A/N: For various, no-good reasons this story has not been progressing as intended. What you'll read now has been sitting on my hard drive for quite some time and whatever I wrote for what comes after it, blows goats, to put it mildly.
I honestly don't know why I can't seem to put anything even remotely readable on "paper". For whatever suggestions you can make, I'd be eternally grateful.

No dedication this time. Aforementioned goats come to mind. ;o)

Hard Facts And Harder Truths

"Willow? Willow? Can you understand me now?"

"Yes, this is much better. How are you Buffy?"

"Fine, fine, just peachy. You?"

"Great. Kennedy's parents are so nice and their house? Actually no house, more like a palace. Buffy, they even have staff!" Willow sounded breathless even over the slightly crackling phone line.

"Awesome! Listen Willow, I have a favour to ask."

"Uh, oh. Something Hellmouthy? You need us to come over? Should we call Xander?"

"No, it's just that... I just need some intel on someone."

"Oh! Oh. I can do that." Willow actually sounded a bit dissappointed.

"If you could, you know... check his background, what he's working on right now, stuff like that. But don't let anyone know."

"Of course not. Umm, do you mean like nobody as in no Giles, no Dawn, no anybody? Because you know how I am with secrets. As in very bad."

"I'll just know, you'll try."

"Pressure." Willow's voice was slightly tinged with panic. "I can feel the pressure already. But I'll be calm and collected and just breathe deeply and it'll all go away easy as pie."

Buffy had to smile as she pictured the redhead doing just that halfway across the world.
"Willow, I miss you."

"I miss you, too, Buffy."

"I have to go. My shift starts in about an hour and I'm still bedhead Buffy. Have a great stay at Kennedy's."

"Bye, Buffy."

Buffy's finger was already halfway to the disconnect button when she heard Willow's tinny voice shrieking from the phone.
"Buffy! Buffy! You haven't told me on whom I should do the checking."

Buffy rolled her eyes in annoyance at her own distractedness.
"His name is General Jonathan O'Neill, with two Ls. He is stationed here at Cheyenne Mountain."

"Zoot. The military butting in again?"

"No. This is..." Buffy barely stopped herself from saying 'personal' which would have surely lead to more questions than she wanted to answer just now and instead said: "just for being on the safe side."

"Ok. I'll email you anything I'll find."

"Great. See ya, Wills."

"See ya."

When Buffy powered up her laptop during her break, sure enough Willow had sent a long email complete with attachments containing Jack's detailed service record and his current stationing: SGC, Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain.
Willows accompanying email read as follows concerning that.
"It's freaksome but everything before his actual posting in Colorado wasn't that hard to find, just buried the usual way for these Special-Ops types. After his posting there, zilch. Just that name, Stargate Command and the fact that he retired twice but came back again, no reasons given. And that he is the commander of whatever it is.
I tried finding out exactly but couldn't find anything, just loads of nifty firewalls and electronic trip switches. They really don't want anybody finding anything without them knowing.
I can tell you everything before SGC, even his Special-Ops mission reports are findable (the guy spent three months in an Iraqi prison! shudder), but after that nada.
If you want I can 'look' another way...

On a weird side note, he is listed as the military advisor to that godawful TV series Wormhole Extreme. Guess even ultra-secret types can't resist the Hollywood glamour.
:-)"

Thoughtfully Buffy closed her laptop after browsing through all the material Willow had sent along. She felt slightly bad at poking around in Jack's life and had actually skipped over his more personal info. He had told her himself that he had been married once and even that he had lost his son to an accident. She didn't want to snoop but she needed answers whether he could be trusted.

Of course he can be trusted.
With me, yes.
But can he be trusted with the slayer as well?

Buffy was stretching up on her toes.
Sometimes I just wish for those 5 inches more.
People were milling about, routinely getting in each others way, stepping on feet and bumbling their bags any which way.
Business as usual at the airport just more so during the holidays.

Buffy had been waiting for Dawn's flight to arrive, since of course it had been delayed by bad weather in Chicago.
It was by now two hours later than anticipated but Buffy was still in good spirits.
Having time and nowhere to go for the next week is too good to spoil.

If she was truly honest she cultivated a slightly over the top sense of all-will-be-well since reading Willow's email. She was unwilling to allow herself to really sit down and think about what she now knew, little though it was. She hadn't told Willow to dig further either because in a way she wanted everything to stay as it was.
It's been so great. Why can't I ever pick a normal guy?
But Buffy stopped herself going down the road of self pity and deep down she knew that somewhere someone just wasn't about to let up on her. Normal just wasn't for her.
And actually thinking there's a plan to everything makes dealing easier. At least then you have someone to blame.
She seriously tried not to speculate what Stargate Command and Jack's involvement might mean and wasn't about to start now.
Tomorrow's another day.

And then there was Dawn, just coming out of Immigration, struggling with a way too heavy bag and the inevitable laptop case. She had grown even taller it seemed or Buffy had just forgotten from the last time. Her hair was still waistlength with it's requisite coloured streak at one temple. Apparently this week's flavour was fire engine red. Her clothes were a bit rumpled as expected after a longdistance flight, her jeans with the flared legs had geometric applications running around her thigh and her maroon sweater was of a matching, slightly severe A-cut with a square neck line. Long, dangling earrings completed the willowy look.
She's actually grown up. When did that happen?

For a brief moment Buffy let herself roam her memories, both monks-induced and real.
Dawn had accompanied Buffy to Europe right after the Sunnydale Hellmouth's collapse. Buffy had tried to make good on her promise to show her the world and that had been fine until they had heard of the L.A. gang's deaths. Buffy was freaking and Dawn had her own stuff to deal with, since at that time it came out that not all of her keyness seemed to be gone. They found out the hard way when some warlock kidnapped her and used her blood in an old fashioned heist... on the crown jewels. The resulting PR war zone was deftly handled by Giles pulling some heavy duty strings, aquired together with dominion over the old Council's assets (and blackmail material).
It turned out that Dawn's blood couldn't be used to open interdimensional portals anymore but was pretty nifty opening locks. Any kind of lock. Which came in handy when you forgot your car keys on the inside but pretty much made for open season on her... again.
It had seemed wise to put her under heavy protection and Giles and Illyria seemed to be the safest bet. Once the first dust had settled and word got out that messing with The Key meant having a whole assortment of brassed off Megawitches, an Old One and an army of slayers on your tail, Dawn even selected to stay for the time being. She had discovered that research wasn't so bad and that being The Key also meant languages came real easy to her thus happily having found her vocation.
That left Buffy to do her grieving and by the time she was done, Dawn had moved on on her own.
Sometimes Buffy thought guiltily that she should have put more effort into staying involved in Dawn's evolvement.
But for a long time she had felt unable to muster up the effort.

Determined to belatedly make up for any shortcomings on her part in the past she whooped and waved madly at seeing Dawn looking around, searching for her.
Buffy hopped off her stand on the bench and pushed her way through the throng of people.
Dawn's face lit up at seeing her sister's determined face, dropped her bags and the two enveloped each other in a hug.
"Buffy! It's so great to finally be here. Flying sucks."
"Dawn! What has been taking so long? You did that on purpose just to have me stuck here for hours, didn't you?" Buffy grinned at her sister.
Dawn pretended to be smug. "Busted. I just love hanging around for an extra two hours next to the seat neighbour from Hell! Honestly, he was chewing my ear off, figuratively speaking, everything else would just be ewww! But really, I now know more about the healing forces of amethyst and channeling properties of whatsit than I ever wanted to. That guy was such an amateur!" Dawn rolled her eyes for emphasis.
Buffy chuckled and grabbed Dawn's bag, hefting it easily.
Dawn was craning her neck and apparently looking for something. "So... where's he?"
"Huh?" Buffy hedged, knowing full well who Dawn was refering to.
"Mr.Wunderbar of course. Jack. You know, you never did tell me his full name."
"And for good reason. I know what you would have done with that info."
Dawn managed to pull off the wounded, innocent look perfectly. "I have no idea what you could mean." She was actually pouting.
Buffy wasn't fooled. "You'd probably know his shoe size by now, through that hellish contraption. You know, I begin to sympathise with Giles on that count." She pointed to Dawn's other bag, the laptop case.
"Buffy, you not only sympathise, you actually left Giles waaaayyy behind on the technophobia front. He even uses the calendar on his mail program nowadays."
"It has a calendar?"
"QED." Dawn couldn't have sounded drier.
"Huh?"
"Quod erat demonstrandum. Case in point."
"Do they teach you anything useful at that uni of yours? Like hazing and binge drinking?"
Laughing Dawn and Buffy left the terminal to join the queue of cars on the highway back to Colorado Springs.

After only two and a half rings it sounded: "Hello?"
"Hey, merry Christmas to you." Jack had manners if he put his mind to it.
"Merry Christmas to you too."
"Miss the old bodacious bod already?" Jack teased and was gratified to hear Buffy spluttering.
"No," came the drawled reply. "But then again stranger things have happened. I'm Dawn by the way. I think you wanted to talk to my sister? You know, Buffy?"
Jack was actually mortified.
Great way to introduce yourself. Come off as a narcissistic egomaniac.
"Ummh... Yeah?"
Smooth, O'Neill, real smooth.
"Buffy!" Jack winced at the sudden volume. "Your boyfriend just tried to chat me up. You sure he isn't evil?"
Gah! If there is a worse way, I sure hope I'll never find it.
Then he had a slightly breathless Buffy on the phone.
"Jack? Excuse my idiot sister. She forgot her medication again. Ow! Dawn!"
"Actually she's right, I did chat her up." Jack felt compelled to admit.
"Oh?"
"Thought she was you."
"Oh! That's alright then." She sounded mollified but then: "Unless...?"
"No. You're jailbait enough for this sad old carcass."
"Who's with you then?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, who's the sad old carcass and isn't it slightly rude to say that when it could hear you?"
Jack snorted laughing.
"Actually I was calling about a whole collection of carcasses. All here at my house. The day after tomorrow. At four."
"First off let me say, huh? And follow that up with a hearty ewww! What are you talking about?"
"This year is my turn to throw the annual leftovers party. Me and a coupla friends get together to tackle the debris from the holidays. You know how it's usually that you can't stomach any more of your own holidays meals but there's still plenty left and you can't just throw it away? So we invented this bash to get rid of our own leftovers and eat the other's."
"Great idea! Last year I actually threw out half of my roast with walnut horseradish cream. Although, I caught Xander trying to get rid of his portion even before that. Can't imagine why."
Jack took a moment to come back from the scary visual place the idea of walnut horseradish cream had sent him to. "So, you coming? Dawn's welcome too, of course." Jack hastily amended.
"That would be... Willow!"
"Huh?"
"Jack, I have to go. Something came up. I'll call ASAP."
"O-k. 'Til then." But the line was dead already.
Weird. And wasn't this Willow supposed to be in Europe somewhere? England or something?

Buffy managed to hit the disconnect button on the cordless blind. Willow on the brainphone meant dire circumstances.

Buffy! Are you listening?

Willow! Don't ever do that again without some warning.

Sorry, but this is urgent.

It had better be. You in my head is not something I'd like to have for something less than at least a minor apocalypse or a wedding announcement.
Buffy hoped that Willow managed to pick up her teasing tone from her mental voice. The last time Willow had contacted her telepathically had indeed been to tell Buffy that she and Kennedy were going to tie the knot. Buffy hoped it would be equally good news now but braced herself for the other kind.

Sorry, no flowers and hearts this time. Giles has bad news. You remember him going on and on about how he thought there was a mole somewhere in the Slayer's Council?

Buffy vaguely recalled Giles going on a rant about it months ago but even he had admitted then that it was probably a fluke when she had asked for evidence to pursue and he had to hedge and tell her that it was just a feeling.
Damn! Teaches me to pay attention to Watcherguy. Again.
It wasn't the first time Buffy or any number of members from the SC found themselves on the wrong side of one of Giles' hunches.
Spill. Who do I have to take to the cleaners? Buffy sent an image along of her cracking her knuckles.

Willow's mental voice was coloured with amusement. Actually nobody. He came clean on his own and is now working for us.

Pity. What's the sitch? This work for the whole shebang or just me?

We don't know yet. We have given a general alert to all the seers to be on the lookout but I wanted to give you a heads up. Consider me your friendly early warning system.

Buffy chuckled mentally as well as physically. That you are, Wills and more. So, what do we know?
Vikram said he had been approached by someone left over from the old Council days. Vikram's the mole, by the way. Although we know him now, so not a mole but more like a turncoat mole. And that sounds icky somehow.

Willow! You're doing it again.

Oh sorry. Anyway, Vikram was approached and accepted. Apparently these old Council types weren't happy with the way we handle things. Willow's disdain for these yesteryear guys clearly shone through her mental voice. They intend to teach us our place by laying their hands on this nifty, interdimensional thingy. Some kind of uber-powerful artifact, capable to communicate with the gods. Pfft. As if. Anyhow, Vikram got cold feet at hearing about the gods part which apparently they only let him in on after he did some stupid macho trial or hazing or something.

I get it: old Council guys calling God collect leads to neener-neener-nee-na in our direction.

Precisely.

Wankers!

Buffy! Such language! I'm impressed and totally in agreement.

Buffy blew a mental raspberry. They deserve to be called names in Britishspeak. And is there anything I should be looking for? Anything I should be asking the local preternatural community between "Hi, I'm Buffy" and "I will be your slayer for this evening"?

Our Not-mole said "Chaapa'ai". That's what the thingy is called. No visuals though.

Neat. Sounds like dog chow to me.

An unladylike snort reached Buffy's 'ears'. You and me both. Giles actually has some texts that seem to refer to it but he was unable to make anything from them. He said to let Dawn try, she and him worked on that language together this summer.

That'll go straight to her head, I just know it. Can't have the baby menace put one over me.

Granted, but you gotta admit she swore a mean streak of Sumerian at that smarmy Italian guy the last time.

Spare me. I blushed when she translated afterwards. I did not want to know that my little sister knows even half of those words, let alone whether they are anatomically possible.

Think good thoughts, Buffy. It'll pass.

Not by a long shot, I thought about locking her up and throwing away the key. But since she is the key to end all keys, that would be kinda silly.

Too true, too true. Came the wise, noncommital reply.

tbc