Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As the vampire formerly known as William the Bloody (Or should that be former vampire, given his current intangible status? Spike wasn't sure) walked through the corridors of this… whatever it was… he'd arrived in, when he wasn't keeping an eye on his new 'friends' in front of him- and he still couldn't get over how much those two reminded him of Giles and Red- he constantly found himself staring at his surroundings.

Bloody hell… Spike mused to himself, ignoring the stares he was drawing from the other people in the base as he walked. It's the sodding Initiative all over again; the US military dealing with the weird and wacky…

Then again, it wasn't exactly like that; for one thing, unlike the group who'd stuck that chip in his head all those years ago, these suckers didn't seem to want to try and lock him up for study. Admittedly, so far it seemed like they couldn't do that, given his current ghost-like status, but still, the fact remained that they seemed more concerned with helping him than locking him up.

Plus, there was the guy with the symbol on his head to take into account. For a moment after seeing him, Spike had wondered if he was dealing with the sodding Knights of Byzantium all over again, but that had been quickly dismissed when he realised that the sucker was setting off his vampire 'warning' sense; that little feeling vampires got in the back of their heads when facing something that wasn't totally human. The guy definitely wasn't a demon, but there was something about him that wasn't totally normal, and nobody here seemed to want to dissect him or anything like that.

That aside, of course, there was also the fact that none of them recognised him or Captain Cornfed's name to take into account; if these guys were some new version of the Initiative, surely they'd have some decent information about what had happened to their predecessors? He got that his role in the destruction hadn't been that major in the overall scheme of things, but he'd still played his part; that had to count for something, right?

As the three of them stepped into the lift- Spike only now registered that the other three hadn't joined them; maybe they'd figured these two were the best candidates to explain what he was doing here in the first place- he took his chance and turned to look inquiringly at the two scientists.

"So…" he said, trying to sound casual as he spoke, "what do you two do here anyway? Come to that, where is here?"

Sam- the woman who still reminded Spike uncannily of Willow in the old pre-magic days, when she'd been the group techie rather than the group witch- opened her mouth as though to reply, but Daniel- or Giles Mark Two, as Spike was already thinking of him as- looked at her sharply and she stopped, as though swiftly recognising the expression on his face.

"No, Daniel," she said, looking critically at her friend. "I get that these aren't exactly… conventional circumstances… but we are not telling everything to somebody who can't even sign a non-disclosure policy in his current state."

"I'm not suggesting we tell him everything, Sam; just enough to explain what we're doing here and why we think we can help him," Daniel replied, looking over at Spike as he spoke. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you'd appreciate actually knowing why we think we can help you with this problem rather than having to take our word on blind faith alone, right?"

"Well…" Spike muttered thoughtfully, looking in a slightly teasing manner between his two new 'friends'- if you could call them that after such a short time- as though he was about to ask for more, before he finally shrugged. "Yeah, it would be something to know what the hell you guys do here; I've had a few bad experiences with military groups in the past."

"Would that be connected to the fact that 'R Finn' was in the employ of the DRI?" Sam asked, looking inquiringly at the 'ghost' as she pressed the lift button that would take them to the level where General Landry's office was located. "How did you know them?"

"Long story going nowhere; we just had a few minor disagreements shortly before they shut down," Spike explained, shrugging dismissively before looking back at Daniel. "So, getting back to business, what do you do here anyway?"

Exchanging briefly exasperated glances with Sam- getting Spike to actually talk to them about whatever had happened was starting to look like it would be a job and a half to say the least- Daniel sighed as he turned back to face the 'ghost'.

"Well, as Sam said, there's a lot of stuff I can't tell you yet," he said, in a slightly apologetic manner. "For now, all I can safely tell you is that, some years ago, we discovered something that has the potential to be of great benefit to Earth, but it simultaneously put us in a very dangerous situation, to say the least. Our work here consists both of learning more about… well, what we discovered- I can't tell you what that is at the moment, either, so don't ask me- and developing ways of dealing with that… situation we caused. Sam and I head up the science and archaeology departments of… well, this organisation… ourselves."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly, clearly noting the significant lack of any specific information in what Daniel had just told him, before rolling his eyes and staring fixedly at the archaeologist. "So, in other words, you guys repeated the same mistakes as the sodding Initiative; stumbled onto something you've got no sodding clue how to stop."

Daniel blinked in surprise at the suddenly harsh expression on Spike's face; for a moment, he felt as though Spike actually knew what they were dealing with, and felt as though he could handle it better than the SGC ever could…

Then the moment passed, and they silently continued upwards in the lift towards General Landry's office for a moment, until Spike spoke again.

"Any reason why the military decided to open up this particular can of worms again?" he asked, looking critically over at Sam this time. "I mean, after the mess the DRI made of things-"

"We're not remotely connected with the DRI, Spike; I thought we'd made that clear given your ignorance about the identity of 'R Finn'?" Sam said, looking back at their spectral visitor critically. "I don't know what they were involved in, but I can assure you we deal with totally different issues than were tackled by the DRI; they may have been involved with something strange, but we've barely even heard of them before now, so I doubt they've faced anything like we deal with on a regular basis."

"You sure about that?" Spike retorted, continuing to glare at Sam as they rode upwards.

"Yes, I'm sure," Sam replied, glaring at Spike. "If you knew anything about what we have to face, Spike, you'd understand why I'm convinced that we are having to learn the limits of our adversaries as we go along; if anybody knew anything useful about them, we would have been told about it already."

For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other, putting Daniel briefly in mind of the 'classic' image of a person's good and evil sides confronting each other; Sam's BDUs and Spike's leather coat couldn't have been a more vivid contrast, but there was a certain similarity between the two that he couldn't define. He'd only known Spike for a few minutes, an hour at best, but Daniel was already sure that Spike, like Sam, could be a very passionate man when it came to what he believed in.

Admittedly, what Spike believed in was still up for debate, but the point remained the same.

"So, net result is, you're sure you're dealing with something that nobody in the big pale house knew about before now?" Spike replied after a few moments of silence, looking critically at Sam.

"We're certain," Sam replied simply.

"And you're not related to the… well, what you guys call the 'DRI' in any way, shape or form?" the 'ghost' continued as the elevator doors finally opened, allowing the three of them to walk out of the elevator and head towards Landry's office.

"As far as I know, we don't even have any personnel from that group in the base at the moment," Daniel said, as he walked over to the door to the General's office before turning back to look at Spike. "So, is that everything you need to know about the situation here at the moment?"

Spike studied the two of them for a moment, his chin in his hand as he nodded thoughtfully, until, finally, he sighed and shrugged.

"It'll do," he said simply.

Exchanging glances with each other once more, Sam and Daniel shrugged, decided that they'd have to be satisfied with that response, and turned around to open the door before them.

Even before the Ori threat had launched its initial assaults on the Milky Way galaxy, General Landry had known from the moment he was appointed to his latest position as commander of the SGC that it would be far from an easy assignment.

However, there were only a few definite occasions where he felt as though he'd made a definite mistake accepting this command. That occasion when their reality had started becoming the 'central hub' for what seemed like every other parallel dimension in existence would always stick out in his mind as one of the strangest days he'd ever had in his life- having multiple versions of SG-1 walking about was certainly not something that happened every day, to say the least- but he'd hoped at the time that it would be as bizarre as it would ever get.

To date, his belief hadn't yet been challenged.

However, when Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter walked into his office, followed by a man with almost white curly hair in a leather coat who literally walked through the wall by his door, he knew straight away that the time had come for him to deal with yet another complicated day in his life.

"Doctor Jackson; Colonel Carter," he said, nodding briefly at them politely before he turned to look curiously at the spectral visitor. "And you are…?"

"Spike," the man stated simply, his hands in his pockets as he stared critically at Landry, as though simultaneously daring the man to make something of his name and wondering exactly what Landry had done in his life to merit this kind of position.

Admittedly, Landry sometimes wondered that himself- there were days when he felt as though he must have ticked somebody off big-time to merit getting this kind of job- but he was hardly going to let this man know that…

"I presume there's an explanation for him walking through my wall?" he asked his two chief scientists, indicating the leather-clad man standing with one leg going through a chair opposite his desk.

"Well… that's what we're trying to figure out, sir," Colonel Carter explained, looking apologetically at him.

"You see," Doctor Jackson said, taking up the story from his colleague, "I was going through my mail, when I discovered a package containing an amulet of some kind, accompanied by a letter that said that the amulet would be 'helpful in our current crisis', without providing any further information. I opened it, there was a… well, 'tornado' is the only term I can think of… and Spike here appeared out of it."

"'Appeared'?" Landry repeated, looking in confusion as the man standing before his desk. In all the records he'd studied of the SGC's past missions, he'd never yet read anything about an intangible species who dressed like they were members of a gang of bikers, so either this man's planet had developed in a very unusual manner, or…

Well, Landry wasn't sure what the 'or' was right now, but he was sure there had to be one; even after all he'd seen in his life, he doubted that the man facing him was born like this.

"Where are you from, anyway?" he asked the man, turning to look critically at his spectral guest.

"England," the man replied. Jackson opened his mouth as though to make some kind of objection, but Spike continued before Jackson could say anything. "I've been away for a good few decades- haven't really had a need to go back there for the last few years- but you wanted to know where I'm from; that's the answer."

"Ah," Jackson said simply. He paused for a moment, as though waiting for Spike to elaborate further, but when the man refused to elaborate any further on his origins, the linguist sighed slightly and turned back to look at Landry and Carter, giving them a slightly apologetic shrug.

"Anyway," Carter said, taking up the story for her friend, "Spike- that's his name- says that he knows the person who sent the amulet to Daniel in the first place; his name's Riley Finn, and, according to his letter to me, he was in the employ of a group called the DRI until it shut down a few years ago."

"The DRI?" Landry said, looking inquiringly at Carter and Jackson. He vaguely recalled reading something about that group in some files, but it had been a while ago and he'd found what he could remember about their apparent 'objectives' so ridiculous he'd rejected it as some paranoid idiots trying to get funding for a pointless project that wouldn't do anything useful.

Quite frankly, when he'd heard that the organisation had been shut down three years ago, the only thing that had actually surprised Landry about it was that the organization had actually lasted for as long as it seemed to have been going on for according to the information on record; something that ludicrous, he would have expected it to be shut down years ago after somebody actually sat down and realised what a stupid organisation it was…

Admittedly, he did recall hearing some reference that the DRI may have been connected to the creation of the organisation now known as 'the Trust', but that had been only a rumour at best, so he'd pretty much ignored it at the time; as far as he was concerned, the Trust and the DRI were totally unrelated projects, and only the fact that a few personnel had been employed by both groups connected them in the slightest.

Still, if a former member of that organisation had sent something that could turn a fully-grown man totally intangible to a member of SG-1, with the aforementioned intangible man actually in the amulet- based on Doctor Jackson's story, it sounded as though the man had been 'inside' the amulet before he appeared here- it was clear to Landry there was clearly more to the organisation than he might have initially suspected.

"So… you think that this 'Captain Finn' might be able to tell you something about… Spike's condition?" Landry asked, indicating the spectral figure who was presently waving his arm through the shelves on Landry's wall.

"Well, he did say I could contact him if we wanted any further information about the amulet," Daniel continued, exchanging brief glances with Sam before he turned back to look at Landry. "Sam and I are pretty sure we might be able to figure out some way of getting Spike back to normal, but it could help if we can contact Captain Finn and ask him for further information about what we're trying to undo in the first place; if he knows anything about the amulet, it could help us figure out a way to reverse the process."

A part of Landry was tempted to ask why they wanted to help him- after all, Spike's attitude towards him and them so far was far from commendable, as far as Landry could see- but the rest of him knew why Doctor Jackson in particular would want to help Spike.

It was just the way he was.

In the past, Doctor Jackson had been prepared to die- and, indeed, practically had died- to save a planet and people that he'd only just met, for no reason other than that it was the right thing to do.

In many ways, Landry should be grateful that he wouldn't be forced to deal with a repeat of that this time around; he somehow doubted that figuring out what had happened to this man would necessitate anybody dying.

Besides, he had to admit, he was as curious as anybody to learn why somebody from the DRI thought that an amulet would provide them with assistance in the current war against the Ori…

"All right," he said finally, looking ruefully over at the leather-clad 'ghost' standing in his office for a moment before turning back to look at the heads of his science and archaeology departments. "I'll get the contact details together as soon as I can."

"Don't know whether to be pleased or disappointed," the 'ghost' muttered as he looked back at Landry, a sullen expression on his face as he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to stand beside Daniel. "Just don't ask me to talk with him much when he gets here, OK? We never really got on when we meant to be on the same sodding side; I don't think that'll change just because I'm… well, deader."

"Uh… right," Daniel said. An apologetic glance at Landry told the general all he needed to know; Doctor Jackson had just as little idea what 'Spike' had meant by that 'Deader' comment than he did, and no idea how to broach the subject at the moment.

As Landry turned to his computer to pull up the contact details that Doctor Jackson had requested, he wondered how long it would take before they knew the answer to the remaining questions their visitor's presence presented them with.

GOD… Riley sighed to himself as he sank down into his chair, grateful that he could at last take some time off from work. He may have enjoyed the demon-fighting aspects of his profession on most occasions- particularly after all that time spent with Buffy and her gang meant that he got a better idea of what he'd end up dealing with- but there were times when the long-term missions could get very frustrating.

Ever since their first son- a boy, who Sam had insisted they name 'Liam' for reasons Riley had never been able to discover- had been born, Sam had typically remained at home when Riley was on missions, giving him another reason to hate these kind of missions; at least in the old days he'd been able to spend time with his wife while in action.

He was just grateful that the last one- a search to eliminate a nest of some rather disgusting slime-based demons in the Amazon- had been over with relatively quickly. As far as he was concerned, from this point onwards, for the next couple of weeks, he was just going to stay at home with his family and catch up on spending some time with his son…

His pleasant internal monologue and plans for the future were interrupted by a ringing telephone. Sighing, he sat up in his chair- he never liked taking calls in his office while slouching; it made him feel unprofessional- and picked up the receiver.

"Captain Riley Finn," he said casually.

"Uh… hi," a voice said on the other end. "This is Doctor Daniel Jackson; I believe that you recently sent me a certain package?"

Riley's eyes widened in surprise.

Doctor Daniel Jackson- the man who'd single-handedly cracked the mystery of the Stargate, not to mention the man who'd helped to save the world so often that he personally thought even Buffy's team would have been impressed- was calling him?

Then he remembered the amulet and shook his head for his instinctive 'hero worship'; he may have been impressed by what the various members of SG-1 had accomplished, but they were still only human, no matter what they had done with their lives (Except for that Jaffa member- Teal'c, Riley believed the man's name had been).

It was only natural that somebody should want to ask him about the amulet once it arrived- he hadn't left a note explaining anything about what the amulet could do in case somebody intercepted the package and tried to use it for other means- so, in that regard, the call was only to be expected.

"Y-yeah, that's right," he said, kicking himself mentally when he realised he'd spent a few seconds in stunned silence when Doctor Jackson was still talking to him on the other end of the line. "Is there something you wanted to ask me about the… contents of the package?"

"You could say that," Doctor Jackson said at the other end of the line, a slightly exasperated tone in his voice as he continued to speak. "The package you sent? I acknowledge that you probably have your reasons for sending it to us which I'll be happy to discuss in a moment or two, but it turned to have a… well, an 'extra', for lack of a better term… that I don't think you knew about."

"In what way?" Riley asked, confusion quickly taking the place of his original, almost instinctive surprise at being contacted by Doctor Jackson.

"Hold on a minute; I'll put you on speakerphone," Doctor Jackson said. Riley heard a faint click, and then Doctor Jackson's voice spoke again. "OK, you're up."

"Thank God…" a voice said, barely audible at first, before Riley heard it as clearly as though the speaker was standing right beside him. "That you, Captain Cornfed?"

Riley's eyes widened in shock.

"SPIKE?" he said incredulously, pulling the phone away from his ear as though it had just become a poisonous snake.

He couldn't believe it; Spike was not only still alive, he was at the Stargate facility?

Riley wasn't sure whether he should be terrified at what Spike could do, or grateful that the peroxide vampire hadn't given up his 'life' to defeat the First and the Turok-han army in the destruction of the Hellmouth. He may not have liked the… thing… he once referred to as Hostile Seventeen, but, after the vampire had given his life to save the world…

Well, Riley wouldn't have been human if he hadn't at least felt slightly sorry about it. For all his faults, in the end, when push came to shove-

"Hello?" Doctor Jackson's voice said on the other end of the line, breaking his train of thought; in the initial shock of hearing Spike's voice, Riley had forgotten that he was still talking to the archaeologist. "Captain Finn? Are you still there?"

"Y… yeah…" Riley said, shaking himself back to the matter at hand. "Sorry; it was… well, a bit of a shock hearing… Spike again, I guess."

"So, you do know him?" Doctor Jackson asked.

"Haven't I already told you enough-" Spike began.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting a second view on the situation, Spike," Doctor Jackson said, before he directed his attention back to the conversation with Riley. "Are you still there? Sorry about the interruption-"

"It's… it's fine, Doctor Jackson; I know how Spike can get at times," Riley replied, trying to regain his composure- not an easy thing to do, after talking to somebody who he'd been certain was dead, but he was trying his best. "I knew him a couple of years ago, but it's been a while since we've worked together; it's just, the last I heard of him, he…"

Riley shook his head; he couldn't talk about the details of the destruction of the Hellmouth over the phone to someone who hadn't heard of demons until now, after all. He had to stick to the facts of the matter, find out what he needed to know, and then worry about the detail of what to tell Doctor Jackson about his past involvement with Spike.

"How… how did he get there?" he asked, deciding he should stick to the important details of the matter facing him at the moment.

"As I said; the amulet you sent me had some… interesting properties," Doctor Jackson explained; Riley thought he heard Spike say something about 'Bloody understatement', but he couldn't be certain. "When it came out of the package, it somehow… well, I'm not sure how, but Spike appeared out of it, totally intangible and apparently unable to interact with anything else; we're working on a theory that he might be able to touch, but that's not important right now. We're going to see what we can do about giving him his body back, but to do that, we need to know more about what caused him to be transformed into this state in the first place…"

"And you called me hoping I'd be able to provide you with something?" Riley asked, an anxious feeling already growing in his stomach. He wasn't sure exactly how something like what Doctor Jackson had described could have happened- he'd certainly never expected Spike to be in the amulet (For lack of a better description) when he sent it to the SGC- but, if it was there, and it had done something like this to the person using it…

He supposed they deserved to know more about why he'd sent them that amulet in the first place; if nothing else, if they were going to try and use that amulet against the Ori, they needed to know how to prevent something like that happening to the next person to use it against them.

And, indeed, they'd probably need to know how he knew what it was capable of in the first place; SG-1 were not the type to take somebody's word on blind faith alone.

"Well… I think I can help you there," he said, after a moment's pause. "It's… not exactly something I want to discuss over the phone, but if you give me a day or two, I can be down in Colorado to talk about it…"

"That sounds fine; face-to-face is always better in these situations," Doctor Jackson said at the other end of the line, a relieved tone in his voice; he was evidently eager for answers to some of the questions Spike must have given them. "Let us know when you'll be here; I'll arrange a meeting-place as soon as we know when you'll be here."

As he hung up the line after giving his consent, Riley just hoped he managed to answer the questions that would be bound to be awaiting him when he got there.

He didn't like recalling the attitude of some of the Initiative members back in the old days when he was alone; talking to the legends that were SG-1 about how he'd been a willing part of a group who just regarded anything that wasn't totally human as an automatic threat, whether or not it had actually been seen doing anything wrong in the first place?

In the files he'd read about the SGC, he'd found several uncomfortable reminders of his attitude back then in what he'd read about the NID or the 'Trust'; after all, they'd been prepared to wipe out whole planets of Jaffa just to try and stop the Goa'uld, believing that it didn't matter that they'd kill hundred of innocent Jaffa in the process just because the Jaffa weren't human.

OK, the Initiative hadn't done anything on the scale of what the Trust had done, but the point was still the same.

He just hoped he'd manage to explain that he wasn't like that anymore before they walked out on him in disgust at his past actions.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up, put away the paperwork he'd been thinking of looking at- he doubted he'd be able to focus on it with what he'd just learned occupying his thoughts- and headed for the door of his office.

No matter how afraid he was of how the meeting would go, he had to prepare for it, and that, among other things, necessitated him asking his superior for the time off that the meeting would require him to be away for.