If they want to waste their time using science to come to the same conclusions as the originators of traditional methods I've got no problem with that."

"What about putting chips in demons that hurts them if they try to hurt a human?" He asked deciding to go with a specific.

"No! Definitely not." Sean replied emphatically, "Both before and after the Accords were signed attempts had been made to control demons and vampires for combat purposes. None of the signing nations wanted allies or enemies to make an attempt at the same. I remember reading the report about the abominations that Nazi Doctor Straub created during World War Two. Horrid! You're not thinking that the Americans are trying something similar are you?"

"Too early to say for sure but I trust my sources. The Initiative has definitely chipped at least one demon and the implant is functional." He replied not wanting to claim more than he actually knew.

"Damn. This will at least warrant having a low profile MI6 investigation. Maybe even sending a group to investigate the facility to ascertain the particulars." Sean said sounding like he didn't approve of the implications of chipping demons.

"No good. If the people in charge know we're onto them they'll burn any evidence of their activities to ash before anyone from your side of the pond can even book a flight." He said not agreeing with that course of action, "If we want to be sure they can't know anything's wrong until it's too late to do something about it."

"So you want to do it 'your way' do you?" Sean asked sounding like he was mentally slapping himself for not realizing this sooner, "SAS forces infiltrating a top secret American military facility for the purposes of espionage and possible demolition. Cannot imagine how badly that would bollox things up if things got out of hand. The phrases 'act of war' and 'political shit storm' come to mind."

"You forget that I can do discreet when I need to." He said reminding Sean about how a lot of his missions prohibited shock and awe tactics, "Besides as far as the SAS is concerned I'm on vacation."

"Sigh…very well." Sean said knowing that there wasn't a lot he could do, "But I hope you're ready to accept the consequences of your actions."

"Always am." He said with respect, "See you at the next reunion Sean."

"Likewise John." Sean said before hanging up on his end.

Now that he'd settled that bit of rot, at least for the time being, he'd better move on to the next part and he expected it to be far more difficult.

He was going to have to convince Mac to lend him some support.

As good as he was tackling a covert American project was not a one man job.

---

Approaching Sunset

Shady Hill Cemetery

Xander's POV

Looks like it's going to be a quiet time in Sunnydale for the next few weeks. He thought shaking his head as he watched Buffy enter another building that he presumed was a vamp nest.

It'd been a few hours since he'd left the Summers home to keep tabs on his blonde buddy and one time crush but at least a third of that time had been spent trying to find her. There were after all quite a few places where the Slayer could go to blow off steam so he'd been forced to try and anticipate where she'd choose to go. After the revelation that Hank wasn't her real Dad and her mom had been lying to her for years he knew Buffy was emotionally unbalanced while possessing a serious need to vent what she was feeling by kicking some ass. It'd been on his second guess that he'd spotted her but he'd been able to tell at a glance that she wasn't in the mood for company.

That was okay.

He'd made sure he was kitted out for that and to be honest he hadn't planned on backing her up the usual way.

He wasn't sure if it was Captain Price's arrival or just his own desire to put what he'd gained Halloween night to use but he'd still stopped to grab a few things from his 'personal stash' before setting out to find Buffy.

In any case he'd kept his distance but at the same time had done what he could to never lose sight of Buffy for longer than five seconds. In Sunnydale a lot could happen in five seconds and even with all the benefits of being the Slayer to help her the eldest Summers daughter could still get in over her head in that amount of time. So far the count was at six locations with this being the seventh and near as he could tell ZERO survivors. Better than that though she wasn't wracking up as much damage as he'd been expecting. When she'd stormed out of her house he'd expected her to just tear into the demons with maximum hostility and little if any defence to speak of. She still had some damage, some hair out of place, but nothing that would call for anything more serious than a Band Aid or an ice pack.

Better get ready. He thought as he moved his eye away from the scope to double check the settings on his rifle.

His Barrett .50cal semi-automatic sniper rifle.

Contrary to what the other Scoobies thought he didn't liberate just the LAW rocket launcher that time they needed something to kill The Judge. He'd gone back afterwards in order to help himself to a few necessities but the rifle had been part of another secret his friends didn't know about.

As far as they knew he'd left Sunnydale after graduation to go on a road trip to see the country only to get stuck in Oxnard with all his money going to fixing his broken down car.

That was a lie.

The truth was that there had been no real need for the road trip because such things were meant to give a guy a wide array of experiences so he could decide what he wanted to do with his life. He was different though because he already knew what he wanted to do with his life: fight by the side of his friends to protect the people of Sunnydale and the world at large. What he lacked was the means to make that happen because if the past three years had taught him anything it was that Robin Hood weapons and a strong will wasn't nearly enough. The simple fact of the matter was that in a straight up fistfight most of the things the gang had to deal with would kill him. Even with the weapons from Giles' weapon locker the odds of an ordinary person being able to hold their own against anything but the bottom of the barrel nasties were slim to none.

He'd known from the beginning that he needed an equalizer.

Given how well the LAW and the improvised explosives had been with The Judge as well as the Ascended Mayor he was fairly certain that modern weapons weren't as useless as Giles liked to say they were.

So he'd decided it was time to arm up with modern weapons and thanks to Halloween he had a few ideas of what would work the best. The inherited memories and skills from Halloween night were random with some being so strong he'd swear that they really had happened to him while others he could barely touch. Using the ones he had a clearer picture of he'd made a list of what he'd try to acquire. Once the list was drawn up he stopped in LA and tried to look for the shiftiest gun stores he could find since they'd likely have the inventory he wanted. He'd gotten lucky with a few of them but for the rest he'd been forced to draw on some flimsy memories from his Halloween personae to find the truly illegal dealers. It'd been a long shot since as best he could figure most of the ones he knew of were at least fifteen years out of date but with some oddly good luck as well as quick thinking he'd gotten lucky.

The only things he hadn't been able to get were the things that were outside his price range.

Nevertheless he now had a pretty decent armoury but he was extremely careful about when as well as where he used any of it. He knew the gang would never agree with using them except when all of Giles' gear was proven to be useless. They'd also say that it'd draw too much attention to them not to mention it was useless against demons and vampires. The attention thing he could understand but that was why he'd made sure to purchase silencers for as many of the guns as he could. As long as he didn't go all 'spray and pray' when he wanted something shot the only way someone would be the wiser would be if they saw the effects of the bullet.

As for them being useless against demons and vampires that depended entirely on how you used them.

Yes unlike with a human being if you shot a vamp or a demon they'd shrug it off in most cases since they didn't have the same fatal weaknesses as a human being. A vamp was essentially a walking corpse with any human organs inside of it dead and therefore unnecessary. A demon had an entirely different internal makeup both in placement as well as in organ design not to mention it might also possess significant regenerative abilities.

However what mattered the most was where you aimed and how many shots succeeded in hitting the target. Succeed in shooting a vampire in the head, spine or legs and you'd immobilize it long enough to stake it. As for a demon it was mostly the same with the only difference being the caliber of the bullet and how man shots had to succeed in hitting the bullseye. It wouldn't matter if the demon had accelerated healing, natural bone armour or redundant organs to keep it alive. Do enough physical damage and even they'd go down or at least be neutralized as a threat until a more permanent method of killing it arrived.

Sure there was the issue of being able to hit something that possessed super acute senses or super speed but that was why he preferred striking from a distance. It would take time for any demon or vampire to figure out where the shots were coming from and even if they spotted him there'd be moments when even they wouldn't be able to dodge. If he timed it right and prioritized those who'd reach him first he could do quite a bit of damage before they left his line of sight.

And that was assuming he bothered to stick around that long.

When he finished his adjustments on the sniper rifle he put his eye back to the scope and trained it on the building Buffy had gone into. Most of the windows were boarded up but thankfully whoever had done it had been completely half-assed about it leaving gaps big enough to look through. With the adjustments he'd made he had as good a chance of spotting and shooting whatever Buffy was fighting as was possible. He'd considered putting on the IR scope on it but since it was most likely vamps Buffy would be fighting it'd be useless with their lack of body heat.

Gonna have to pick my shots and hope I get lucky. He thought hoping that Buffy either went home after this or the next group of unlucky inhuman group was tackled out in the open.

Minutes passed and while he'd been able to spot movement consistent with a fight it'd gone past the gaps in the boards too quickly for him to hope to hit anything. After a bit he was praying that Buffy would toss one through one of the boarded up windows so he could shoot it before it could recover. In the end though this turned out to be the one time he couldn't do anything since half a minute later Buffy emerged looking a little worse off than the last couple of times. She was wobbling a little on her feet but not so much that he was concerned that she wouldn't be able to make it home.

Best not to take chances. He thought as he began to put away his rifle into the bag he'd used to hide it from ignorant eyes.

It took him two minutes to get everything squared away and once he climbed down from the roof he just managed to hook up with Buffy as she left Shady Hill.

"You look like hammered shit Buffy." He said moving to help her recover from a spike of unsteadiness.

For a moment she raised her gaze and looked at him no doubt debating what to say or do. In the end she accepted his help and the two of them began to head back to Revello Drive. The anger that'd driven her to leave in the first place had dimmed from what he could tell but the Slayer was a long ways away from being 'okay'.

"Been following me?" She asked as the walked along while half trying not to look attention worthy.

"You betcha!" He said with his usual lopsided grin, "I never miss a chance to see the Buffinator dust a bunch of fang faces. Besides I figured having some backup on hand couldn't hurt."

"Thanks." Buffy said sounding like she meant it.

This was a mess, no two ways about it, but Buffy was tough so she'd get through it.

Might take a week or so, a couple containers of her favourite 'Ben & Jerry's' ice cream as well as some serious grovelling from both her mother but it'd happen.

And he'd be there to watch her back in case she needed an extra set of eyes.

---

SAS HQ

Stirling Lines, Hereford

Major General MacMillan's POV

"Sir? Bravo One's on the secure line."

"Put him through." He said before reaching over to his phone and activating what needed to be turned on in order to make his end secure.

There were some above his pay grade that thought he gave Price too much latitude and were just waiting for an excuse to come down on the both of them. Almost made him wish that he'd never gotten promoted but at least here he could do what he could to keep the bureaucratic BS away from men like Price so that they could do their jobs.

Nobody liked REMFs.

"Report Bravo One." He said after hearing the click signalling that the connection had been made.

"We've got a closed box sitting in El Dorado." Price said with an odd quality to it that he couldn't quite place, "Local parrots indicate C&E tactics with residents."

What?

"Say again Bravo One. Did you say C&E tactics with the local herd?" He asked unable to believe that the Americans would use capture and study tactics on civilians.

"Not local herd. Crimson Trick or Treaters." Price replied using a codeword he hadn't heard in a while, "Location is a concealed campfire."

Crimson Trick or Treaters was a codeword for monsters of various sorts that contrary to conventional beliefs did in fact exist. Most of the time they were handled by that bunch of glorified librarians and their top operative but occasionally the SAS performed joint operations when the threat was big enough to warrant it. As for the phrase 'concealed campfire' that indicated that Price was in a place with a high infestation of them but the locals weren't aware of them for the most part. MI6 did what they could to have an accurate list of monster hot spots so that no one stumbled into one by accident but sometimes their 'allies' failed to inform them about a few.

As for 'closed box' that referred to a black book project and the fact that it was in El Dorado meant that it was on U.S soil.

"Acknowledged Bravo One. Did you find out why Featherless Avian was sniffing around your clubhouse room?" He asked getting to the core reason for Price's holiday.

"Affirmative. 'Rose Gold' has hatchlings and they're inheritors. Clubhouse inheritors." Price said in a way that had him freeze for a moment before understanding sank in.

'Rose Gold' was the codename given to one Joyce Summers nee Sutherland that Price had gotten involved with years ago. By most accounts it was just a casual relationship that never amounted to anything but he knew John well enough to know he occasionally daydreamed about what might have been. That plus the usual spy paranoia had made sure that ANYONE that could potentially be a weak point for people like Price were identified, quantified and tracked as much as was possible.

As for the hatchlings part that indicated Miss Summers had children but it was the use of the codename 'inheritors' connected to the 'clubhouse' that really put a death grip on his attention. It meant that the hatchlings were blood related to an SAS operative and considering everything leading up to this point there was a strong chance that Price was indicating that the kids were his.

That complicated things a bit.

It was common sense and often policy to not allow someone to get involved in an operation where there was a high probability of them being emotionally compromised.

He'd decided to allow Price to go to California because he'd believed that time would've faded whatever he'd felt for Miss Summers to a level the man could suppress. However if John had discovered that he was in fact a father to the woman's children that was an unexpected weight around his protege's neck.

"Is that the reason for the sniffing?" He asked figuring that he'd best learn more before saying or doing anything.

"Partially. The eldest is of Amazon blood." Price replied bringing up another codeword that rarely reached his ears, "Also there's a possibility that a pinky swear between friends dealing with Crimson Trick or Treaters has been stained."

Amazon blood.

A Slayer.

Sigh. Only you Price could beat the odds and have a Slayer for a daughter. He thought putting a hand to his head as a headache began to make itself known, Bloody librarians!

He knew Price had come to the same conclusion that he had: the Council was supposed to keep them updated on the ID of their top operative to prevent friendly fire. Seeing as how there were no markers in Rose Gold's file or a brand new one for the Slayer herself this had clearly not been done right if at all. It was even money which one was the true reason that the data had never made it to hard copy but it didn't change the fact that the news changed things.

If the Americans were sniffing about Price's file because his daughter was a Slayer then it meant that the girl had more than one encounter with the black project. That'd likely lead to the yanks either trying to recruit her or quietly cross her off in order to maintain operational security of the project. Neither of those possibilities would sit well with Price so he'd need to handle things VERY carefully if he wanted to maintain a grip on the situation.

As for 'pinky swear' that was a phrase used for treaties, pacts and agreements with 'friends' being another word for the United Kingdom's allies. Price was also hinting that the Americans might be getting close to or already had violated one of these agreements and that it involved monsters. He'd have to consult with their expert on such things to find out more but he trusted John not to say things unless he was sure.

"You've really stepped into it this time Bravo One." He said letting his professionalism melt just a little, "Plans?"

"Peeping Tom on the closed box." Price replied with seriousness, "Find the source of the stink. Gonna need mobile assets."

Translation: Price planned on quietly infiltrating the black project to find out more and was asking for some back up.

"The Amazon hatchling not good enough?" He asked having heard about how strong Slayers were.

"Unknown but if she runs true to form I wouldn't trust her with a pellet gun." Price replied confirming that his daughter wasn't an anomaly.

It was part of the brief when you rose high enough in rank that Slayers specialized in hand-to-hand, melee weapons and Robin Hood projectile weapons. Even with the invention of gunpowder and the evolution of guns over the centuries the Watchers Council had never seen fit to train any of the Slayers in their use. A foolish move if ever there was one since it deprived the girls of a significant advantage and left them vulnerable against enemies that did use guns. Considering that the black project was probably chock full of men and women armed with firearms he could see why Price didn't want to rely on her for support.

"Your wish list?" He asked knowing that there were a few people he could pull that were due for some 'holiday time'.

"Gaz and Ghost along with a mute crate." Price replied letting him know what he was hoping for.

He'd expected the man to request one more SAS operative but two indicated how concerned John was about this black project. As for the mute crate it was an alias for a load out that focused on covert weaponry and gear that wouldn't let everyone and their mum know something was wrong.

"Greenlight on mobile assets. Negative on mute crate." He said after thinking about the pros and cons, "Shipping and handling fees too high. Shopping local a better bet."

As much as he'd like to send the weapons there was a protocol for shipping weapons through concealed means from the UK to another country. If he sent a mute crate it'd take far too long for it to reach California and with a black project in California inspection of suspicious packages might be higher than normal. Bottom line he didn't think Price would be willing to wait the length of time it'd take to ship the crate and the risk of UK hardware being caught was too high.

"Not many places stock that sort of thing." Price said sounding disappointed, "Discretionary funds for purchase?"

"A small allowance can be provided." He said considering what was left in 'discretionary funds', "Can affect a wire transfer through standard channels."

"Acknowledged." Price said sounding more content knowing he had a little money to work with.

"Bravo One be advised Peepng Toms are meant to be VERY QUIET and UNSEEN." He said stressing to Price the need for invisibility until they had evidence in hand at a safe location, "Do not get spotted. Understand?"

"Acknowledged. Bravo One out." Price said and with that the connection was cut.

Taking a moment to lean back in his chair he cleared his mind of everything and then dove into handling the problem that John had just dropped in his lap. Kept to its most basic what he'd been told was that one of his operators had kids, one of them was a bloody super soldier, there was a black project in California and the operator on site wanted to lead a three man team to take a covert peek at it.

The first wasn't a huge problem since it wasn't exactly uncommon for any globe travelling soldier to want to blow of steam from time to time. Sure they were encouraged to use their common sense and take precautions but there was still the occasional unexpected birth. Most of the time it didn't amount to anything because the same job made it near impossible to find them but occasionally a determined one managed to hunt down their one night stand parent. In this case it sounded like parent and child or children in this case had already met and he had no doubt it'd been full of drama along with hotblooded words.

The second, the fact that the oldest child was the Slayer, boggled his mind but at the same time felt oddly appropriate. He knew that the Price family had a long standing history of being soldiers of one sort or another so finding out that one had been tapped to fight monsters was par for the course. Still meant he'd have to pass this news up the chain of command so that someone could find out why the Watcher's Council failed to inform them of this ahead of time. Probably boiled down to politics, power plays and just plain arrogance. Nothing much would probably come of it since despite efforts to make it otherwise the Council remained a valuable ally in the fight against the monsters. Warnings would be given, subtle acts of revenge would be taken, but the arrogance of the Council leaders would cause them to just brush it off as nothing.

The fact that there was a black project run by the Americans was nothing new and neither was the fact that it was happening on their own soil. The fact that it involved monsters while interesting wasn't all that surprising either. However if the Yanks were breaking official and signed rules by multiple countries then they couldn't just let it slide on by. Someone needed to blow the whistle on them and hold them accountable so no other country got the idea that they could do the same. Lady Luck apparently had chosen them to be the ones to evaluate and if necessary execute some consequences if they got their hands on some incriminating evidence.

The fact of the matter was though while he knew John's skills as well as the skills of the men he was requesting the fallout that could come of this if they were discovered prematurely would be no small thing. Things would get heated and in the end the UK would have to make restitution for their actions that while not a blank check could be quite costly. Still what was the point of getting the authority he had if he couldn't make these calls instead of passing the buck to the person above him. If things went bad they'd either demote him which would get him back in the field or he'd be discharged from duty to appease the Americans. The first one wouldn't be so bad since it'd be like returning to old habits but the latter would be a splinter beneath his skin in spite of the fact that he knew it was the way of things. No soldier was indispensable in the eyes of the politicians and the safety of the country was more valuable than any one person. Nevertheless he took pride in his work, still felt the sacrifices he'd been forced to make for the sake of the mission and for it to mean nothing to the men he took orders from…

None of that. He thought shoving that line of thought back into the shadows of his mind where it belonged, You didn't get into this line of work to receive praise or be raised above the rank and file in terms of worth. You sign up because you want to fight for your country and to make the world a better place if possible.

Pride had its place but letting it get the better of you was a recipe for disaster.

Better to keep it in check and listen to your comrades if they told you that you were slipping.

Turning to his computer he began to bring up Gaz and Ghost's files to find out where they were as well as how hard it'd be to pull them from their current assignments if necessary. The best he could recall none of them were assigned to anything high priority or out of the way so it shouldn't be a problem to pull them but it was best to be sure before issuing the orders.

Leaping before you look was not the smartest move for a soldier.

---

The Next Day

Morning

Joyce Summers' POV

She'd come home safe.

That was the best thing she could say at the moment because even though Buffy still thought of the house as her home and was willing to live in it alongside her that was about it. The moment that her eldest had returned home and saw her the anger returned accompanied by a version of the silent treatment that hurt far more than yelling would've. She'd given John the guest room and tried to go about her usual evening routine but that'd been only half successful at best.

Dawn had made it a little easier because while her youngest was still upset over the revelation she was faring better than she had in light of Hank's deteriorating behaviour. That had been enough to push her little girl to tears but in this case it just made her twitchy but at least she was making an effort to get to know John. Not in the sense that she was willing to accept him as her father but rather that she just wanted to get to know him better. She had a feeling that if John met Dawn's standards then she might be willing to take the first tentative steps towards accepting him as her Dad.

Maybe if she did that…maybe Buffy would do the same or at least be given one good reason to set aside her anger if only because she wouldn't be receiving any reinforcement from her little sister.

Scooping up the last pancake from the pan and putting it on the plate she moved it to the counter island in the kitchen so that anyone who wanted some could take their fill. She knew she wasn't being very covert in her attempts to appease Buffy but she'd discovered that ever since her eldest had become the Slayer food was an excellent way to improve her mood. As such she'd gotten up a little early and gotten to work preparing all of her eldest's breakfast favourites in large enough quantities that Buffy wouldn't be left wanting more.

The fact that some of them were Dawn's favourites as well was a definite plus.

Add to that a good pot of coffee, a jug of orange juice and a carton of milk she was pretty sure she had all her bases covered.

Besides Xander and Willow sometimes stop by so if there's any extra they can have it. She thought before noticing footsteps getting closer.

Turning towards it she found that it wasn't Buffy or Dawn but rather John who looked like he'd slept well but when he saw the food she'd prepared he was pleasantly surprised.

"Cooking for a small army are you?" John asked with some humour.

"Sometimes it feels like Buffy has the appetite of one. I guess being the Slayer gives her quite the appetite." She replied with a polite grin, "Hopefully this will help her start the day off right."

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." John said before pausing to look her right in the eye, "May I?"

"Oh go right ahead! You're a guest here and there's enough for everyone." She replied gesturing at the food.

With a nod of gratitude John began to make a plate for himself and oddly enough she found herself making note of what he chose. She didn't know how long he'd be here but if she knew what he liked and factored it into her usual grocery list it'd make shopping easier.

Turning to the bowls, pans and utensils she'd used to make breakfast she began to wash those that needed it in the sink while placing those that could go there into the dishwashing machine. It gave her something to focus on besides the man that fate seemed determined to make her husband and had arranged for a downpayment in the form of her daughters. Before the truth of the supernatural had been shoved in her face she would've only thought of fate as a plot device of fiction or a figure of speech. Now though she'd seen enough to actually wonder if there was some otherworldly force that'd guided everything towards the present circumstances. She knew Buffy hated the idea of fate or destiny because she hadn't been given any say in becoming the Slayer but she was of a more mixed opinion on the matter.

Sure she wanted to believe that her choices mattered and that she was the one that decided where her life went because it gave her a feeling of control. The truth she'd come to accept though was that the only thing you had control over were your own choices and nothing else. Too bad the number of choices could change from time to time depending on what happened in the world around you. In the morning you could have ten different choices but then something could happen to reduce it to four whether you liked it or not. It didn't matter whether you were dealing with plans for the day, the week or the year everything could change in less than an hour.

Still she had to wonder about what sort of purpose was being fulfilled by making sure she not only ran into John twice but made sure that they would sleep with one another.

It better not be something cliche like giving birth to the future leader of humanity in a post apocalyptic world. She thought remembering the plot of a movie she'd watched last weekend.

The sad part was that the thought wasn't as much of a joke as some might think considering that according to Giles Buffy had prevented several potential armageddons already.

Hearing light steps coming down the stairs she knew it was Dawn because while Buffy could be light on her feet when she wanted to be all the fighting her eldest had done the previous day had taken a lot out of her. As such she expected the Slayer to be heavier with her steps at least until she got some food into her. Her guess was proven right when Dawn came into the kitchen, spared John a glance and then focused entirely on the spread of breakfast foods spread out before her. She could only smile when her daughter began to make a plate for herself like she was afraid that it'd be stolen out from under her if she didn't hurry.

"Nice to see a healthy appetite." John commented with approval.

Dawn just spared the man a glance before resuming her activities and moving to the dining room table once he had everything she wanted. She could tell that John had been hoping for something a little more polite and to be honest so had she. Still the fact that she wasn't verbally tearing into him or making any other deliberate expressions of animosity could be considered a positive thing. Time was the key thing she figured since Dawn and Buffy had only learned the truth yesterday and no one got over a revelation like that quickly. Sure a more adaptive mind might be able to cope quicker but it'd still need time and emotions as a general rule were rarely logical.

Turning back to her dishes it took her a little over fifteen minutes to finish them all but when the last plate was back in the cupboard a knock came from the front door. Setting aside the towel that she'd been using to dry the dishes she strode towards the front door and when she pulled it open she was unsurprised to see Xander standing there. He'd been the one to follow Buffy when she'd stormed out yesterday and he'd been the one helping her eldest through the door a few hours later. Given what'd happened she'd half expected the young man to come by to see how the Slayer was faring.

He was a good friend and if Buffy hadn't so firmly set him in the 'friend' category she might've expected him to become something more than that. Sadly her eldest's taste in boyfriends left much to be desired and had a tendency to pick ones that would inevitably lead to disaster. Pike the 'bad boy', Angel the vampire who could lose his soul under the right conditions, Owen the thrill seeker, Parker the user and currently Riley the soldier. Some of them looked fine in the beginning but wound up having a trait that pretty much guaranteed the relationship wouldn't be long term. The others though had likely been Buffy projecting onto them what she wanted to see only for the truth to come out sooner or later.

If she'd only fallen for Xander she would've been so much happier. She thought as she used the nonverbal invite gesture to let him in.

"Xander!" Came a voice she knew all too well before a dirty blonde topped blur sped past her.

Still she might have one more chance to call the young man her son-in-law if her youngest had anything to say about it.

With a smile she looked at how Dawn had wrapped the object of her crush in a hug that lasted two seconds longer than it needed to before being released. She'd given her youngest a few tips so she wouldn't ruin her chance due to her own ignorance but that'd only been common sense once her youngest's feelings became clear. However the one thing she'd stressed when it'd just been her and Dawn was that if Xander ever clued in and found he felt the same they were to wait until she was eighteen before making their relationship more physical than a kiss. Naturally Dawn had rolled her eyes at this but she didn't let this deter her from pointing out the problems of getting pregnant too young. Naturally the young lady had defended herself by saying that she wasn't some loose woman who'd ride a guy at the drop of a hat. She'd agreed with that but pointed out that lust was a slippery slope and that if they made it all the way to second base they might not be able to resist the urge to go all the way. Dawn had just nodded her head to humour her but she had faith that so long as Xander never reciprocated her daughter's feelings things wouldn't escalate.

"You should see the breakfast mom made! It's HUGE!" Dawn said before grabbing one of Xander's arms to pull him towards the kitchen.

"No kidding! I can smell it from here." Xander said letting himself be led every step of the way.

Following behind she saw the young man get almost shoved into the seat right next to Dawn's before hearing the girl say that she'd get him some breakfast. Seeing as how this wasn't the first time Xander had visited at the right time for a morning meal she had no doubt that her youngest already knew what he liked.

Glancing at John she could see him taking in the drama before him and luckily he seemed more amused than anything else.

Good.

While biologically he might be Dawn's father he was a long ways away from having the right to object to her behaviour never mind the object of her crush.

Minutes later Dawn was talking to Xander about a great many things ranging from stuff going on at her school to movies that were coming to the local theatre soon. She noticed that her youngest was making a determined point not to mention or even imply that she remembered what'd happened yesterday with John. She didn't believe that her daughter had forgotten or had slipped into denial but rather that she wanted to put off actually dealing with it for as long as possible.

To be honest she had similar feelings but wasn't sure if that'd be possible.

A person couldn't just forget something as life changing as finding out that your father wasn't who you thought or that your mother had hidden such an important truth from you. It had to be dealt with but at the same time trying to force things had a good chance of making things worse. From her current point of view the most that she could do was make an effort during the closing day or so of John's stay to dispel the ill will both Dawn and Buffy likely possessed. Even if she couldn't do it completely she could at the very least minimize the chances of the feelings taking poisonous root within them. That alone should improve the odds of things improving to the point that perhaps one day they would all be on friendly terms with one another.

Looking to John she saw him observing the interaction between Dawn and Xander with a smirking expression that told her that he'd caught onto what was happening.

"Cute isn't it." She whispered so as not to be heard by anyone in the dining room.

"Been going on long?" John asked sounding like he agreed.

"Started two months after we moved here and has only gotten stronger." She replied quietly.

"He got any clue?" He asked even as his gaze tried to reach its own conclusion.

"Yes but he's been trained well and kept her company a few times when I was out of town on business." She replied avoiding the term 'babysat' if only because Dawn hated it, "He won't do anything until she leaves him no other choice."

"And how long do you figure that'll be?" He asked not showing any disapproval but definite interest.

"When she's legally an adult or they both have stable employment." She replied in order to make it clear that she would accept nothing else.

She might be in favour of a relationship developing between Dawn and Xander but that didn't mean she was going to let it happen too quickly. She'd seen many of her classmates in school and university speed through the stages of a relationship in order to satisfy their lusty feelings only to wind up regretting it. They tended to wind up pregnant forcing both them and their boyfriend to get jobs to support the child or they wound up getting abandoned forcing them to handle everything on their own. While she wouldn't disown her youngest if Dawn wound up ignoring her words of wisdom she would be disappointed.

"Smart." John said nodding slightly with approval.

Well that was one thing she wouldn't have to deal with. There'd been a momentary concern within her that John might forget himself and take on the role of the intimidating father figure once he realized how Dawn felt about Xander. However it looked like situational awareness was indeed something that they trained into you as a soldier and so the soldier knew better than to assume anything about what he could do as Dawn's biological father. Maybe a few years from now, assuming John made an effort to live up to his responsibilities as a father, he might be able to make such moves without reprisal but until then he might as well be a stranger.

CRASH!

A sound from upstairs told her that something had gotten knocked over and had shattered on the floor. Seeing as how the only one upstairs at the moment was Buffy she could only presume that her eldest daughter had either woken up violently from a dream or had been half asleep causing her to accidentally knock something to the floor. She sighed a bit at this since it was far from an uncommon thing since she'd been chosen as the Slayer but at least since she now knew the real reason for the things that her eldest broke from time to time. She was about to get up to investigate when she noticed a shift in John's expression that snagged her attention enough to turn her gaze fully towards him.

Once she had a clear view of it she became concerned since in all the memories she had of him she'd never once seen that expression even once.

What did it mean?

---

Captain John Price's POV

Now where does a kid like this know how to handle a SOG knife like that. He thought even as he watched the boy release his grip on the military knife.

It wasn't the fact that the teenager had a SOG knife that was surprising since he knew of a few unfortunate vets that had been forced to pawn them off when hit with hard financial times. Go to almost any city or town with a veteran population and you could probably find quite a bit of surplus military gear in the local pawn shops or stores that specialized in such things.

No what had him looking at the kid extra hard was the fact that the California native hadn't gripped it like an amateur and had started to place his feet in the right position for a knife fight. He could tell that Joyce and Dawn hadn't thought anything of it but that was most likely because they didn't have the education to realize how unusual it was. Assuming Buffy (what was Joyce thinking giving her firstborn a muppet name like BUFFY) was like most Slayers bladed weapons probably weren't all that unusual for them and if the boy helped seeing one in his hand was to be expected. However what they didn't know and thus couldn't see as unusual was the fact that the boy had moved in a way that only came with training. Teenagers today could watch all the action or military movies they wanted and still not come close to performing the same moves properly.

So how the hell was Xander managing it?

He couldn't say that he was worried much less suspicious about the kid but at the same time he didn't trust unknowns. For him unknowns might as well be hostiles because in combat what you didn't know could get both you as well as your team killed never mind what it might do to the mission. If for no other reason than to settle his nerves he needed to find out how the young man knew what he did and if he knew anything else.

The boy was close friends with his daughters after all.

What sort of father would he be if he didn't at least ask a few questions?

"Is something wrong John?" She asked letting him know that his scrutiny hadn't been overlooked by the only other adult in the room.

"No. Just a bit surprised that the kid has such sharp instincts." He replied figuring that a half truth was safer than the whole truth for the time being, "You'd be surprised how carefree some new recruits can be until you light a fire under their asses."

"Well when you live on a monster hotspot and want to fight with a Slayer your instincts either get sharp fast or things go bad even faster." Joyce said with a look that told him she had a decent idea of how dangerous things in Sunnydale were, "He's been by Buffy's side for over three years and hasn't needed more than a cast and some stitches."

Considering what tended to happen to trained soldiers who tried to get in close to deal with vampires and the like it told him that either the hostiles didn't consider the boy a big enough threat to attack aggressively or the teenager had an edge that'd kept him alive. Made him even more interested to find out more about what the boy could do and what contributed to the development of the instincts he was seeing.

Still it'd probably be best to wait until Xander was away from Joyce and her daughters before he did anything to satisfy his curiosity. They'd probably take it the wrong way but he was fairly sure he could get the kid to understand why he'd been tested assuming he got more than a minute or two in order to explain. Getting answers might even do more than make him comfortable with the kid being around his girls if most of the groundwork had been done already.

A lot of the work of turning civilians into soldiers was getting them into proper physical shape, instilling the necessary mental discipline and ensuring the necessary competency with the equipment. If he could cross off at least two of those where Xander was concerned it might be worth it to see about remedying the rest. Not personally of course but rather through 'The Grey Fox' who he planned on having words with today. The man had been tasked with keeping tabs on Joyce in case a high value target chose to use her to get to him. It was a long shot and everyone knew it but you never knew when someone could be useful no matter how unlikely it might look. The fact that the old man missed the fact that Joyce had two kids AND that one of them was capable of kicking vampire ass with a sharp piece of wood brought the issue of trust into question.

Not something he was willing to let pass by without being addressed.

Breakfast passed them all by without incident even when Buffy came down making it clear the entire time that he was neither liked or wanted. This mood wasn't constant since apparently food really was a good way to improve the Slayer's mood but that good mood always dipped whenever her eyes landed on him or Joyce. He truly hoped that the girl didn't hold onto this anger but at the same time he remembered how well the women of his family could hold a grudge when they wanted to. BOY could they! Considering he'd seen some of the same stubbornness during the past times he'd been with Joyce he figured it was a safe bet to settle in for the long haul wait.

"Well I'm going to take a look about myself." He said after giving his dishes a rinse and putting them in the dishwasher, "If this Initiative group's sloppy enough to let civilians see them they've probably slipped up in other ways too."

Casual nods were sent his way and so he went back to the guest room to change before heading out the door.

Too bad he didn't plan on looking around for clues about the American black project until later on in the day. No what he had planned for right now was to wait for Xander to leave the house before tailing him around town for awhile. He knew he'd probably lose what little ground he might've had with Joyce and his daughters if they found out but every inch of his training told him that ignoring what he'd seen would be a mistake. He wouldn't follow the kid all day but he would stick with it long enough to see if there was anymore to learn about the boy's oddity before moving on.

If necessary he'd test the kid and see what he got but only as an option of last resort.

Shadowing the high school graduate didn't prove to be too hard meaning either the kid didn't have the situational awareness to know when he was being followed or just thought that since it was daytime he didn't have anything to be worried about. Probably the latter since from a civilian's point of view the fact that the sun was out meant that vampires would either be asleep or wouldn't be able to get very far from their lairs. As for demons they tended to keep to nighttime on account of the fact that their inhuman appearances were hard to miss in sunlight and as a general rule the supernatural community wanted to stay fictional to the public.

That being said there were anomalies to just about every species sentient or not so most of the time did not mean all of the time.

Finding crowds to hide behind as well as other forms of cover without making himself look strange or obvious to any civilians with line of sight on him he followed doing his best to keep close to Xander so that he missed nothing. It wasn't hard for him to do since he'd been doing this enough years that he barely had to think in order to move right or judge the right places to duck behind so the boy wouldn't see him.

However it was a little under an hour later when he moved into a crowd that was six people strong that fate apparently thought he'd been a little too lucky. He wasn't in the group for more than a minute before he felt a very familiar shape press against his spine: the barrel of a gun.

Shit! Focused too much on the kid and not enough on people a lot closer. He thought controlling his reaction so that things didn't escalate.

"Do as I tell you to do and you won't be harmed." A man's voice whispered in a way that made it clear no fooling around was involved, "Nod of you understand."

He nodded even as he tried to learn what he could of the unknown man based on the position of the gun barrel. From the way the barrel was pressed against him and the fact that any competent operator would know precisely where to place the gun where no one else could see it he'd put the man at roughly the same height as him.

"Leave the crowd with me and proceed to the alleyway ahead on the right." The man said in a no nonsense tone.

Doing as he was told he tried to get the measure of the man's build based on the vibrations in the ground since a heavier set man would produce stronger tremors than someone thinner.

Definitely on the light side. He thought just as they reached the alley's mouth, Means he'll be quick and maybe agile if I manage to get the barrel aimed away from me.

Fortunately for him Xander wasn't the only one who made sure there was a concealed weapon on him .

"Stop." The man said before addressing someone else, "He's here Ma'm."

Military training or at least someone who's been conditioned to respond to someone in authority. He thought even as he looked ahead to see who had been addressed, Initiative? Or someone local?

A few moments later he heard the sound of footsteps coming from the doorway of a nearby building but they definitely didn't belong to any military issue boots. This was proven a few seconds later when a woman emerged flanked by two others who looked like they weren't even five years out of boot camp. Looking to be around fifty years old with short blonde hair and dressed in casual office clothes the thing he locked onto first was her eyes. He'd seen eyes like those and they never boded well for those on the receiving end.

They were cold eyes, eyes that cared only about practical worth, and would not hesitate to use up the resources available to her whether they were things or people. To these sort of people all was permissible as long as the objective was achieved and the only thing unacceptable was for success to be sacrificed for unworthy reasons. Add it all up with everything he knew so far and he was pretty sure he was standing across from either the head of the Initiative or someone highly ranked in the black project. That'd make the young men on either side of her as well as the one behind him American soldiers assigned to the project.

Pretty young. He thought as the woman came to a stop, By choice or due to lack of options.

Either was a possibility but he was betting on the former.

Black projects didn't exist without some powerful people backing it and with such people came resources as well as money. The project wouldn't have had to make due with whatever manpower the people in charge could spare but rather could list desired qualities while expecting the best of the best. If that was indeed the case then the soldiers were likely chosen young because such men still had their conditioning from training ringing in their brains. They hadn't gained the experience or the wisdom to think for themselves much less judge when the actions of their superiors weren't on the up and up. Press all the right psychological buttons with them and young soldiers would be willing to give up their lives if ordered to do so.

"Captain Price. You're a long way from England." The woman said revealing that she knew who he was, "Care to explain what you're doing in Sunnydale?"

"On holiday. Thought I'd take some time off." He replied keeping to at least part of the truth without giving anything else away.

"Understandable. From what I've been told you're usually quite busy." The woman said in a way that implied she knew more, "In fact according to some you almost never take time off. A career soldier."

"Almost never isn't never." He said knowing what she was trying to say, "California not allowing tourists anymore?"

"Not at all. The state is quite the popular vacation location and is responsible for quite a bit of revenue." The woman said offhand as though it didn't matter, "But it still strikes me as odd that out of all the places you could've gone you chose here. Know anyone in Sunnydale? Visiting a friend?"

"Yeah. A retired friend has a place here. Offered to put me up for a week or two." He replied deciding to go with the safer route, "Old fool probably just wants to drain me of beer money. Never did know when to say when."

"Let's dispense with the calculated replies Captain Price." The woman said her patience wearing thin, "We know you're her because of Missus Summers. It's a little too coincidental that not long after I order a background check on Buffy Summers that you show up. I'll ask you again: why are you here in Sunnydale?"

Okay so just shovelling shit isn't going to get me anywhere. He thought as second after second passed, Better to try a different tactic.

"Your spooks start sniffing around SAS files and you think we wouldn't notice?" He asked taking on a more serious tone, "There are channels for that you know. The fact that your bosses didn't use them makes us suspicious. I got tasked with finding out more."

Again the truth but without any details.

"Buffy Summers has come into contact with my project. It's only natural that we'd want to know more about her and the people she's connected with before deciding what to do." The woman said without a shred of anxiety or guilt, "As for not using official channels I've always found that the facts uncovered are more accurate if they're found without certain the knowledge of the usual suspects."

Couldn't say she was wrong there.

Even if the UK and America were allies that didn't mean that each nation just opened up their databases to the other one free of any restrictions. He'd seen enough to know that half the files the SAS had had multiple versions depending on who might ask for them with the degree of censoring going up the more the requester was distrusted or the more the info was sensitive. Normally the official channels were used when it was believed that the one receiving the request for information had no reason not to provide them with the desired information. However there were times when the 'honesty' of an ally was called into question and if the need was dire enough a more aggressive approach was employed. Oh steps would be taken to minimize the political fallout if not eliminate it outright but if some feathers were ruffled it was twisted that those who handled such issues would be prepared.

"Well you need better bloodhounds." He said deciding to move the conversation along, "The ones you're using didn't get very deep before SAS experts noticed them. Hopefully you got enough to complete Miss Summers' background check."

"The jury's still out on that." The woman said not giving anything up, "However now that you know why we were investigating you I see no reason why you shouldn't pack your things and return to the United Kingdom. My superiors are…uncomfortable with the idea of a foreign operator so close to my project without their permission."

The fact that they wanted him gone was evidence enough in his book that they were up to something fishy.

Assuming they ran a tight ship there'd be no threat to their project if he stayed in Sunnydale for awhile 'on vacation'. Problems would only crop up if he interfered with their field teams or attempted to gain entry into the project facility without American military permission. Going over everything he had done or said since coming to America he couldn't think of a single thing that could be construed as putting him on the path to either issue.

Time to test just how far she plans on taking this. He thought before saying, "They'll get over it. My questions might've been answered but I'm still slated for a week of vacation before I'm expected back home. Sunnydale's as good a place as any to use it."

"I wouldn't say that Captain Price." The woman said not pleased with his lack of immediate compliance, "The death rate in Sunnydale is comparable to the top five most populated cities in America. People go missing every week. Others turn up dead, killed in horrible ways, with the 'local wildlife' being named as the culprits. Unarmed as you are it would be safer for you to move on to Los Angeles or maybe San Francisco."

He didn't need to be a genius to figure out what she was trying to get across.

'This place is a deathtrap so who'll raise an eyebrow if one more body gets delivered to the coroner's office'

"Well it's awfully kind of you to be concerned for my wellbeing." He said before looking her right in the eyes with his 'you do not scare me' look, "But I'm no stranger to being unarmed in a hostile environment. I'll manage."

"Sigh…this is why I hate dealing with old soldiers. They let past accomplishments delude them into thinking they're invincible." The woman said before looking behind him then to those on either side, "Kovic, Garrison, Montes? I leave this to you. The secrecy of this project cannot be compromised for any reason. Take him someplace remote and kill him. Then dump the body in a target dense location. With any luck they'll tear his body up more making it impossible to tell how he died."

"Roger that director." The man behind him said the gun barrel never wavering from his back.

Nods from the other two made it clear that they had no problem killing whoever their boss told them to. While some might say that 'good soldiers followed orders' it was his opinion that great soldiers knew when to tell their C.O to shove their orders up whatever hole was handy. He'd seen no few commanding officers push the soldiers under their command to accomplish objectives they had no chance of completing resulting in complete decimation. Others quite frankly needed their psych evals examined for signs of tampering when it became clear that their orders were neither rational or moral. In such situations soldiers had the right to refuse the order or even subdue their C.O if the situation called for it.

With extreme prejudice if there was no other way.

For those soldiers who willingly descended into hell with their C.O knowing that what they were doing was wrong…they deserved the same consequences no doubt about it.

Watching the woman, the director of the Initiative, walk away he committed everything about her to memory so he could pass the info along to Mac next time he called. If Sean was right and the black project was breaking an international agreement than a stack of evidence needed to be gathered so those responsible could be nailed to the wall.

"Move." The man behind said before pressing the barrel extra hard against his back.

Best wait until she's too far away to hear anything. He thought walking forward compliantly, The longer she's ignorant the more time I have to get ready.

His 'handler' did not say anything for the rest of the trip but then he didn't need to with his two comrades making it clear where he was expected to go. As he walked he tried to get the measure of each of them so as to learn who was the highest threat and who was the lowest threat. That'd give him an order in which he needed to take them down if he wanted to get out of this in one piece. He hadn't decided yet if he was just going to escape or if he would eliminate them to limit the info that made it back to the Initiative's director.

He'd wait until he had a better grasp of how good these three were.

If they were good enough to kill him he'd make sure he put them down first but if they were rookies he'd settle for just escaping pursuit free.

His chance came five minutes later when he was herded into what appeared to be an abandoned building with boarded up windows and a thick layer of dust everywhere. The walls looked thick enough that unless the noise reached heavy metal concert levels no one outside the building would hear a thing. There hadn't been any hesitation in taking him here so that told him that these three were familiar enough with Sunnydale's layout to know exactly where places like this could be found. Looking for vamp nests? Or maybe they expected to have to dispose of undesirables and so they scouted out the best black bag locations.

In any case five minutes was more than enough time for him to get the measure of all three of them.

Time to end this. He said before saying, "I can tell you boys have done this before but there's one thing you've forgotten."

"Oh? And what's that Limey?" The one behind him asked not sounding concerned.

"The proper distance for holding someone at gunpoint from behind." He replied before bursting into action.

At once he moved his body so that even if the guy behind him fired it wouldn't hit someplace fatal and stood a decent chance of hitting nothing but air if he was quick enough. As it turned out the guy holding the gun on him hadn't expected him to move that quick so he was able to evade the first shot. However he knew that the other two were most likely reaching for their weapons so he had seconds at best before he'd come under fire. With years born of practice he grabbed the right arm of his former 'handler' before pulling the young man in front of him while his other hand pilfered the handgun that'd been used to direct him.

When he raised the gun to shoot though he found that one of his would be executioners had vanished but he didn't let that distract him from what needed to be done. With speed, precision and skill he shot the target in front of him in the head pausing only to confirm death before aiming the handgun at his human shield's head.

BANG!

Two dead and one to go. He thought before using his senses of hearing and sight to locate the final crooked soldier working for the director of the Initiative.

It didn't take him long.

Apparently in the moments following him making his move someone or something given what existed in Sunnydale had attacked the last would be executioner. From what he could hear the violence was just in the next room with nothing to indicate that it'd be dying down anytime soon. While the smart move would be to leave he couldn't be sure that the unknown would be able to finish off the crooked soldier and if word got back to the director things could get tense. With that in mind he crept towards the doorway doing his best to keep his footfalls light and any scraping to a minimum. It was only when he was within three feet of it that he managed to gain line of sight and what he saw was not what he'd been expecting.

What he'd been expecting was a monster fighting the soldier or perhaps another human since that would make the most logical sense.

What he got on the other hand was Xander fighting it out with the soldier with the knife he'd spotted earlier in the proper grip while the other was clenched into a fist. In any NORMAL situation he'd have expected the teenager to already be dead or on his last legs waiting to be killed by the shady soldier.

This was not a normal situation.

Instead of being overwhelmed by the trained soldier Xander was actually managing to hold his own with no sign of when or even if either combatant would gain the upper hand. This according to his mind was not possible skill of this level did not develop overnight but rather took years of training to acquire. So where had Xander acquired his training? Even if there was some feasible school or dojo in Sunnydale to explain what he was seeing there was one thing that couldn't be explained.

Professional instruction was one thing but in order to become this good you needed real life experience and that was something you couldn't acquire from a civilian run business. You could only get it by going out into the world and fighting others who'd received similar or completely different combat training. Even if the friend of his daughters had begun his training from the youngest permissible age he would still be too young to have acquired the necessary real life experience to explain what he was seeing.

Looks like what I saw back at Joyce's home was just the tip of the iceberg. He thought before a look of frustration manifested on the soldier's face.

Bad move.

While soldiers weren't emotionless machines they were trained from the beginning to have discipline both physical as well as mental. You couldn't lose your cool on a mission and you needed to keep your body in tip top condition in order to accomplish your mission. You also needed both to keep on fighting if you wound up getting wounded since there would be times when defeat was not an option.

In a fight like this the first person to lose their cool or fall victim to fatigue had only one fate awaiting them: defeat.

And for soldiers defeat often meant death.

So it was with his last would be killer when Xander pounced on the opening the soldier foolishly provided with a frustration driven right hook. What happened next had him wondering just how many surprises life planned on sending his way. Why?

Because he watched Xander employ a lethal takedown maneuver that to his knowledge hadn't been in use in over a quarter of a century.

Contrary to what some might think the hand-to-hand combat style taught to military personnel wasn't carved in stone or as slow to change as the mountains. It was something that evolved with the times, refining itself, in order to better prepare soldiers for the obstacles they might encounter in the field. Revised version were created, trained into the current generation of soldiers and if something new was discovered that could make it better it was used to create the next version.

It was because he knew this that he could identify the takedown that Xander had just used as something that hadn't been in circulation since the early seventies. Since that time the hand-to-hand combat styles of every nation had undergone change with this particular maneuver had been revised out of existence. If you were a student of military history with special focus on the training received you could trace the connection between this takedown and its 'descendants' but that is it. Therefore the only answer that made sense was that whoever had instructed Xander had been old school and had never bothered learning anything that came after.

Then again 'making sense' had not exactly been a consistent trend since Mac first contacted him about the unauthorized access attempts on his file.

"You alright kid?" He asked watching Xander get off of the soldier whose neck had been sliced open by the SOG knife.

"Yeah…yeah…kinda feels nice knowing I can hold my own against a secret military project goon." Xander replied sounding only a little out of breath.

"Don't count on it happening again. He lost his cool and you made him pay for it." He said trying to keep the kid from getting cocky, "Where'd a kid like you learn a MACV-SOG takedown?"

He knew he was taking a bit of a gamble with his guess but it made the most sense for him. He might not know the exact family tree of American hand-to-hand styles but he did know the last time he saw that takedown and the background of the person who used it. Add a little feasible guesswork and someone from the Vietnam war became the most likely instructor for Xander. As for MACV-SOG there was a spectrum of skill and precision that was involved with any technique taught to soldiers. When they trained you in how to do a technique most raw recruits got a pass just for being able to perform a passable execution of it. But when you were upgraded to high value missions and pitted against higher grade forces they sent you back for training and you only got a pass if you could do as good as if not better than the instructor.

In the case of MACV-SOG though…they got exposed to a special kind of hell where you either got really good really quickly or you died even faster.

At least that's what Sergeant Burns told him and strangely enough for all that the man had a colourful vocabulary lying wasn't in his nature or something he was very good at when he tried to.

Based on what he'd seen it was clear that whoever had trained Xander had definitely been pushing for 'good' rather than just 'competent'.

Looking at Xander he could tell that the kid was debating whether to lie to his face or come clean. He couldn't blame the him. They'd only known each other for less than twenty-four hours and that wasn't near enough time for him to be let in on secrets or even past history. In the end though it took two minutes before the kid made a decision.

"We've seen some pretty freaky stuff here in Sunnydale." Xander replied standing up straighter, "About two years ago a chaos mage came to town looking to have a little fun. Cast a spell so that anyone who bought something from his store got turned into whoever or whatever they were pretending to be. Me? I grabbed a toy gun but the rest I got from the local army surplus store and one piece from my attic. Just wanted to be a soldier for the night. Someone respectable. Then the spell hit.

"I don't remember a lot of what happened after that, bits and pieces, but I quickly found out that things didn't end the way they were supposed to. At least not for me." Xander said a haunted look flashing for a moment over his face, "According to Giles any leftovers from who we turned into were supposed to fade away in two or three days. For the others it did. Me? Not so much. I didn't think I was someone else or anything but my Halloween squatter left some luggage behind in the form of memories, habits and some skills. All that plus nightmares that had me waking up with a case of the shakes and sweats."

Dear God…

At that moment he wasn't focusing on what skills and habits the boy had picked up but rather the PTSD nightmares he'd been put through. It was a fact that soldiers that'd seen serious combat, the kind where just managing to survive was considered impressive, often came home with serious psychological issues. Some were able to recover with help both professional as well as the kind you got from family and friends. Others couldn't rejoin society like many had hoped and often chose to become hermits in the middle of the woods both for their peace of mind as well as for everyone else's. The idea that someone not even out of their teens was exposed to the sort of nightmares Vietnam war left him wondering about the changes they'd cause.

"Didn't get much sleep for the next three weeks but I managed to keep Buffy and the others from getting worried. Probably figured that the lack of sleep was from fighting the good fight here." Xander said continuing with his tale, "Wasn't until I got jumped on the way home by some bullies from school that I found out that I'd gotten saddled with more than just nightmares. I knew that if I didn't get a grip on it all I'd be ticking time bomb that could get my friends killed. Pretty much killed every minute of spare time I had with the rest going to sleep, school and helping keep the local bodycount down. Giles probably had an idea of what I was doing but he didn't ask any questions I didn't want to answer. Managed for the most part but I'm guessing it's not perfect if you saw something worth tailing me for."

"Must be getting rusty." He said since up until now he'd thought that his covert pursuit had been successful.

"No. You were good." Xander said with an honest shake of his head, "I just got an edge that made it easier for me."

Considering the 'edge' that was up for discussion he had to wonder how the kid was still sane.

"Once I picked up on the fact that you weren't tailing me anymore I decided to backtrack to find out what happened. Sure you could've just given up and gone back to Buffy's place but Sunnydale has habit of treating tourists like chew toys." Xander said a more serious as well as focused look covering his face, "I didn't catch everything but I heard how Walsh ordered these three to kill you. The rest you know."

"Walsh? She's the director of the Initiative?" He asked not having a name, a last name, to pin on the woman.

"Yeah. Maggie Walsh and get this she's also Buffy's introduction to psychology course." Xander replied with a lopsided grin, "'Evil Bitch-Monster of Death' is a good fit now isn't it?"

"Bloody right." He replied in complete agreement with the kid, "You ever figure out who took over your body Halloween night?"

"Why do you ask?" Xander asked with a face he'd seen on many soldiers in the company of iffy 'allies'.

"Simple. If they were MACV-SOG then it means that they were involved in plenty of operations that have black on black files." He replied giving it to the kid straight, "They might not take it too kindly finding out that a kid from California might have sensitive info they'd prefer to keep buried."

"I'm not stupid you know. I'm not going to go around and start blabbing every dirty secret I know." Xander said looking a little annoyed at the slight to his intelligence, "My priorities are my friends and keeping the world spinning. Unless the CIA or Pentagon suits get in the way of either of those things they've got nothing to worry about."

"Good to know and if it were just me I'd leave it at that." He said remembering the sort of mindset people whose duty 'security' was had, "Too bad some of the more hardcore spooks won't see it that way. For them if you know something and aren't under their control then you're a threat. Don't think I need to paint you a picture about what they do to threats."

No. No he didn't.

He could tell the kid knew right away that if the spooks found out about what was in his head they'd either throw him in prison, encourage him to enlist so he'd be under their control or turn him into another statistic. Leaving someone with sensitive intel in the wind ran too big the risk that it could fall into the hands of hostile or undesirable parties.

Spooks didn't like leaving things to chance.

"The memories are a mess. Even after using some of Giles' books on meditation and enhanced recall I barely managed to separate what was mine from the stuff that got dumped into my head Halloween night." Xander replied conveying the difficulty of the task, "Thing is the memories I can remember clearest make me think I've got baggage from two people not one."

"What makes you think that?" He asked curious about how that'd happened.

"'Cause most of the memories are point of view ones with people calling me either Mason or Woods." Xander replied with some frustration, "Either it's one guy with an alias or I've got two separate sets of luggage in my brain. I figure it has to be the fatigues and the knife that're responsible."

Woods. Mason.

Next time he got the chance to speak with Mac he'd see if anything could be dug up on a pair of MACV-SOG operatives with those last names. Even if Buffy and Dawn wanted nothing to do with him the least he could do was give them a heads up on any troubles that might come their way in the future.

"I'll look into it." He said before reaching down to pick up the body, "For now we should dispose of the bodies. Take longer for Walsh to figure out they failed and buy us time to come up with a plan."

"Fine. One thing though: if the others ask you took down all of them and I just managed to distract one so you could get the kill shot in." Xander said in a very serious tone of voice, "They don't know what I've picked up or what I can do with it now and I'd prefer it stayed that way. Thing's haven't been the easiest since Buffy came to town but we've managed to keep it from changing us too much. Because of that though the others pretty much have a black and white view of the world with a line in the sand they won't cross."

"But you have." He said not needing to ask the obvious question.

He could see it in the kid's eyes.

"When necessary." Xander replied in a stone cold manner, "I take care of my own and I do what I have to so they can keep living the lives they want to live."

"And what about you?" He asked knowing what tended to happen to people with that mindset.

"Better to be the first one out than watch everything you care about burn." Xander replied in a matter of fact tone, "I'm not suicidal but I'm not about to let any of my friends or any good people die just to save my own skin."

There was a story there and not a good one if he was any judge.

He's got a good heart. He thought as the lad began to help him deal with the bodies, But even that'll give out if he gets put through the meat grinder too many times.

For his daughters if nothing else he hoped that didn't happen.