Chapter 10: Coming Home

"I find this all rather difficult to believe," said Dr. Ramsey.

"You should try it from my side," said Buffy. "You don't have fourteen years of memories of things that never happened."

"So, they made her from you," he said.

"I think so," said Buffy. "I know so. I feel it in my blood. When I look at Dawn, I know that she is a part of me."

"But these monks manipulated your memories, and your feelings," said Dr. Ramsey. "Everything that you think you know about Dr. Summers, they planted in your mind."

"No!" said Buffy. "Okay…a lot of what I remember about Dawn is made up, but how I feel… She's my sister."

"But she isn't."

"In every way that matters, she is!" said Buffy. "She was made from my blood."

"How do you know that?" asked Dr. Ramsey.

"I know!" said Buffy. "If she wasn't, I couldn't have…"

"Couldn't have what?"

"It's not important," said Buffy. She really didn't want to talk about that with a bunch of strangers. "Let's just leave it at Dawn's and my blood is interchangeable."

"Can I have a sample?" asked Dr. Ramsey.

"You want some of my blood?" asked Buffy.

"Just some DNA will do," said Dr. Ramsey. "I'd like to compare it with Dr. Summers'. See if her anomalies are present in you too."

Buffy thought about that for a couple of seconds, before she reluctantly nodded. "Okay, sure."

Jack was a little surprised that she'd agreed so quickly. "You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"At least he asked me first," said Buffy. "I've seen enough CSI episodes to know that I've probably left a trail of my DNA all through this base that he could've picked up without asking. I probably left a bunch of those epifeelie things all over you last night."

"Epifeelie?" asked Jack.

"I think she means 'epithelial,'" said Carter.

"Not making it any clearer."

"Cells from the outer layer of your skin," said Carter. "You usually lose some whenever you touch something. The more, um, vigourous, the contact, the more cells you lose. But from what Buffy's told us, I don't think that the answer to what happened to Dawn will be found in her DNA. It looks like whatever was binding the Key into Dawn was released when she entered the Stargate, and now it's trapped in the gate network."

"So, how do we get her out?" asked Buffy.

"I don't know that we can," said Sam.

"Willow?" asked Buffy.

Willow shook her head. "I don't know, Buffy. This isn't like anything I've ever done before."

"What about the original spell," asked Jack. "The one that created Dawn from the Key. Could it be used to pull it out of the gates, and recreate her?"

"I can't say," said Willow. "That spell doesn't exist anymore. The Order of Dagon destroyed everything they had that gave any indication of what they had done with the Key. They didn't want Glory finding it, and using it to lead her to Dawn."

Buffy and Willow followed Dr. Ramsey into the medical centre. "Dr. Fraiser," he called, "I need you to run a DNA comparison."

"Yes, Doctor," said a young woman, who had been examining a man in one of the beds, with a bandage on his head. She came toward them, but stopped suddenly when she saw Buffy and Willow.

Dr Ramsey didn't seem to notice. "This is Buffy Summers," he said, indicating Buffy. "I want you to compare her DNA with that of Dr. Summers."

Dr. Fraiser had recovered from her surprise. "Yes Doctor. Umm, if you'll come over here, Miss Summers." Buffy followed her over to a cabinet, where Dr. Fraiser pulled out a cotton swab, in a plastic wrapper. She tore the wrapper open and took out the swab.

"If you could open your mouth, please," said Dr. Fraiser. Buffy did, and she wiped the swab across the inside of Buffy's cheek. She took it over to a machine, and pushed the swab into it.

"It will just take a couple of minutes for this to process," said Dr. Fraiser.

"Really?" asked Willow. "I thought it took a lot longer than that."

Dr. Fraiser looked uncertainly toward Dr. Ramsey.

"We have some equipment here that hasn't been released for general use yet," he said.

"Stuff you brought back through the Stargate?" asked Willow.

"That, and things we've made for ourselves, based on what we've learned through the gate," said Dr. Ramsey.

Buffy was looking at Dr. Fraiser, who was not looking very comfortable. "You recognized us," she told her.

"Um, yeah," said Dr. Fraiser. "Dawn— I mean Dr. Summers has pictures of you in her office."

"You're Cassie?" asked Buffy.

"Uh, yeah. How'd you know?"

"Dawn mentioned she had a friend who was a doctor here," said Buffy.

They reconvened back in the conference room. "Well, Doc?" asked General O'Neill.

"Buffy Summers' DNA is perfectly normal," said Dr. Ramsey.

"And by that you mean?"

"It is the sort of DNA I would expect to see in any thirty year old woman," said Dr. Ramsey. "She's carrying a recessive gene that's been linked to a couple of cancers, and she's showing some genetic damage that may be linked to chemical exposure, but nothing that is likely to cause her any real health problems for the next fifty years."

"How do I compare to Dawn?" asked Buffy.

"Your DNA matches very closely with your sister's," said Dr. Ramsey. "There is a greater commonality between you than is normally seen between siblings, but not as close as identical twins."

"Meaning?" asked Jack.

"It looks to me like someone took a sample of Buffy's DNA, and used it as a template to create Dawn's," said Dr. Ramsey. "They edited out any defects, and changed a few cosmetic things, like her height, hair and eye colour, and a few other things."

"So, where does that get us?" asked Jack.

"Nowhere that I can see," said Carter.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" blared over the speakers throughout the SGC.

General O'Neill hit a button on the intercom on the table. "Close the iris!"

Buffy watched the metal iris spin shut, closing the opening in the centre of the Stargate. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Someone off-world is connecting to our Stargate," said Sam.

"And that iris thingy?"

"That's to keep any uninvited guests from crashing," said Daniel.

Jack had already disappeared down the stairway leading out of the conference room, with Sam right behind him. Buffy, Willow and Daniel followed them. She found herself in a room full of electronic equipment. Sam tapped a woman's shoulder, and she moved quickly out of her chair, letting Sam take over on her console.

"Who's off-world?" asked Jack.

"SG-4, 12, and 32," said a technician. "None of them are on 'hot' worlds."

"Any IDC?"

"Not yet, Sir."

"Carter?" asked Jack.

"We're receiving some sort of broad-spectrum transmission, Sir."

"What's it saying?"

"Nothing intelligible yet…looks almost like static."

"Almost?" asked Jack.

"There are interruptions in it," said Sam. "Listen." She hit a few keys on the keyboard in front of her, and sound started to come over the speakers: "…bzt-bzzzzzt-bzzzzzt, bzzzzzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt. bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt, bzzzzzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt, bzt-bzt-bzzzzzt-bzzzzzt-bzzzzzt, bzzzzzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt, bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt, bzt-bzt-bzt-bzzzzzt-bzzzzzt, bzzzzzt-bzt-bzt-bzt-bzt."

"That's Morse Code!" said Daniel. The speakers kept buzzing.

"You're right," said Carter. "6…5…3…6, 5…6…2…6…5…3…6, 5…6…2— That's Dawn's IDC! 5626536!"

"Open the iris!" ordered General O'Neill.

"Yes, Sir!" The gate technician placed his hand on the palm-print reader. Buffy watched the iris spiral open, and saw the shimmering pool of the Stargate's event horizon.

Nothing happened. The speakers kept buzzing, repeating the pattern of Dawn's IDC.

"Just a second," said Carter. "We've got a Morse program in here…" She typed quickly on her keyboard. "I just have to configure it for the right frequency. … There!" Dawn's IDC started to appear on her screen, repeating over and over.

"Can you tell her the iris is open?" asked General O'Neill.

"We can transmit the message," said Carter. "Don't know if she can receive it."

"Do it!"

Carter started to type on her keyboard. "IDC RECEIVED. IRIS OPEN."

The buzzing stopped for a moment, before it resumed again, in a new pattern. "GET WILLOW." appeared on the screen.

Carter glanced up at O'Neill. He nodded to her. "WILLOW IS HERE." she typed.

"Ask her if she's okay," said Buffy.

"BUFFY ASKS IF YOU'RE OK." typed Carter.

"I'M FINE BUFF." appeared on the screen. "WORKING ON GETTING HOME." More text started to appear on the screen.

ORB OF THESULAH,
MANDRAKE ROOT,
SAGE,
BURBA WEED

"It looks like the ingredients for a spell," said Willow. More and more items appeared on the screen. "A pretty major spell." She pulled a pen and a notebook out of a pocket, and started to copy the contents off the screen.

"That's not necessary," said Carter. "We're recording all of this."

Willow kept writing. "It never hurts to have a backup," she said.

Willow had filled several pages of her notebook when the final instruction appeared on the screen: "DIAL 24 18 03 14 07 13 01 WHEN READY." The wormhole winked out.

"What do those numbers mean?" asked Buffy.

"It's a gate address," said Carter. She typed something into her console. "Not one that we have in our database."

"And why is that?" asked Buffy.

"There are more than three billion possible combinations," said Carter. "Only a tiny fraction of them correspond to active gates. She must have picked an address that she knew we wouldn't normally dial."

Willow unclipped her cell phone from her belt.

"Ah, that won't work here," said General O'Neill.

Willow just smiled at him. "That's what you think." She pressed a couple of buttons on her phone, and then held it up to her ear. She waited a few seconds. "Hey Kennedy, I'm going to be sending you a shopping list in a little bit. I want everyone to put top priority on collecting everything on it. … Yeah, we're still in Cheyenne Mountain. We're going to need this stuff to get her back. … Yeah, we think we know what happened to her. … No, so far everyone is being very helpful. Buffy hasn't had to crack anyone's skull, or anything, and I only had to turn one guy into a rabbit. … Okay, talk to you later. Bye." She snapped her phone closed.

Colonel Carter was looking at her. "How did you do that?"

Willow shrugged. "Magic, of course."

"Sir, there's someone at the main gate," reported Sergeant Harriman. "They say that they have package for Miss Rosenberg."

"Have someone bring it down," ordered Jack. "And tell Miss Rosenberg. She's with Carter in her lab."

When he wandered into Carter's lab, half an hour later, he found Buffy sitting on a stool, watching while Willow and Sam unpacked a large box. Willow inspected each item carefully as it was removed, and Sam checked it off from the list of ingredients that had been transmitted to them, after Willow had approved it.

"I still can't see how any of this stuff, actually does anything," said Carter.

"Most of it doesn't really do anything," said Willow. "It's all more symbolic, and a lot of the ritual involved is more there to get the timing right, than anything else. 99 of all magic is done in the mind."

"So you're going to think Dawn out of the gate?" asked Jack.

"More or less," said Willow. "Some of these things really do have power, but it's power that was put into them by other people thinking at them." She picked up a crystal sphere, about the size of a baseball. "Take this for example. Orbs of Thesulah are usually used as temporary holding areas for souls. They were created over a hundred years ago by some powerful Romanian gypsies." She frowned for a moment. "At the rate we've been using them, I might have to look into seeing if I can figure out how to make more."

"So that thing can hold a soul?" asked Jack.

"Just for a few seconds," said Willow. "And only once."

"Okay," said Carter. "I sort of understand what happened to Dr. Ramsey's extra mass, when you turned him into the rabbit, but I still don't get how you controlled it. I mean there has to be a lot more to it than just thinking 'rabbit' while you're doing it."

Willow grinned, and pulled a key chain out of her pocket. Jack saw that it had a rabbit's foot attached to it. "People think that this is just for luck, but it gives me a nice DNA template to work from," said Willow. "The complete design of the rabbit is here. I just had to help it manifest itself."

"So, do rabbit's feet really bring luck?" asked Jack.

"You'd have to ask the rabbit," said Willow.

Jack looked down into the gate room. Willow and Buffy were seated on the floor, just outside the yellow and black "CAUTION" line painted on the floor. There was a freakin' pentagram drawn on the floor between them. He wondered how the late, and unlamented Kinsey would have reacted to that.

He couldn't understand a single word Willow was speaking that came through the speakers. She was talking in some language that he was pretty sure that he hadn't heard before. "What's she saying?" he whispered to Daniel.

"I don't know, Jack," Daniel whispered back. "It seems to be some derivative of Indo-European, but not one I've encountered before. About one word in ten sounds familiar, but that's not enough to base any sort of translation on."

Jack watched as Willow added yet another measure of some powdered herbs to the bowl in front of her. "And what's she doing?"

"She's making a person," said Sam.

"What?"

"Only symbolically," said Sam. "The way she explained it, the concoction she'll have when she's done will have the exact same mix of elements, in the exact proportions, that make up a human being."

"So, how's she going to turn soup into a person?" asked Jack.

"Magic," said Sam. She saw the look Jack was giving her. "I know. I don't really understand it either."

Willow looked up toward the control room, and nodded her head.

"Dial the gate," ordered Carter.

"Yes Ma'am." The gate technician hit the key to begin the dialling sequence that had already been programmed into the Dialling Computer.

Jack watched as Buffy held out her hand toward Willow. Willow picked up a knife that was lying on a silk pillow beside her, and sliced across Buffy's palm. Buffy didn't even flinch. She moved her hand over the glass orb sitting in the centre of the pentagram. Her blood started to drip onto it.

The Stargate whooshed open, and then settled back into the normal glowing blue pool of its event horizon. Then it started to change. The rippling blue pool began to turn green.

The orb sitting between Buffy and Willow began to glow, with a golden light. It brightened to nearly blinding intensity. Green mist started to flow from the gate to the orb. The glow got brighter.

Green lightning flashed from the orb back to the gate. Circuit breakers tripped, and the lights went out. The only light was the green glow coming from the gate. It slowly faded back toward toward its normal blue. Emergency power kicked in, bringing the lights back up.

Jack saw someone step out of the gate.

Dawn stepped out of the gate onto the ramp. The first thing she noticed was all the surprised looking people. She could see Willow and Buffy sitting at the base of the ramp, and General O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, Teal'c and some techs up in the control room. Okay, she expected that everyone would be looking at her, but she wasn't expecting the 'deer in the headlights' expressions on their faces. Then most of the guys looked away. That surprised her too. What were they expecting? She was supposed to be appearing out of the Stargate at the conclusion of Willow's spell.

The second thing she noticed was the feel of the cold metal grate against the soles of her feet. In fact, she seemed to be standing in a pretty cool draft. She could feel it all over her body. She looked down.

"Eeep!"

She was naked. Her right arm flew up to cover her breasts, and her left hand flew down to cover her groin. At least now she knew why everyone was looking so surprised. "Uh…hi guys. Anyone got some clothes I could borrow?"

People came running into the gate room. Dawn's attention focused on one who was already there.

"Dawn! What happened to you?" cried Buffy.

"I'm okay, Buffy, but please…clothes?"

Colonel Carter had arrived. She took off her BDU shirt, and wrapped it around Dawn's shoulders, leaving herself in only her black t-shirt. Dawn quickly slipped her arms into the sleeves of the shirt, and buttoned it up. Fortunately it was pretty big on her. That puzzled her for a moment. She remembered her and Sam being about the same height. As she came down off the ramp she started to notice that everyone seemed taller. She also seemed to have long hair again. She noticed a couple of other things about her body that felt different, and she had to tilt her head back a bit to look her sister in the eyes. She hadn't had to do that since… "Oh-my-god! I'm fourteen again!"