Title: Different Windows
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Up to end of Fourth Series in Buffy and the first couple of series of SG1.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Do not own Buffy or SG1. I would buy Sam and Tara but I am broke.
Summary: The President calls it Classified, the military calls it redeployment of assets, and the Scooby Gang just call it the same old deal with a new twist. AU near the end of Fourth Series of Buffy, where the Gang get relieved and moved to a different part of the fight for Earth.
" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.
AN: A bunch of stuff is different from the Buffy Cannon, most of which will be smallish stuff revealed in the story. Most noticeably for the beginning, Faith is still in a coma and Tara got integrated into the group but is not with Willow and she is close friends with Xander. Xander also has some training from Giles in weapons and his soldier memories, and he taught some of it to Tara.
"Hello?" Xander called into the darkness.
All he could see was pure black, although he could hear the rustle of his jeans and the scrape of his runners on some kind of floor. Xander spun around in the blackness but with no sense of movement, except for the sound of his shoes. He stepped forward and put a steadying hand to his combat helmet as the landing craft hit a cross rip on its approach to the beach. With one last quick check of his m1a1 carbine, he crouched slightly as the front landing ramp lowered into the shallow water. Following his fellow Marines, Xander ran into the water, watching helplessly as Pete got hit by Japanese fire and fell back into the landing craft.
Keeping low and firing occasionally as he waded through the calf deep water, when he reached the waterline, he made a sprint across the sand into the sandy floored forest. Sporadic fire splashed around him and he ducked behind a tree for cover. Signalling silently to the rest of the patrol, Xander moved through the jungle, his boots rustling the ground cover and occasionally squelching in the mud as his M-16 seeking out the Vietcong hiding in the vicinity. His squad moved through the jungle with alertness as they searched for the enemy. A Vietcong rose up to fire, then was cut down by a burst from Xander's M-16. Suddenly the deadly game of cat and mouse was interrupted by the almost inaudible whine, followed by the earth shattering explosion of artillery.
"Shit!" one of the squad called out at the first explosion.
"They're ours." Xander observed, ducking for cover.
Hearing another incoming shell, Xander dived into one of the creators. Clearing the dirt, thrown up by the artillery shell, off himself, Xander picked up his bolt action rifle and made his way down the long trench cutting a swathe through the French countryside. Passing units from England along with other American Expeditionary Mission troops, he made his way back to his own unit. He could tell that the offensive that was about to start was planned by the British, and that the Kiser's troops would be ready and waiting for the charge. Gripping the ladder and shaking his head, he watched as some of the British troops readied a lot of entrenchment and consolidation equipment for the charge.
"Idiots." He muttered.
The whistle blew and he climbed the ladder into the jaws of German death, and he ran. Dropping to his knee with the crunch of dry sand, and signalling a halt, he scanned the area through his night vision goggles, keeping his m4 carbine close at hand. Carefully he examined the small collection of Iraqi buildings below for any sign of movement. With another hand signal, he ordered the collum forward and took up his guard position in front of the lead APC. Suddenly gunfire erupted from the buildings as they passed.
He felt the bullet from the Japanese sniper on the small pacific island as it ripped through his chest and shattered his heart. He heard the slight click and felt the pain as the daisy cutter landmine jumped up and spewed shrapnel into his back, severing his spine and mincing his vital organs. He felt the multiple impacts as his body was sliced by rake after rake of German machinegun fire. He saw the exhaust trail and felt the shattering explosion as the Iraqi RPG aimed at the APC ripped into his chest.
Xander jerked awake. He had realised a while ago that the spirit that made up the costume he had worn for that one strange Halloween, nicknamed Soldier Boy, had been more than one soldier's memories, however ever since the Initiative incident, six weeks ago, and particularly since his agreeing to undergo a compressed basic for Jack and the SGC, which had started two weeks ago and had three left to go, he had been having nightmares about the soldiers who actually had made up the costume. He sat up slowly on the bunk in the dark shrouded barracks, his body protesting from phantom pains. The barracks was almost completely empty, the only other residents being Buffy and Tara, who had also agreed to undergo this basic training. Willow and Giles, being more bookish, were undergoing technical training at the SGC, under the guidance of Dr. Jackson and Major Carter. Xander never understood why Tara had volunteered to undergo basic.
In the darkness, Xander could hear, almost feel, a small sound. Looking around as his sight grew accustomed to the darkness; he tried to place the sound. He finally recognised it as very soft crying coming from Tara's bunk. Xander, dressed in military issue green tank top and short legged pants, slipped out of his bunk and quietly padded past the sleeping form of the exhausted Slayer to Tara's bunk. He sat down softly on the bunk and the young Witch shifted from her curled up position, resting her head on his lap and taking comfort from his gentle stroking of her hair. Neither spoke, Xander quietly providing the support that Tara needed to fight the internal demon plaguing her. After a while, Tara's crying tuned into the deep, silent sobbing that comes when you are exhausted but it still huts. The deep silence echoed off the walls of the large barracks, only broken once by Buffy turning over in her sleep, time seeming to fade into the rhythm of Tara's sobs and Xander's soft breathing.
Eventually Xander looked down and saw that Tara was finally asleep, her cheeks stained with tears that no longer flowed. Gently rising from Tara's bunk, placing a pillow under her head, Xander made his way back to his own, to get a few hours sleep before sunrise.
Giles walked into the cafeteria where he saw Willow and Major Carter talking, no doubt discussing either the physics of some alien device or the complexities of those infernal computers. Grabbing a tray from the counter, and desperately wishing for tea and scones, Giles joined the two younger women.
"Major Cater, Willow." He greeted.
"Mr Giles, you are not military, you can call me Sam." Carter said.
"Of course, Sam. Please call me either Rupert or Giles, I am used to it and the Mr makes me feel old." Giles replied.
"You are old, Giles." Willow said with a grin.
"Young enough to go Ripper on ya ass." He growled.
"Giles, you're scaring the normals." Willow whispered.
Most of the cafeteria had looked around at the growl but went back to their food as Giles and Willow began laughing.
"Sorry Sam." Willow said. "It's just Giles is… unique. As Giles he is all cultured and refined and knowledgy, but then there's Ripper, who is scary enough that all the demons in London used to be afraid of him. They called him 'the terror of the London Underground' and they didn't mean the Tube."
"Oh, like I'm the only one, Scarlet Rose." Giles shot back.
"You're Scarlet Rose?" Sam said in shock. "I was part of the Pentagon taskforce assigned to track Scarlet Rose down after they hacked into the Pentagon's, the White House's and the FBI's databases all on the same day."
"Huh, guess that means I wasn't detected in the CIA system." Willow said calmly.
"WHAT?"
"Well, I had to do a comparison from my previous looks to see if Moloch had compromised the systems."
"Wait a second. Wasn't Moloch that demon that escaped onto the internet?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. But after I met Buffy, I only hacked in order to get information we needed. I swear I'll never do it again."
When she said that, Willow looked so innocent that you couldn't help but want to trust her.
"I'll even help you boost up security on you system, after all I did design and sell about five of your security programs."
"Some of those programs, while the best, are almost a decade old." Sam said.
"Yeah, I wrote them when I was eight, and I notice you've kept up to date on the patches." Willow said with a grin as she sipped her coke.
The Instructor-Sargent looked on the recruits with amazement, not that he let them know that. He had seen enough recruits going through this course for the Cheyenne Mountain operation, most of them special opps trained, to know how brutally tough it was. He also knew Colonel Jack O'Neill well enough to give great weight to his opinion, but he had gotten a chill when all Jack would say about these three was, 'You'll be surprised'. He was certainly right.
The young man was currently standing next to him, watching the taller of the two blond women run through 'the village' shooting range. This guy was a natural soldier and leader. Xander's semi-classified file was quite impressive, even through most of the stuff that happened in Sunnydale was rewritten to seem like a military positing. The Sargent had read the unclassified files on these three as well. Harris could wield any firearm as if he had been born with it in his hands, but he loved his SOCOM's, he could also see full tactical scenario's with only partial information, as well as making intuitive leaps in the most unconventional, yet effective, directions, yet he occasionally suffered from self-esteem issues. Every single instructor on the base had made independent recommendations that the boy be given every command opportunity available. This kid could be better than Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Rommel combined.
The taller blond, Tara, was running through the shooting range with her own pair of elaborately engraved SOCOM's, despite the fact that the minimum weapons rating on the course was an assault rifle. Hell, once she had done the course unarmed, using only what she described as 'Magic', and after seeing some of the things she did, the Sargent was not inclined to disagree. Maclay seemed to be the more reserved and quiet type, yet she was no slouch in combat. A dead shot with those pistols and her Magic made her more dangerous than a squad of SEALs. Aside from the SOCOM pistols, the only gun Maclay would wield was a P90, and that's because Harris had insisted and helped her learn it. She had unwavering loyalty and amazing respect for Harris, it was almost as if he had saved her Soul. The Sargent had seen hardened special opps teams, some of the tightest bonds in the military, who were downright disloyal to each other compared to Maclay. In spite of this, she was not afraid to voice her opinions to Harris.
The smaller blond, with the unlikely first name of Buffy, was the most physical person he had even met, and he knew SG1 and the former champion, Teal'c. Summers had just finished a fifteen mile run, in thirteen minutes and seven seconds, and was now correcting the hand to hand technique of one of the instructors by wiping the floor with him. She instinctively knew the basics of anything that could be called combat by any stretch of the imagination. In Summers' hands, a friggen spoon is a lethal weapon. She was not bad with firearms, but Harris was much better and Maclay treated her guns with a mix of care, respect and fear that made her more dangerous with them than Summers. While an amazing fighter, Summers was not a great tactician in situations more complex than her beating the crap out of everything she sees.
"So, Harris, how did you meet Colonel O'Neill and his team?" The Sargent asked.
"You read our Classified files?" Xander replied.
"Yeah."
"It was just after Graduation. Solar Eclipses, Vampires, the Mayor turning into a gigantic demonic snake. The usual." Xander began, his eyes never leaving the gun course. "There was an out of town tabloid journalist there; she published an article about glowing eyes, worship cults and weapons. SG1 was sent to investigate. Vamps attack SG1, we kill vamps, we meet SG1. End of story."
Xander walked down to the exit of the course to meet Tara. Even at over one hundred yards, the Sargent could see the loyalty in Maclay's eyes as Harris began to speak, no doubt analysing her performance. They made their way away from the range, quickly joined by Summers. With a shake of his head, the Sargent turned away from the recruits. He would not want to face them in combat.
TBC…