All This And Madness Too

Buffy had known going in that at some point she was bound to run into Jack.
After leaving the leftover party in a headlong, panicked rush, she had driven in stony silence for the whole forty minutes it took to her apartment. For the first few minutes Dawn had tried to talk, reassuring her, that all would sort itself out, it wasn't that bad and so on but had eventually fallen silent when Buffy didn't answer.
Buffy couldn't even explain herself to her sister. It would sound so utterly selfish and trite. She had just wanted her life to be normal for once.
Selfpity wasn't pretty and it lead nowhere.

At her apartment she had just stormed right through to the bathroom, spending another twenty minutes crying under the shower, desperate to stifle her sobs. She had come out and explained to Dawn in false, dead calm that they had to leave Colorado Springs.
Dawn had argued at first but Buffy had been adamant. They would leave now, stay out of sight for the time it took Dawn to complete the translation of Giles' texts about the Stargate and then find the old Watchers. They were going to stop whatever the creeps were planning with the Stargate before they came even near and then leave Colorado for good.
All of Dawn's 'buts' and especially the 'but Jacks' had been stopped with an icy 'It's not worth the risk, Dawn. You know that.' and they had left Buffy's home of the last three months, the first home she had acknowledged to since Sunnydale, in an orderly if hasty fashion with Dawn quietly seething at Buffy's pigheadedness and Buffy desperately trying to feel nothing at all.

They had spent the following week holed up in a holiday cabin out of Manitou Springs. Buffy had been outside mostly, exercising or even meditating, just to escape Dawn's accusing stare which was beginning to feel more and more justified. She missed Jack terribly and trying to keep it all in check, for the first time wasn't as easy as it used to be.
When the sisters weren't squabbling or ignoring each other Dawn had been busy translating.

Unknownst to Buffy Dawn had contacted Willow, explained some of the situation to her and asked for her help. She figured it was time her sister deserved a break. Even if that break happened despite Buffy's insistence on screwing it up.
Willow had sent along detailed information on the Stargate program only a day later.
When Dawn finally finished her translation, she sat in front of her laptop for a while trying to fit everything together.
According to the tip from Vikram, the mole, the Chaapa'ai was an interdimensional portal, enabling one to speak to the gods. The old Watchers thought such a powerful magical artifact would give them an edge over the Slayer's council. Thanks to the texts, plus the info on the SGC secretly obtained from Willow, Dawn knew now that these gods were called Goa'uld and were definitely not someone you wanted to chat with.
Dawn also knew now that the Stargate wasn't so much an interdimensional portal but rather a simple wormhole.

Thinking over her last thoughts she unwillingly had to grin. When wormholes leading to other planets where actually the less complicated alternative, you should check your priorities.

The Watchers were obviously unaware that the Stargate wasn't actually magical as much as extraterrestrial. They also didn't know the details about those supposed gods they wanted to talk to. Dawn herself had only been able to figure that out because of the additional info gained from checking up on the SGC.

Dawn closed her laptop with a decisive gesture. She wasn't going to let Buffy run the show on her own anymore, since it was clear that that would land her in kablooie territory. Factoring in the stoic moping going on, Dawn thought it was high time for Buffy to hear some hard truths.

She cornered Buffy one evening in the bathroom and with the Slayer having her mouth full of tooth paste she let loose:"I am sick and tired of your martyr's act."
And before Buffy was able to answer she continued heatedly.
"You always just assume the worst and never give anyone or anything any chances. If they can't hold up to your exacting standards, you just assume you have to make all the decisions yourself. All the while beating your breast about it."
Buffy was preparing to deny it all, Dawn could see it in the set of her mouth and she felt an irrational urge to hurt her stubborn sister, to make her see: "You know what? You remind me of Angel that way!"

Buffy's eyes had flashed with hurt and anger and she had lashed out. "It's not as if I ever asked for any of this. But guess what, Dawn, it's what I have to do. And if I don't do it, people will die!"
"But you don't have to do it alone! That's what friends are all about. We trust you, so let yourself trust us."
And seeing that Buffy had her rote reply ready, that of course she was trusting her friends, Dawn rolled her eyes impatiently. "If you do, then let me tell you first thing that Willow and I checked up on Daniel and Jack and the SGC."
That shook Buffy up, Dawn could see it in her face which showed a mixture of hurt, anger and betrayal. But Dawn forged on and said urgently: "They're the good guys. Yes they are are military and yes Daniel hid the fact that he knew about the Slayer. But shouldn't the fact that he has known and yet still left you and Jack in peace mean anything?"
Dawn could see that her logic was getting through to Buffy. Well, Buffy hadn't stormed out yet at least. "Actually he probably has other things to worry about. The Stargate is actually a transportation device. They... Jack sends teams to other planets for knowledge and allies against the Goa'uld, nasty trying-to-rule-the-galaxy kind of bad guys. And those guys are plenty bad news, right on par with some of our baddies. Jack and his people are fighting a war out there. Just as we do here in a way."
Buffy looked poleaxed and Dawn wasn't entirely sure which way it would all go. Buffy could still decide to ignore everything Dawn said and stick to running. Dawn felt as if hours passed as she searched her sister's face for her decision.

"So he really is looking for aliens?" Buffy's voice sounded unusually soft.
Dawn grinned so hard she felt like her face should split.
"Seems like it. Wanna hear more?"
At Buffy's encouraging nod Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed her older sister wasn't too old to learn some new tricks after all.

Dawn had gone on and on in detail but everything had sort of blurred for Buffy, her thoughts loudly chasing each other inside her head.
With sudden, crystal clarity it hit her hard: she had almost let what Jack and she had, slip through her fingers. All the happiness she had felt being with him, all the potential that for the first time since Sunnydale hadn't seemed for everyone else but for her too, all nearly gone because of her knee-jerk reaction.
A reaction that hadn't done anything for her in the past but that she had seemed unable to change.
She had avoided getting involved in building the Slayer's Council, had avoided responsibility for Dawn and hadn't let anyone get close, because she had been afraid to fail them, like she had failed Spike and Angel and Amanda and Anya and Jesse and too many others.
It had been so easy to detach herself. It was safe.
She was the Slayer, better not let people come too close because she might fail to protect them one day. All the nameless strangers she had saved from things that went bump in the night and she had been afraid that at some point when it really mattered it would be someone she knew, again. And when something threatening happened, her response had been the same as it had been for so long.
Make my decision alone and go with it. Because I never let myself learn otherwise.
Never mind that Sunnydale was years in the past. In truth she had never really left it and the mindset it entailed, behind.
As all this had flashed through her like a bolt of lighting, it threw her own nearly monumental mistake into sharp relief. She had looked at Dawn, not knowing what to do, but for the first time admitting that that was ok sometimes.

Just as the sisters were about to make serious plans, everything went the way of the dinosaurs when Willow alerted them to a major magical disturbance about to happen right where it was supposed to, just two days early.

Buffy and Dawn had broken every speed limit on the way from Manitou Springs to Cheyenne Mountain.
"Should we ... umh, call ahead or something?" Dawn hesitatingly put forward about fives miles out.
Buffy tried to imagine the ensuing phone conversation and unexpectedly had to grin at the thought.
"Saying what exactly?"
"Umh,... good point. I don't think we can get Riley to vouch for us on that short a notice." Now Dawn grinned a bit herself.
"Oh, I can totally see him trying to explain to Jack that he should believe us. Riley, who probably has the same kind of lame cover story Jack has. They'd be talking in circles around each other for days."
"So what's the plan then?"
Buffy just looked at Dawn.
"Alright then. Seat of the pants tactics. Works for me."

Buffy and Dawn had entered the base grounds relatively easy and proceeded to the top of the mountain where they had found a clearing just where Willow had predicted. Unfortunately the ritual had already started and Willow had impressed on them that once it had started, the only way to stop it properly was to wait for a very specific moment otherwise the Stargate might get lost in between dimensions. Or something.
Someone should have told these wannabe Watchers that holding a meeting of cultists anonymous over the heads of a top secret military base would be a bad thing. Very bad from the looks of it. Trust these guys to be both arrogant and incredibly stupid.
Buffy and Dawn were currently perched in the branches of a tree at the edge of the clearing and what they were seeing made Buffy's stomach ache.
Buffy eyed the advancing line of heavily armed soldiers with their probably minimalistic amount of humour or patience critically from her perch in the branches of her tree. Dawn sat next to her, both waiting for the right time to interupt the ritual taking place right in front of them.
Couldn't it for once have been a godly hour, like twelve noon in a parking lot or something?
Buffy could now see that proceeding with no plan whatsoever had been rash to put it in kiddie friendly terms. Their plan should have involved Giles and the Slayer's Council approaching their contacts in the US government with an urgent warning and the heads up on Buffy and Dawn. That would have left time to call Jack and explain everything with irrefutable evidence supporting her story.
Since the old Watchers were apparently still working on Greenwich Mean Time, that had been blown out of the water, leaving Buffy and Dawn on the grounds of a top secret military facility, playing hide and seek with said military in an effort to save them from themselves. Also, Boyfriend Trouble in capital letters.

Buffy shifted her weight from her left to her right butt cheek in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain from the twigs that kept poking her and wasn't closer to finding a way out of this mess.
How am I supposed to get this done with soldiers getting underfoot?

"Look, there he is." Dawn whispered, elbowing her cautiously.
Buffy's heart was suddenly in her throat, as her eyes flew to where Dawn was pointing and her stomach bottomed out at about sea level.
Jack!
And embarrassingly enough the only thought running around in her brain was an utterly girly wow, yummy! as she spotted Jack's lean form creeping through the underbrush, finally halting at the edge of the treeline with a clear view of the Watchers magic circle.
What am I going to do? Should I simply stroll up? 'Hi, fancy meeting you here.'
Right, why not ask for being shot straight up. How about calling out to him? Same diff, better not.

She was brutally wrenched from her thoughts when two of Jack's soldiers ungracefully made like ragdolls when trying to touch the magical barrier and suddenly it was the Third World War down there.
As if that is going to do any good. Darn! Less with the looking more with the acting, before the unflappable British guys decide to be flapped and throw a magical whammy at my boyfriend.

She squashed any further thoughts and let the Slayer push to the foreground. Seat of the pants tactics she excelled at.
Calculating the angle and distance, she dropped to the ground and took off in a dead run towards the clearing.

When Buffy had tried to imagine the exact circumstances of meeting Jack again, it certainly never involved a gun fight and showing off her inner Slayer with aerial acrobatics in the pursuit of stupid council holdovers. But now it did.

She used a boulder at the edge of the clearing to launch herself into a flawlessly executed salto, Giles would be so proud!, taking her clear over the top of the magical shield, into the midst of the Watchers little piece of pandemonium.
Landing on her feet, a second later already saw one of the ten Watchers falling unconscious beneath her spinning kick.
The rest were gathered in a circle off to her side. Their requisite black robes with the hoods pulled up were lazily moving in an unnatural, stifling breeze which was wholly inappropiate for the time of year.
Buffy's entrance didn't seem to register. Buffy could see one or two Watchers swaying with the effort of working this complex bit of mojo, sweat running down their faces. Willow had explained that teleporting a large, heavy object like the Stargate would take all their concentration.

Then Buffy got her first glimpse of the Gate. For the space of two, three seconds the magic circle was crowded by the huge ring, which appeared in a bright flash, hung there and disappeared again.
Buffy imagined one had to see it in action to be suitably impressed.

Suddenly her Slayer sense was going haywire, shrilling warnings along her nerve endings. She ducked lighting fast and turned around, ready for anything.
One of the black robes was apparently quite the multitasker since he had crept up on her, despite supposedly being busy mojoing. She was just able to evade a ridiculously large, wicked looking dagger aimed at her kidneys. She used her momentum to block his advance and parry with a quick series of punches, aimed at incapacitating him. But after catching only a glancing blow Black Robes managed to divert her in a surprising show of competence, answering with a flurry of moves of his own. His flowing robes made it hard for Buffy to see if her opponent was telegraphing his moves and he kept her busy with a lighting fast series of kicks and jabs. He drove her back and she nearly collided with the magic shield, which was something she most definitely wanted to avoid, according to Willow and probably the two unconscious soldiers just outside. Ungracefully she squirmed away from both shield and the knife wielding robe guy. In those few seconds it took her to put some distance between them, she heard a snapping noise, behind her back. Twisting around she managed to think Uh-oh, not good at the sight of a gun-like thing spitting blue lighting at her and then there was only darkness.

Dawn was perched in her branch and worried.
Despite Buffy being inside the magical shield, supposedly kicking ass, the chanting hadn't stopped, hadn't even wavered much.
Her sister was supposed to have it relatively easy. The Watchers should have been occupied with the ritual and she should have been able to just pick them off one by one.

Dawn was squinting, trying to make sense of the movements of the indistinct black blobs and single whitish blob which was Buffy, behind the shimmering veil of the shield. Suddenly there was a brief flash of blue lighting which didn't look like it belonged to the intermittent appearance of the Chaapa'ai. And the lone whitish blob went down and stayed down.

It didn't even take half a second for Dawn to get moving. She hurriedly shimmied down the tree and took off running towards the shield, already pulling out her pocket knife. "Jack! Get ready to move."
Dawn hoped against hope that her plan would work, that Jack would play along instead of shooting her and that Buffy was alright.
Man, what a royal, utterly uncoordinated 'Misthaufen' this turned out to be.

Jack clutched his P-90 reflexively and tried to make out what was happening behind that damn blue wall. Marines Jenkins and Houseman had been dragged to safety, making sure they were just unconscious.
Frustration was roiling in Jack's gut. He hated not knowing what was happening, he hated not being able to do anything.
And let's think about the fact that my girlfriend seems to be Wonder Woman for a mo' here. She lept a height and distance that is humanly impossible!

Jack rounded on the one person in his reach who seemed to know something he didn't: "Daniel, get talking. Or I swear I'll kick your ass so hard..." Jack let the statement be its own advertisement.
Daniel was visibly searching for the right words and Jack could barely keep a reign on his impatience.
"Buffy is what is called the Slayer. A mythical female warrior, appearing throughout history, chosen to kill vampires. Although obviously not so mythical, seeing as she is quite real, as we saw."
Jack stared at Daniel, for the moment slackjawed with indecision whether he should ask about the vampires first or call for McKenzie right away.
"Are you just very cracked? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Knowing Daniel for nine years enabled Jack to see that Daniel was clearly frustrated with his inability to make Jack understand, but Jack wasn't settling for anything less than total disclosure.
"Vampires are real. Buffy is the last in a long line of female warriors called during their teens to fight them. She has the powers and abilities to do just that. She is fighting for all of us, they all have, it's the way they were meant to be." Aware that those last lines sounded incredibly cheesy, Daniel grabbed Jack's arm tightly, trying to express his sincerity and urgency. "Listen to me, Jack. It isn't any more cracked than us walking through a giant ring of naquadah to visit alien planets, if you think about it."
That gave Jack pause when he had already been moving to turn away from Daniel disbelievingly. Daniel's explanation hadn't actually explained anything much but that was the norm for these kind of talks with Daniel. But all of it coupled with Buffy's surprise entrance as Wonder Woman sort of got the point across. Some kind of point at least.
In the end it came down to this: Jack was willing to give this, whatever this was a shot, because he trusted Daniel. And he so much wanted to trust Buffy and his instincts about her as well.

Suddenly there was more rustling. Jack automatically aimed his P-90 at the sound. Seeing what or rather who it was, he bellowed to his soldiers: "Hold your fire!"
And then Dawn herself hollered: "Jack! Get ready to move!"

She ran straight for the blue shield sliding to a stop inches before it and then without hesitation, sliced her palm open with a pocket knife and inexplicably slapped her flat palm against the barrier.
Jack, reacting on instinct, wasn't even aware he had moved when he found himself already halfway across the distance to the shield, ready to do, he didn't know what but at the very least collect Dawn's unconscious body once the shield had thrown the whammy on her, when incredibly the blue wall parted beneath Dawn's palm, splitting like cloth along a seam.
Not thinking, just acting, Jack threw himself into the breach underneath Dawn's hand. A familiar shrilling sound and an ozone heavy stench made him roll away from the opening fast. He could just see Dawn crumbling after being hit by a zat blast from within the circle.
As soon as her hand didn't touch the blue shield anymore, the breach vanished as if it had never been there and Jack had been the only one through the gap.

He came to his feet snarling, already aiming his P-90 in the direction of the blast, squeezing off a short hail of bullets. Having dealt with the zat wielding guy terminally, Jack's eyes snapped to the right of the circle.
Buffy was lying on her back, the bronze light of a Goa'uld ribbon device playing across her face. A black robed Goa'uld was half kneeling over her, totally absorbed in causing delicious pain, judging by his sick smile. He hadn't even noticed Jack yet.
Suddenly bright light flooded the center of the circle and the Stargate appeared. And stayed, hanging about a foot above ground, seven black robed wackos surrounding it, chanting loudly.

Jack took aim and fired, catching the Goa'uld in the middle of the chest. The snakehead collapsed backwards, releasing Buffy from the ribbon device.
For the first time the up and down of voices hesitated and finally faltered apparently in shocked silence, since all the oh so tacky cowls of the black robes were turned towards their fallen leader.
Jack could see why. Snakehead was convulsing on the ground, curling around himself, gagging. This looked especially gruesome since his chest was riddled with bullet holes and he couldn't possibly still be alive under normal circumstances. Then his mouth opened impossibly wide and the actual snake made its disgusting appearance, oozing out of its dead host's mouth, leaving a slimy trail of blood and saliva behind.
Scrambling forward Jack lunged at the weakened parasite and with his combat knife quickly cut it in half.

"My hero." Came the slightly tremulous but oh so welcome quip from behind him.
Jack spun around and his eyes wandered up and down Buffy's body, checking for obvious damage.
"I feel like I should charge a fee for this kind of checking out."
Jack's eyes finally snapped up to meet Buffy's. Gradually his thoughts caught up with all the action. Up to this moment he hadn't given himself time to reflect on how he felt about the whole messed up situation. He should be angry, disappointed and suspicious. But looking into Buffy's eyes, with all the insecurity, doubts, hope and other stuff being displayed right there, he was just ridiculously glad.
A few strides brought him to her side. He reached down and Buffy took his hand pulling herself to her feet with a heartfelt groan, her eyes never leaving his.
Silence stretched uncomfortably. Buffy's expression began to waver and Jack could see that she didn't know what to make of the situation. Bummed if he knew.

Buffy finally pulled back her shoulders and said with a fake smile: "Ok, here we go." She held out her hand to him. "Hi, I'm Buffy Summers, the Slayer, a girl warrior with special powers fighting the things that go bump in the night. And I am afraid that now that you have seen who I am, you'll revert to type and sic the mad military scientists on me." She set her jaw defiantly and locked her eyes with Jack. "It has happened before, you know."
A couple of seconds stretched to infinity it seemed, Buffy's hand still reaching out.
"So," Jack drew out the word but took her hand finally, "not a gym attendant then."
"Only sometimes, the hours of my secret double life suck." Buffy's eyes started sparkling when she said it.
Jack still managed to keep a near perfect poker face but let a tiny spark of amusement shine through. "Don't they just."
Buffy broke into a happy smile, which send a stab of ... something through Jack and he found himself grinning goofily back for a moment before he became dead serious again: "You didn't know."
The not quite question was delivered coldly, with nearly no emphasis and his eyes bore into hers with even more intensity.
Buffy knew instantly that he was referring to whether she had only gotten involved to play him and even though he hadn't actually asked she answered regardless: "No! Did you?"
He shook his head slowly, never breaking their eye contact.
For a moment time crawled to a stop as both took the measure of the other, gauging the limits of trust extended and accepted.
"Cool." And since they were still clasping hands, he hauled her close and hugged her hard. "I'm so glad you're back." He growled into her hair.
Buffy shivered as she felt his warm breath caressing her ear and burrowed deeper into his embrace.

Then the Stargate finally succumbed to the laws of gravity and fell down around them with a deafening boom.

tbc