Spoilers: Seasons 1-4 of Angel; All of BtVS (including 'Chosen'); Seasons 1-8 of Stargate SG-1

Pairings: Wes/Fred; Sam/Jack; Daniel/Buffy (Eventually...plus others to come)

Disclaimers: I don't own any of the characters, situations or dialogue found in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, or Stargate SG-1. This is purely a work of fiction and no intent to defame or gain profit from this enterprise is intended.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Jack poked his head into Carter's office and grinned. He could always count on Carter to lift his mood, unless she was the reason for his bad mood in the first place, of course. The lieutenant colonel in question was leaning all the way over the granite tabletop in front of her, balancing herself on one foot as she reached for a screwdriver that was about three inches away from her outstretched right hand. Some kind of technological thing was in pieces to her right. He admired the view for a second, then spoke.

"Carter!"

Sam's head whipped around and she landed face first on her lab table with a rapid exhalation of breath. Discombobulated, she looked at O'Neill. He was smirking at her. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her out of sorts, she straightened her posture, hair, and attitude in one smooth movement, checked her watch, then the clock on the wall. She'd expected him to bother her almost three hours ago. Could it be that he'd just gotten off the telephone with Hammond and the President? And weren't Daniel and Riley supposed to be back with the Summers sisters by now? "Sir?"

"Feel the need for some fresh air?"

"Uh?" Swift, Carter. She shook her head to free it of all the physics equations she'd been using to keep her mind away from demons and vampires for the last few hours. "Fresh air, sir?"

He grinned at her response and grabbed her jacket off the back of her office door. "Let's take a walk."

Carter looked at the clock again. Almost seven o'clock, which meant it was dark out. Not the best time to take a walk and admire the scenery. "Sir?"

"Shake a leg, Carter. Stuff to do." Sam took her jacket from Jack and followed him out the door, enjoying the view. Sure, they'd left things "in the room" after the whole Zay'tarc incident, but that didn't mean she couldn't relish the sight of Brigadier General Jack O'Neill in a pair of jeans and a leather jacket.

She sighed and decided to distract herself from her decidedly non-regulation thoughts. "Sir, what's this really about?"

Clearly overstimulated about something, he wagged a finger in her face as the elevator doors closed. "Ah ah ah, Carter. We're going to take a walk. You work too hard. Plus, the exercise will be good for you."

Sam's mouth dropped open in surprise. Jack hadn't just said what she thought he had, did he? She surreptitiously checked out her own rear end, only to find that it was exactly where she'd left it that morning. In any event, it certainly hadn't stopped him from checking it out when they were in her lab a few minutes ago. She hit him on the arm.

"Ow!" He rubbed the arm with his left hand. "What was that for?"

She looked at him like he'd grown another head. She would not call her CO an ass...she would not call her CO an ass..."Sir, you were married...shouldn't you know by now not to tell a woman she needs to exercise more?"

"Wha?" He looked confused at her question, then replayed what he'd said to Carter and looked at things from her skewed point of view. Shit. Teach him not to pay attention to what came out of his mouth when he was with her. Sometimes he forgot that Carter, being a girl, might have typical girl hang-ups. Definitely time for some serious backpedaling. "Carter, I didn't mean...you misunderstood..."

Carter's glare told him he had made another verbal mis-step. He backed into the corner of the elevator just as the doors opened. She stalked out of the elevator and headed towards the base security post, O'Neill following at her heels and trying desperately to make amends. The lieutenant at the gate figured out the gist of what was going on and bit her lips to hide her smile as she stood at attention and saluted them.

Once they had left the complex, O'Neill grabbed Sam's arm. The look in her eyes when she glared at his hand should have melted it off at the wrist. "Look, Carter...Sam. I'm sorry, okay. I just meant that you spend most of your on-world days in your lab, and there have been a lot of those lately, and I thought that...maybe you'd like to get out and wander around, listen for birds, sniff the exhaust, that kind of thing."

He looked around at the parking lot and continued in a stage whisper, "Plus, if we walk around, it'll be more difficult for the parabolic mics to pick us up if anyone's listening. That's the real reason I wanted to take a walk, Carter. Y'know, not that I wouldn't want to take a walk with you...er...nevermind...forget I said that last thing, Carter."

She smirked. One day she'd be able to stay angry with Jack, but it looked like today wasn't going to be that day. "It's forgotten, sir."

He continued in his regular speaking voice, trying very hard not to look at his 2IC. "Uh, okay...good. So, I just got off the phone with Hammond and the President about this whole slayer..." Jack waved his hand in the air, searching for the perfect word. "...thing, and hoo-boy, there's a lot Finn left out. Plus, if you would remind me to kick Daniel when he gets back from the airport, I'd appreciate it."

This request came once a week in one form or another, so it didn't surprise Sam. It's not like Jack carried through on the threat more than once a month. "Why?"

Sam felt movement to her left as O'Neill adjusted his baseball cap. "This is all his damn fault. We wouldn't know, or need to know, about any of this crap, if he wasn't so friggin' brilliant. Damn it."

Carter was thankful it was dark enough that he couldn't see her grin. At any given time, Daniel Jackson's brain was either the SGC's biggest asset or its most dangerous liability and everyone on SG-1 knew it. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing which one it was on any given day until you were in the middle of a situation–and by then it was usually too late. "What did General Hammond say, sir?"

"Not much. Never heard of Riley Finn or either Summers girl. He's coming in to see his granddaughters in a couple of weeks. He forwarded me directly to the President, who handed me off to the Joint Chiefs for a conference call. They didn't have much information about Dawn Summers."

Sam nodded. "That makes sense, sir. It's not like the government really cares what she's been up to–she's probably relatively young, if her older sister dated Riley in college."

"I guess I said that wrong, Carter. What I meant was that they couldn't find any information on Dawn Summers before she turned fifteen–no social security number, no birth certificate, no pre-kindergarten shot records, no enrollment records, no report cards, nada. Her parents' divorce decree doesn't mention any custody or support arrangements for her, either. After fifteen, everything's there and she's completely documented. Like she dropped in out of thin air or something. She's twenty-two, by the way."

Weird. Kinda like when Cassie had to tell everyone she was from Toronto. "Maybe she was born at home and homeschooled..."

O'Neill shook his head. "There'd still be records for that, not to mention her birth certificate. Plus, her sister's records are all there from the minute she was born–and the later years are pretty damn colorful, if I do say so myself–suspected arson of her first high school in LA, wanted for questioning in conjunction with three different suspicious deaths in Sunnydale, multiple hospital visits, high school mysteriously exploding at her graduation ceremony...y'know, the usual.."

Jack knew he sounded a little too much like a proud father and not enough like a disapproving adult member of society, but he couldn't help it. From what the Joint Chiefs had said, Buffy Summers and her friends kicked serious demon and vampire ass on a regular basis. He was still uncomfortable on many levels about a system that made a gaggle of teenage girls responsible for saving the world, but it sounded like Summers had it down to a science.

He grinned at Carter, even though she couldn't see it, and narrowly avoided tripping on an overgrown tree root. So much for special ops training. Next time he'd remember to bring a friggin' flashlight. "Oh, yeah, and she's The Slayer."

Sam blinked. She could hear the capitalization of the title. "Oh. Riley didn't mention that."

"Yeah, tell me about it. There's a ton of stuff he didn't 'mention.'" Sam could hear the air quotes. "For starters, the whole thing is classified beyond anything they've ever thought of to hide the Stargate Project. No computer files, salt the earth, fill it with cement and set it on fire kind of crap. They called it the Initiative..."

An hour later, Sam's head was spinning, full of O'Neill's story of a secret government project run by the Army; scientists who thought more of the potential than the implications of their experiments, super-soldiers, slayers and a demonic Frankenstein's monster run amok that could only be defeated through the use of magic. And she thought the Goa'uld sucked. Okay, no argument, they did suck, but she thought this might be at least as bad. At least the Goa'uld died when you shot them. Sometimes even permanently.

Lost in thought, she didn't notice that O'Neill had resumed speaking. "...orders to recruit anyone from their organization who wants to come..."

Whoa, wait a minute. "I'm sorry, sir. I was thinking. What was that?"

O'Neill smiled, well used to Carter's mental wanderings when she was processing information through to its logical conclusion. "Heh. Figures that would catch your attention, Carter. I have orders from the President to bring anyone I can get from their group into the SGC, ASAP. If we can get 'em, they're supposed to help us tip the hell out of the balance of power with the Goa'uld. The President's advisors and the other yahoos at the Pentagon don't see a downside to the plan, since there's thousands of slayers able to take care of the demon situation these days. They think this organization won't miss a couple of its people."

There was something about this that was bothering Carter. "If they're so incredible, why wasn't anyone recruited earlier?"

"Well, until five years ago, there was only one incredibly over-worked slayer on the books–Buffy Summers. I guess there was another one for a year or so, Faith something, but she turned herself in and spent a few years in Stockton until she escaped about six years ago. No one knows what happened to her. Current thinking in lofty circles is that she's dead."

"What'd this...Faith...do?"

"Murder, assault with a deadly...a couple of other misdemeanors."

"Oh."

"So, anyway, until five years ago, there was really only one slayer actively...slaying. Then there's this huge battle and poof!–thousands of slayers. The rumor is that none of these girls knew this was coming and were scattered all over the world. The federal government bean counters, in their ultimate wisdom, decided to be cost-effective and let this group pick up the tab for finding the girls, training them and generally getting their shit together. Plus, some of these girls were just too damn young to work at the SGC."

They were finishing the fourth lap around the complex. As the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain came into view, the lights from the parking lot illuminated them and Sam sneezed from the sudden brightness. "How young, sir?"

"I think the youngest was nine."

They walked in silence back to the SGC, deep in thought.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Meanwhile, at the Denver airport...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Do I have funny plane hair?"

Dawn glanced at her sister. Buffy's hair did look kind of knotted in the back from where she'd been sleeping against her seat and it was sticking up a little in other places. Dawn wasn't feeling particularly charitable at the moment, though–they'd missed their connection in Chicago and had to wait for the next plane to Denver, which was why they were over three hours late. She'd called Dr. Jackson to tell him about the delay, but he and Riley had already been at the airport. His impression of her had to be falling with every minute they sat in the visitor's area. "No, it's fine."

"Really?" Buffy ran a hand down the back of her hair, snagged it on the knot, shot her sister a dirty look and began looking for a restroom as they trudged through the terminal, exhausted from jet lag and hours of air travel.

"Come on, Buffy. He's already going to think I'm an immature, irresponsible idiot...can we please not keep him waiting any longer?"

Buffy sighed and gave in to Dawn's pleas. "Fine. Jump through a portal...make me see my ex with bad hair...the things I do for you..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cry me a river. Like I haven't been kidnapped twenty-six times by demons trying to get you to fight them or Will to reopen the Sunnydale hellmouth."

"Twenty-five. Sweet was all you and Xander. Klepto-girl."

Dawn gave her sister a shove. "Can we not bring up the whole klepto thing in front of my future advisor, please? And it's so twenty-six. You forgot about Angelus."

"Not hardly." Lost in memories for the moment, Buffy shivered involuntarily. Hands down, those were among the scariest hours of her life. Shortly after he'd killed Ms. Calendar, Angelus had decided to up his psychological attack on Buffy. He didn't do anything to the then twelve-year-old Dawn other than help her with her homework and feed her milk and cookies, knowing that Buffy's imagination would do all his work for him.

He'd dropped Dawn off after dark in perfect condition–Dawn hadn't known anything was wrong until years later, when she finally got the full story on the entire Angel/Angelus fiasco. Still, it was only a monk-implanted memory and hadn't really happened. "...and no fair bringing up stuff that happened before you existed."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Twenty-five. So much better than twenty-six..."

Still bickering, they passed the security checkpoint. Dawn, being taller, stretched up and began looking for someone who looked familiar. She smoothed her ponytail and adjusted her clothing. Finally, she saw Riley waving and looking around. He was standing next to another tall man in glasses in short hair and fatigues who was presumably Dr. Jackson.

Dawn waved back. He saw her and smiled, pointing towards she and Buffy. "Look, Buff, it's them! And whoa, when did Riley get hot!"

"You didn't think he was hot when I was dating him?" Dawn looked at her and raised both eyebrows. Hmmm. Maybe not the best response she could have come up with. She glanced at Riley's companion and whispered in her sister's ear, furiously trying to straighten her hair. "You're so dead later."

Daniel saw the two extremely attractive young women approach. One of them appeared to be waving at Riley Finn, who was apparently both an international man of mystery and an ex-demon hunter. If nothing else, the three hour wait had given them the opportunity to talk–not about the top secret project Riley obviously couldn't discuss, but about the younger man's life in Sunnydale.

For his part, Riley had felt more comfortable giving Daniel more personal information than he'd given O'Neill. First, Daniel didn't officially work for the military and wouldn't make any judgments about Riley's actions in that context. Second, Daniel wouldn't face repercussions for failing to obey orders to divulge information. Third, Daniel had experienced enough weird stuff in his own life to take everything Riley said with an open mind. Most importantly, though, Riley had been on enough missions with Daniel in the past year to trust the man not just with his life, but with the lives of his friends.

Daniel had been utterly fascinated by the stories he'd heard and was now coming to the conclusion that while vampires and demons weren't exactly cool, per se, they certainly presented an exciting opportunity for future study. He also thought that maybe the texts that hadn't been helpful in the fight with the Goa'uld would be helpful to the slayers. After all, saviors of the world had to work together, didn't they?

Daniel studied the women as they approached, trying to figure out from visual cues which one looked like she was fluent in a cornucopia of foreign languages. One woman was approximately 5'3" and blonde, dressed in a long skirt, blouse, and boots. She was carrying a huge awkwardly-shaped bag, seemed to be attempting to fix a serious case of bedhead and was shooting dirty looks at her sibling. The other woman was tall, willowy, brunette, and dressed in a navy pinstriped pantsuit, carrying a briefcase.

The women stopped in front of them and the brunette stuck out her hand. "Dr. Jackson? Hi, I'm Dawn Summers. We spoke on the phone?"

"Oh, thank goodness." Dawn snorted in amusement and Daniel immediately reddened with embarrassment. Riley looked like he was hiding a grin. Unfortunately, that blurted response had been out loud. The blonde was looked like she was going to rip his liver out of his abdomen with her bare hands. He'd managed to offend the woman before he'd even been formally introduced to her. That was probably a new record, but he'd have to check with Sam and Teal'c to be sure.

Riley, brave man that he was, immediately stepped into the conversational breach. "Buffy. It's good to see you again."

"Hi, Riley." He hugged her, attempting to pull her close. Obviously uncomfortable with that level of physical contact from her ex-boyfriend, Buffy kissed him briefly on the cheek, patted his back with her right hand, and stepped back.

Dawn rolled her eyes as she observed her sister and Riley. Not nearly so reticent, she hugged Riley tightly as soon as Buffy was out of the way, whispering in his ear, "You're a big honking liar, Riley. You're nowhere near fine. You've lost at least twenty pounds and you've got shadows behind your eyes. Not that you're not still gorgeous, of course. I'm not leaving town until you're better, no matter what happens with Dr. Jackson."

Riley looked vaguely startled as he stepped back from Dawn. When had Buffy's younger sister become so perceptive? He still remembered her as the girl he'd taken to the carousel and fed ice cream when she was dealing with Joyce's illness, but that image had been superseded.

Dawn had come into her own–she looked capable and professional and intelligence showed brightly from her blue eyes. Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd gone through some changes in the last five years. Initially he'd been a little skeptical about bringing the Dawn he remembered into the SGC program, but this woman looked like she could handle anything the world (or other worlds) threw at her.

Meanwhile, Daniel attempted to make peace with Dawn's sister. "Er, hi. I'm sorry about the way that came out before. I'm Daniel Jackson. I just meant that I need all the help I can get because I tend to get sucked into big projects and forget what else I'm supposed to be doing, like eating or sleeping or stuff like that, and Dawn looks so professional and you look so..."

He abruptly stopped rambling when he saw Buffy's arched eyebrow. "Were you about to say I look unprofessional, Dr. Jackson?"

Yes? No, probably not the right answer. Think, Jackson. You can do it. "Um, no. A little more rumpled, certainly..."

Buffy looked down at herself, grimaced, mumbled something about hanging Dawn from the highest turret and tugged on her blouse and skirt in a vain attempt to unwrinkle them, taking pity on Daniel. For a watcher-type he was totally easy on the eyes. He also reminded her of a combination of a young Giles and pre-wiccan Willow, which was a point in his favor. "I'm Buffy Summers."

They shook hands. "Glad to meet you, Buffy. It was nice of you to come to Colorado just so I could meet your sister." A little excessive, perhaps, but nice. The four of them began to walk towards baggage claim.

Dawn held a quickly whispered consultation with Riley from her position on his arm, then spoke to Daniel. "Since Riley gave you the four-one-one and you seem to be completely non-wiggy with it, I can tell you why she's really here."

Non-wiggy? Daniel became vaguely suspicious that Dawn had padded her resume. "Oh?"

Buffy grinned before Dawn could say anything. "Yeah. I'm here to keep her from being kidnapped by demons or vampires or something altogether ooky."

Ooky? Maybe the slaughter of the English language was an inherited condition. "Does that happen a lot?"

Buffy was still grinning, but Dawn was scowling at her sister as she adjusted her briefcase strap on her right shoulder. "It kind of depends on what you mean by 'a lot.' Twenty-five times in seven years."

It certainly sounded like a lot to Daniel. Even he hadn't been kidnapped that many times in seven years. He was about to say something along those lines to Buffy, then ask Dawn why she was such a hot commodity, when his cell phone rang. "Excuse me a minute..."

He stepped away from the baggage carousel and turned towards the windows. "Hello?"

"Hey Daniel."

"Hi, Jack. What's up?" Daniel wasn't worried that Jack had called him, since he didn't usually call him on his cell to talk about anything related to the SGC and anything non-SGC related couldn't be that big a deal.

"Nothing much. Just wanted to make sure your friends made it okay and that the airlines didn't lose their underwear."

"Uh huh." He turned and saw Buffy pull two enormous suitcases off the carousel. How long were they planning on staying? Their tickets had them returning to London that weekend. He shook his head as Dawn pulled a wheeled garment bag off the carousel next. Riley had offered to lift Dawn's suitcase, but she'd shaken her head negatively at him.

Jack could tell that Daniel was a little distracted. "Sam, Murray and I are dying to meet your friends. How does dinner at my place tomorrow night sound?"

"Okay. Wait, what?"

"We're having a barbecue at my house tomorrow night. Bring your friends."

"Why dinner?"

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "They've just made an extremely long plane trip, Daniel. It would be better if they weren't catatonic when we meet them. Drop them at their hotel tonight, they'll spend tomorrow asleep, then we'll gorge ourselves stupid on my back patio."

Daniel glanced back at Buffy, Dawn and Riley. Dawn was gesturing animatedly to Riley about something. Buffy was watching the windows and exits the way Jack and Teal'c tended to whenever they were someplace unfamiliar, looking for unseen threats. "I'll let them know."

"Good. Oh, and Daniel, I want to see you and Finn in my office tomorrow morning. Oh eight hundred. There's something we need to discuss before we kick back tomorrow night."

"Yes, Jack."