Word count: 2,792 (2 of 10)
Buffy paced outside the hospital room, occasionally looking in at the unconscious woman on the bed. It had been a long night, even for her, but she couldn't stop moving. The hospital was just too quiet. She felt compelled to make noise. Even a cemetery was never this quiet.
Scenes from earlier kept running through her head. Of the ambulance taking the woman away, along with the Watcher and one of the guards. Making sure that the remaining guards understood the importance of sealing the warehouse until it could be properly investigated. The protesting guards as she turned it over to her contact in the NSA.
A lot had happened in a short amount of time. After taking care of the warehouse, she'd rushed back to her hotel to change out of the ruined dress and into her only business suit.
Catching Travers at the reception, she'd ignored his glowering face, explaining her lateness due to the earlier excitement surrounding the Chappy ring, once he'd calmed down enough to actually listen.
Buffy was used to being the most powerful person in the room, even if no one else knew it, but for twenty minutes that evening she'd gotten a demonstration of the true power of the Council. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or curse at the results. The U.S. government would keep the ancient ring for now. But the Council, through Groupe Seven, would provide oversight of the team examining it.
And Buffy was now responsible for the woman who'd come through it. Basically a glorified babysitter for the currently unconscious woman.
She was impressed with the efficiency of the government for once. The hospital they'd whisked the woman off to, in a secret facility run by the NSA, was buried deep in the Virginia countryside. The doctors there had quickly concluded that she was completely human, dashing Buffy's hope that she could get rid of her easily.
On top of that, there were some questions about the woman's identity. She'd been carrying a NASA ID but there was no record of a Velma Dinkley ever working for them. In any capacity. According to the government she shouldn't exist.
There were no records of her anywhere. Fingerprints or DNA. With all of the power they wielded, the only thing the NSA had come up with was a character in a script for the pilot for some cartoon about a dog from the late 60's that had never been produced. The other organizations the Council had contacts with had returned the same results.
In the middle of a reorganization caused by several well publicized scandals, the NSA was only too happy to let Groupe Seven take responsibility for her. Not that she had any idea herself, Buffy thought, entering the room. What was she supposed to do with her? Her life didn't allow her to have pets; how was she going to deal with a grown woman? Shorter than Buffy, she looked like she hadn't had a good meal in months.
"Daphne?" a soft voice murmured, drawing her to the woman's bedside. "What happened to your beautiful face?" she asked, after staring groggily at Buffy for a minute.
Buffy shivered when the woman reached up and gently traced the scar on her lips in an oddly intimate gesture.
"And you've changed your hair color. I didn't think I'd been gone that long. Where are my glasses?" she asked.
"Where were you?" Buffy asked, not correcting her mistaken identity, hoping to keep her from realizing that she wasn't this Daphne person for a little while longer.
"And your voice..." Velma frowned at her for a moment, like she knew something was wrong but couldn't quite pinpoint it, before answering. "I'm not sure. It was an abandoned underwater city. I almost starved before I figured out how to use the food machines. The plants in the gardens weren't very edible." She held up a thin, bony hand. "A strange place. Way ahead of anything I've seen before."
"How'd you get there?" Buffy asked, sitting down.
"I was testing something in my lab; Can't remember what," she said. "There was a large explosion and I woke up in that city. How did you find me?"
"We didn't. You came through the ring," Buffy said.
"The what?" Velma closed her eyes. "I don't remember. I just wanted to go home. I promised Shaggy I would come home for Scooby's birthday. You were going to be there..." She drifted off before finishing the thought.
Buffy sat quietly for the next hour, watching her. She wondered again who Daphne was, that Velma had thought of her first. And what the strange tone in her voice had meant.
"Buffy?"
"Yes?" Buffy looked towards the door. Rupert Giles was standing just outside it, motioning for her to join him.
Looking back at Velma to make sure she was still sleeping, Buffy stood up and quietly left the room.
"What's up?" she asked, leaning against the wall next to the door. The Watcher looked his usual impeccable self. It wasn't a watcher thing, she'd decided, but a Giles thing, though he'd never really talked about his family in all the years they'd known each other.
"Has she said anything?" he asked eagerly.
"Not much. She mentioned that Daphne person again and a Shaggy and Scooby. She thought she was in some underwater city," Buffy told him. "She remembers an explosion before waking up in the city, but can't remember what caused it or how she ended up going through your Chappy ring."
"Chappa'ai," he automatically corrected. "Nothing else?"
"She thinks I'm that Daphne," Buffy shrugged. "She won't think that when she gets her glasses back. Oh yeah, she's apparently late for a birthday party. Very late."
"What do you think of her?" he asked. "Is she telling the truth?"
Buffy shrugged again. "Can't really tell yet. She doesn't give off any evil vibes. She's been unconscious or asleep most of the time."
"You'll have to bring her with you when she's recovered."
"It might be a week or longer," Buffy warned him. "The doctors aren't saying. And why am I taking her anywhere?"
"The U.S. military has an Air Force facility in Colorado they're going to let us use to study the Chappa'ai. It's in a mountain."
"And we have to go there why?"
"She came out of the Chappa'ai. If she remembers anything, they want her available so they can question her."
"At least she's human, so they won't do any experiments on her," Buffy said, thinking of the rumored Initiative fiasco.
"You can thank Travers for that," Rupert told her with a frown. "He can be a right ponce at times but he knows you'll protect her or deal with her if something needs to be done."
"Great. I wondered why he made me her babysitter. There wasn't some Council safe-house he could send her to?" she grumbled.
"I'll let you know when we're set up in Colorado," he said, before nodding at the ever present guard further down the hall.
"Okay. Not going anywhere for a while," Buffy said. "Don't get into any trouble before I get there."
Rupert nodded and squeezed her shoulder before leaving her alone in the hall. Shaking her head, Buffy walked back in the room and returned to watching her charge.
"You're not Daphne, are you," Velma asked, her soft voice waking Buffy from a light nap.
"No," Buffy admitted.
"But you look so much like her," Velma protested. "Where are my glasses?"
"You broke them," Buffy said. "The optometrist is on vacation so they had to send them out to be fixed. You should get them back some time this afternoon."
"Oh... Where am I?"
"In a government hospital in Virginia."
"How long have I been here?"
"Almost a week," Buffy told her, condensing long boring days of watching the other woman sleep into a single sentence.
"The underwater city... it wasn't a dream," Velma muttered.
"We don't know. You're the only person to see it," Buffy told her.
"Can I call my friends?"
Buffy thought for a moment and then nodded, pulling out her Council phone. "Use mine, it's more secure."
Velma raised an eyebrow at the comment. Taking the phone she entered a number. Buffy could hear the automated operator telling her the number didn't exist. She watched Velma repeat the process twice more.
"The numbers aren't any good," she said, laying back in her bed. "Why?"
Fascinated, Buffy watched the expressions on her face change as she thought and decided to give her a little more information. "You had a NASA ID when we found you."
"Yes. I work in the Future Propulsion Lab," Velma told her.
"Which means what?" Buffy asked curiously.
"I'm a rocket scientist," Velma said, blushing in obvious embarrassment.
"Oh. So you do sciencie things with rockets?"
"You could say that," she said.
"Well, not at our NASA," Buffy said.
"What do you mean?"
"You don't seem to exist."
"I'm right here," Velma protested.
"No paper trail," Buffy explained. "Rockets, or any science really, aren't my thing but even I know you can't just walk in off the street and work at some place like NASA. And as far as anyone can tell, you don't exist."
"Jinkies," Velma muttered. "Not even fingerprints or DNA?"
"Fingerprints?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Started a detective agency in high school," Velma explained. "To get licensed they had to take our fingerprints. I'm sure they're still on file somewhere."
"Isn't high school a little young for something like that?" Buffy asked. Teenage detective was worlds away from being a slayer. Slayers were expected to be young.
"It was perfectly legal," Velma said. "Daphne's father took care of everything."
"If you say so," Buffy said, nodding at her.
"It can't be time travel," Velma said. "Unless I went back to before I was born? What year is it?"
"It's 2006," Buffy told her, amazed at how calmly she was taking it.
"Not time travel then," she said sadly. "It was 2006 for me too."
Buffy wondered at her obvious disappointment. "You fell through this huge ring thing called a Chappa'ai. There are ancient stories that claim it's a doorway to other places."
"A portal?" Velma struggled to sit up. "Where is it?"
"On its way to a secret military base," Buffy told her.
"We need to stop it!" Velma said, swinging her feet over the side of her bed.
"Where are you going?"
"To find this portal before something happens to it."
"You aren't going anywhere," Buffy told her, gently pushing her back down on the bed. "What's the rush?"
"I need to look at it before it disappears," Velma said, yawning.
"You can barely keep your eyes open," Buffy told her. "You're in no shape to be running around."
"But.."
"I know where it's going," Buffy said. "I'll take you to see it when the doctors say you can travel."
"Why are you helping me?" Velma asked, giving Buffy a confused glanced before her eyes closed.
"Just doing my job," Buffy murmured.
"And what's your job?"
"Officially? In all that paperwork you don't have? I'm a field agent for DMN Groupe Seven," Buffy said with the straight face she'd been practicing for the reception she hadn't gone to. Even though she hadn't learned about the Council's pseudonym until she'd gone permanently watcherless, she still found the whole idea amusing. Especially the acronym.
"What's a DMN?" Velma asked, reopening her eyes.
"We're part of Her Majesty's Household," Buffy said. "We do special projects."
"You don't sound British," Velma said. "Or even Canadian."
"It's not a job requirement," Buffy said. "You should get some sleep. We can talk later."
"Okay..." Velma mumbled before turning her head away from Buffy.
"Why am I here!" A tall, blonde woman asked, bursting into General Hammond's office, interrupting their conversation.
"Captain." The general fixed her with a steely glare. "You're out of uniform."
"I was at the track," she said, returning his glare, "when some government flunky hands me recall papers. Right before a race."
Rupert winced at her tone. It was like hearing Buffy tear into that poor Council messenger on their Norway trip.
"Project Giza has been reactivated," the general told her.
"Why now?" she asked.
"I'll come back later," Rupert said, getting to his feet.
"Who are you?" she asked, focusing on the new target.
"Dr. Giles is on temporary loan from DMN's Groupe Seven."
"What do they have to do with this project?" she asked suspiciously.
"DMN funded the original expedition that discovered the ring," he said. "They've agreed to provide oversight for the next phase of the project."
"We didn't need them before," she said. "Why are they involved now?"
"It's not your concern, Captain Carter."
"I won't work with them," she said.
"You have no choice," the General said.
"Do you know who they are?" Carter asked. "What they do?"
"The DMN is well respected within the intelligence community," he said. "They've provided vital information and support in the past to their government and our own. You will work with them."
"Yes, sir," Carter said.
"Report to my office tomorrow, in proper uniform. We'll discuss your position with the Project then."
Carter stared at the General for a moment before nodding and giving him a brief salute. Glancing disdainfully at Rupert she turned around and left the room.
"She doesn't seem happy to see that her project has been revived," Rupert murmured. "I'm surprised."
"She was career Air Force until the Pentagon shut down Project Giza." General Hammond said. "I warned your superiors that not everyone they requested for this project would be happy with the invitation."
"I suspect there's more to it than that," Rupert told him. "I should be going."
She was waiting for him just outside the entrance. Rupert looked at her warily. The General had accepted his presence with few reservations. With the blessing of the Crown, the Council had carefully cultivated a reputation for their activities using the DMN designation within the intelligence community. But very few knew the whole truth about their relationship with the British Monarchy.
Dr. Carter, unfortunately, was one of the few outside the Council and Royal family who knew that DMN was more than a Crown liaison with the British intelligence services. It'd been a calculated risk on the part of the Council Board to request that she participate in the new investigation into the Chappa'ai.
"You're not a Watcher are you?" she asked quietly, joining him as he headed to his car.
"Strictly speaking, Dr. Carter, yes I am. We all are," he told her. "Am I The Watcher? No. I'm just a simple researcher."
"So 'She' won't be a part of this?" she asked.
"Dr. Carter, you are well aware of how it works," he told her gently, glad that he'd had a chance to look through her Council file the day before so he knew who she was referring to. "She's been dead for almost fifteen years."
"I still keep expecting to have her show up at my door," she said, staring off across the parking lot. "with her usual unbelievable story about where she'd been since I last saw her. She seemed so indestructible."
"They all do," he said. "It's all part of the curse. But they live a brutally short life."
"Some would call it a gift," she said. "Perfect health, impossible strength. Abilities science can't even begin to explain."
"For some it is," he said. "But only because they don't know any better," he added, thinking about Buffy Summers and the price she'd paid over the years.
"Why does the Council really want me to be a part of this?" she asked, turning back to look at him. "They know how I feel about them."
"We didn't pick the staff for this project," he said.
"Bull!" she said loudly enough to earn them a quick glance from a nearby guard.
"We might have influenced the selection towards people who would have a better understanding of our position in this matter than most, but it was all based on merit," Rupert told her. He could feel her eyes drilling into him.
"And?"
"I can't speak about any future plans the Council might have," he said, opening the car door. He didn't think she would appreciate learning that the Council still considered her one of them, almost two decades later. "But several influential members of the Council Board of Directors were impressed with your previous report," he added, before getting in.
She frowned for a moment before stepping back from his car so he could leave.
Looking in his mirror, he could see her still standing there, deep in thought, as he drove away.