Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & SGA: post-03x17: Sunday.
Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.
Author's Note: Written for Day 18 of the 2021 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N 2: I'm still not a doctor; I still like Elizabeth; and I couldn't find Keller's age on Wiki so I used Jewel Staite's.

The Daedalus had arrived a couple of hours earlier. It had been off somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy helping out a team of scientists who were studying an Ancient outpost found by one of the gate teams. Buffy didn't know what they had been doing or why rerouting the spaceship had been approved, but it wasn't any of her business.

Dr. Keller really was young, though not as young as Sheppard had joked. As Buffy had nothing better to do, she had asked. It turned out that the temporary Chief Medical Officer was all of 25 years old, the same age as Buffy. It meant that like just about everyone else in the city with at least one doctorate to their name she was either a prodigy, a genius, or both.

Buffy's healing was going well. The worst of the burns were still knitting themselves together, but nearly all of the minor ones were completely healed. There weren't even any scars left behind. Despite that, she still wasn't allowed to sit or lay on her back, which was getting increasingly annoying. It also made her neck hurt unnecessarily since she had to look up at anyone visiting her.

She also ate a lot to fuel all the energy needed to speed up the healing process, which also consequently meant she had slept a lot as well. Still, Dr. Keller had cautiously allowed her a few hours leave from the infirmary to attended the meeting with Sheppard and Caldwell to discuss what they were going to do with the civilian Expedition Leader and her less than ethical actions, and then the three of them would need to meet with Dr. Weir.

"Remember," Dr. Keller repeated for what Buffy felt was the 100th time, "You have to return to the infirmary immediately if you feel worse or if there's something else bothering you."

"I know. Believe me, I know. And I'm sure you've told Colonel Caldwell and Colonel Sheppard the same thing, so if I so much as twitches in a suspicious way they'll have me back here in no time." Or Caldwell might try. She was relatively certain Sheppard had figured out she didn't need much at this point and would likely leave the decision up to her.

"Good. That's... Good." The doctor looked a little uncertain. "I know you don't want to explain anything about your abilities, and how you heal so fast, and I get that you have secrets you need to keep. But at the same time, it makes it more difficult for me to help you. I don't know what you need help with, or when you don't. Without a baseline, I'm flying blind."

"You're doing good, doc. Don't worry so much. At this point, I mostly just need a lot of food and rest and someone to change the icky bandages until I'm completely healed." Buffy smiled a little and got a small one in reply.

Buffy slid a little awkwardly off the bed, and with some help from her doctor, she got into some loose clothes that wouldn't press against her body. It wasn't fashionable, but she was good to go.

Her legs worked and didn't even hurt. Her back and posterior on the other hand voiced some complaints about moving, but she ignored it. Keller had made it clear that sitting wouldn't go over well, and she should stand instead. Or at least only sit for short periods so as not to agitate her wounds any more than necessary.

Another sacrifice to the explosion had been her hair. When she had arrived in the City, it had been almost waist length. As it had caught fire, part of it had been burned off. Someone had cut it semi-evenly before she regained consciousness, but as soon as possible she would need to find someone to do it properly. A reflection in one of the windows showed her to look nothing like her normal self.

When she arrived in the conference room both of the colonels were already there.

"Miss Summers," Caldwell greeted, while Sheppard just nodded and gave a brief smile. "It's good to see you're better. I understand Dr. Beckett is still in a medical coma?"

"Thank you," Buffy replied politely. "And yes, Beckett isn't doing so well. Dr. Keller has placed him in an isolation room."

Pleasantries over, Caldwell cut to the case at hand. "Colonel Sheppard has explained to me what happened with the exploding tumors." And Buffy couldn't help but admire him a little for being able to say that and be completely serious. "I also understand that your injuries were a lot more serious than Dr. Beckett's."

"They were. I heal fast, even if I'm not back at 100% yet."

"From what Colonel Sheppard told me, Dr. Weir attempted to have tests performed on you while you were unconscious, despite knowing she is prohibited from doing that. Even going so far as to lie to one of the doctors under Dr. Beckett's command, relying on her only having been in Atlantis a short while and therefore not being aware of the no testing decree the IDC has on all of their personnel."

"I was unconscious for that part, but yes. Both Sheppard and Teyla have told me the same thing."

Teyla was normally a pleasant person to be around since she was naturally calm and a peacekeeper, but she was barely restraining her anger at Weir's arrogance and disregard for Buffy when she explained what had transpired.

Caldwell scrutinized her with his eyes, "Teyla allowed Dr. Beckett to run any tests he wanted on her to find out why she can sense the Wraith. She had no objections."

"With all due respect, Colonel," Buffy interjected before he could continue down that line. "But I doubt she was even remotely aware of what she gave permission for, or that she knew how that information could be used. And as I understand it, she was horrified to find out that she had Wraith DNA and that that is the reason for her abilities."

Loosely interpreted, they had gotten their powers in the same way; Teyla's ancestors had been experienced on by the Wraith, the less than sane ancestors had escaped and reproduced with other humans, eventually resulting in the Athosians. Thousands of years ago, the Shadowmen had forced a demonic essence into a young girl to force her to do their fighting for them, causing her and the following Slayers to go insane, and eventually, it had resulted in Buffy being "Chosen".

"If Teyla had been asked the same question today, knowing what she has learned about Earth and our technology in the last three years, she might not have been as willing. At least not without some restrictions."

"Be that as it may, Dr. Weir is not a bad person. She's trying to find any advantage she can against the Wraith and all the other enemies we have. Finding a way to duplicate your abilities would be invaluable."

Buffy moved restlessly. Being cooped up in the infirmary wasn't good for her, but she also knew that doing any of the exercises she wanted to do was completely out of the question while she was still healing. Caldwell was standing comfortably in front of her, keeping a close eye on her, but Sheppard was perching on the conference table while attentively listening to the conversation.

"It's not that I think she's a bad person. The IDC did a thorough background check on her and everyone else in Atlantis and at the SGC, including you and everyone on the Daedalus. The problem is that she's of the opinion that the end justifies the means. She also has problems understanding that no means no."

Caldwell opened his mouth to speak, but she overrode him. "Dr. Weir's morality is so weak that she managed to justify to herself that since I was in a coma, and, apparently in her opinion was most likely to die, it was acceptable to ignore a legal decree and my explicitly stated refusal to allow any kind of testing no matter the circumstances, and then lie to someone she was fully aware didn't have enough information to know better. In all likelihood, she expected to get away with and get a pat on the back if it resulted in a serum or pill that would give people the same advantages I have, or a commiserating pat if it didn't."

"What if that scenario had happened?" Sheppard asked from the side.

"Dr. Weir and anyone involved would've faced some incredibly serious consequences, leading to a very, very long time in prison."

Neither of the men in front of her gave the impression of believing her, so she went on. "The IDC is an incredibly old, incredibly well-connected, and incredibly wealthy organization. We have people everywhere, sending people to prison is easy. What we do is too important to allow a diplomat to interfere in what she can't hope to understand."

"So, it's politics." Caldwell sounded disgusted and the other officer's face mirrored it.

"You can't have any kind of an organization without politics, but no, that is not the objective. But we need people high up to make sure we can do our job properly, and that includes removing obstacles."

"What is it that your organization does?"

"That's classified as Need To Know."

"If what you're doing is endangering this base or the safety of Earth-"

Buffy cut Colonel Caldwell off. "International *Defenders* Council. We protect, we don't put people at risk."

He glared at her, but she had had much scarier things do it a lot better, and unlike the middle-aged man in front of her, they were capable and willing to do a lot of extreme damage. She raised an eyebrow. Even injured she could kick his ass into next week.

Sheppard decided that was a good time to speak up, "In the meetings with Elizabeth, you said you've worked with the military before. Did they do any testing?"

Buffy allowed the change of topic and answered, "Yes. I made the mistake of telling them a lot about what I was capable of at the time and permitted them to set up tests for some of it. Mostly strength, speed, fighting abilities, and endurance."

"So there's a record of this somewhere?" Caldwell interjected, much more interested. "And did you allow them to do other tests?"

"No, and yes. All records were destroyed. I allowed them to take a blood sample, but they were unable to use it."

Mystical powers couldn't be detected in biological material after all, but she wasn't going to tell them that. The Initiative had realized that the hard way.

Sheppard frowned while Caldwell just looked vaguely disappointed. "The sample was tainted or they were unable to figure out the source of your abilities?"

"The latter. I refused to let them have a second sample. But I digress. We were talking about Dr. Weir, not me."

"Right," Colonel Caldwell nodded but gave his fellow Colonel a look that told both of them that they would have a conversation later, one-on-one. "Dr. McKay is working on getting us the surveillance video of the conversation between Dr. Weir and Teyla and Sheppard. I suggest we head down there and see how far he's gotten." Then he gave her a careful look, "If you're up for it. Dr. Keller was very clear on you not overdoing anything."

"I'm fine." Off his disbelieving look, she added. "Mostly I itch because my body is busy healing itself, but if we can stop by the mess hall for some food I'd appreciate it."

"We're talking about a very serious situation here and you're thinking about food?" The glare was back, and while she wasn't intimidated, he did have a good one.

"Rapid healing means I use a lot of energy. That energy needs to be replenished. To do that I need food. Call Keller if you want, I'm sure she'll approve of my interest in nourishment."

"We can even bring something to bribe Rodney with," Sheppard added. "Or just coffee. It usually helps, a little."

Caldwell gave a resigned sigh but agreed. So Buffy got food to get her strength up, and Sheppard gave McKay coffee which indeed got him in a slightly better mood.