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
After a couple of hours of simply hanging around the SGC base, making various futile attempts to pick up objects as he explored the various offices, Spike was finally directed to a deserted office, where he found himself facing a man in a business suit
"Ah, you would be this 'Spike' I've heard so much about?" the man said, standing up and briefly moving as though he was going to shake the vampire's hand before he stopped himself, clearly realising the stupidity of what he was doing, offering to shake the hand of a man who technically didn't have a body any more. "I'm Doctor Hutchinson; I'll be carrying out your evaluation."
"Right," Spike said, nodding briefly as he stared at the man in question. "So… what do you want to ask me?"
"First things first; how do you feel?" Hutchinson asked, looking inquiringly at the man before him, only to be met with a cold stare.
"I'm in a state that's as close to being a sodding ghost as makes no odds, I can't figure out how to touch anything and I've ended up stuck in the middle of an intergalactic war after taking out the First bloody Evil itself in what I thought would be my noble death; how the sodding hell do you think I feel?" Spike retorted coldly; if this man was going to evaluate him, he'd get everything he asked for and more as far as Spike was concerned.
"So, that would be frustrated, I take it?" Hutchinson replied, smiling slightly at Spike in a reassuring manner as he reached into a briefcase and took out several seemingly blank pieces of paper. "Right then, that seems straightforward enough… now then, since filling in the written evaluation isn't really practical, given what I've heard about your current condition, we decided we'd just go straight to the next part of the evaluation, so I'd appreciate it if you looked at these ink blots for me."
"Ink blots?" Spike sighed, as he studied the piece of paper before him, raising his eyebrows critically. "I always hated those things…"
"Well then, that should give you all the more incentive for you to get this over and done with," Hutchinson smiled at Spike as he presented the first ink blot. "Now then, what do you see?"
"The Hellmouth," Spike said bluntly.
"The what?" Hutchinson asked in confusion.
"Portal to Hell that was under the place I lived for the last four years," Spike explained casually, nearly leaning back against the wall before he stopped himself. "I shut it shortly before I bit the bullet, but it always played a big role in my life before the whole thing went… thud, I suppose, is the best term; definitely wasn't boom."
"I… see," Hutchinson said, shaking his head slightly before he turned his attention back to the ink blots before him, putting that one to the side and pulling out another one. "This?"
"Big sword; looks like someone's raising it."
"This?"
"It's either a crossbow or a shotgun; side view makes it hard to be sure."
"This?"
"A football?" The vampire raised his eyebrows in surprise as he looked at the blot in front of him before turning to stare at Hutchinson. "Bit of a drastic shift, wouldn't you say?"
"Spike…" Hutchinson sighed, as he stared critically at the vampire. "The whole point of these things is that you see what you want, not a picture that's already there; I thought you knew that."
"Yeah, I knew it; doesn't mean I don't still think it's bloody stupid," Spike groaned, as he slumped back against the chair- once again rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the fact that he could sit in a chair but couldn't pick up even a cup- before turning back to look critically at Hutchinson. "Well, as long as I'm here, might as well see it though; give me the next one."
"Uh… right," Hutchinson said, as he pulled out his next card and held it up.
"Steam engine," Spike stated briefly, rolling his eyes once more as he wished wholeheartedly he could slump against the wall. He knew that sluming down in the chair was an option, but if this guy wanted to get inside Spike's head, Spike'd give him everything he might need to know about the former William the Bloody, and the would-be artist once known as William the Bloody did not sit down for some git in a suit unless he had to.
The whole 'fighting aliens on other planets' thing sounded interesting, of course- if nothing else, it would definitely get him out of Angel's shadow; how many times had that git visited other worlds in his lifetime?- but if it meant Spike had to become something he wasn't… forget it. The chip may have forced him to change when it was first stuck in his brain, but at least then he'd had to change if he was going to survive; right now, he had no real reason to act as anything other than what he was, so he was just going to give these guys what they wanted- pure Spike- and leave everything else up to whoever it was up to.
An hour or so later, having studied more black splodges than he cared to remember- how could you get that kind of picture out of something that looked like a fountain pen had broken while somebody was writing?- Spike was slumped down in the chair in Daniel's office, listlessly staring at the ceiling as he waited for the next 'round' in his evaluation and tried to keep himself occupied.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't have been easy even if he'd been corporeal; the only books in Daniel's office seemed to be nothing more than books on ancient history and archaeology, something that Spike had never really managed to get interested in, and he wouldn't have wanted to risk the guy coming in to let him know the next part of the test was ready only to find him asleep in a chair.
Whereas now Spike mused to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling, kicking his leg through Daniel's table as he nearly tried to swing the chair around, all I have to worry about is falling asleep and falling through the floor… assuming I even need sleep in this kind of state.
He wasn't sure what was worse, really; not being able to read books to kill time, or being able to read books when the only available options were ones that bored him stupid.
Still, on the bright side, he wouldn't have to be bored for long; the next step of his 'evaluation' would be beginning in just a few minutes, so at least he'd have something else to keep himself occuped
"Hello?" a voice said, as somebody opened the door behind him, breaking into Spike's train of thought. "May I have a moment of your time?"
Turning around, Spike rolled his eyes slightly as he saw another berk in a business suit standing in front of him, this one bald and wearing glasses that, in Spike's opinion, were just a bit too large; he looked like he was trying to be more intellectual than he was. Rolling his eyes, Spike stood up, his hands in his pockets as he looked at the man before him.
"Look, I've got an appointment soon," he began, looking critically at the man before him. "So unless you're here to tell me it's been rescheduled-"
"Oh, I know about the appointment; it's why I'm here," the man explained, as he walked into the office and shut the door. "I'll be quick, I assure you. My name is Richard Woolsey. I work for the International Oversight Advisory, a civilian-run organization made up of representatives from the various nations involved in the Stargate program."
"What, you… make sure they don't do anything stupid with the alien tech they pick up out there, stuff like that?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. This business was definitely more complicated than fighting vampires; at least then all he'd needed to worry about, even when he was evil, was staking the bastards and leaving anything that wasn't worth something financially to crumble into dust with them.
"Essentially, yes," Woolsey replied, as he casually leant against the wall to talk to Spike. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is that we have a little… proposition for you. To put it bluntly, we can see to it that you pass your current psychiatric evaluation with flying colors, effectively putting any doubts Stargate Command may have about you to rest-"
"Really?" Spike replied, his voice neutral as he looked back at Woolsey. "And in exchange for this, I'd need to… what? Kill somebody here you don't like?"
"Oh, nothing so drastic, I assure you; we'd just appreciate a little… insight into the weekly goings on here at Stargate Command," Woolsey explained, smiling slightly at the vampire as he spoke. "You see, despite the fact that all signatories to the Gate Alliance Treaty- the group of countries who are permitted to know about the Stargate and the discoveries we make in the process- are de facto partners in the Stargate program, my employers are often left… out of the loop when it comes to the more sensitive developments here on the base. We'd just like you to keep us… updated, is all."
"In other words," Spike stated, as he looked critically at Woolsey, "once I've worked out how to touch stuff and thus use phones and computers properly, you'd like to be spy on these suckers."
Woolsey chuckled slightly as he stood up and looked at the man before him,
"I've read your file from the DRI archives as soon as General Landry told us who you were, Mr. Spike," he said casually. "I'm a quick study, and what information we do receive always comes promptly; we just feel that we could get a bit… more out of the Stargate Command staff with an inside man. I don't think what we're asking is that unusual, for someone with such a colorful history-"
"Check the file again, you stupid sod; I'm not interested," Spike retorted as he folded his arms as he glared at Woolsey.
Woolsey blinked in surprise; clearly, he hadn't been expecting that.
"Excuse me?" he said simply.
"Read my sodding lips, you paper-pushing moron; I'm. Not. Interested," Spike stated grimly, walking up towards Woolsey until he was practically directly in the bald man's face. "I've done some shit in my time, but I do not hand people who trust me over to people I don't know or who I know aren't up to anything good… any more."
"Because you got a soul?" Woolsey asked, his tone of voice clearly demonstrating his lack of belief in anything spiritual like a soul or an afterlife. Spike briefly wondered how this git 'rationalised' his current status if he didn't seem to believe in the supernatural as an explanation, but decided it wasn't worth asking about; he didn't particularly care anyway.
"Not just because I got a soul; because I got somebody who believed in me when the chips were down and everybody else I knew wanted me dead," the vampire once known as William the Bloody said, as he stepped back slightly to make sure Woolsey understood the full scale of what he was saying. "After knowing what it's like to have someone actually trust me, I'm not going to just start stabbing these guys in the back- in any sense- when they've done nothing but try and help figure out what the bloody hell happened to me just because you're offering me a nice package deal."
With that said, Spike turned around and walked through the wall of the office, pausing only briefly to stick his arm and head back through the wall, subsequently giving Woolsey the finger and telling him to perform an anatomically impossible action before he pulled his head back through the wall once more.
Git, Spike mused to himself as he paced along the corridor towards the room where the second half of his evaluation would be held. Why is it every place dedicated to saving the world is always connected to at least one total, utter, complete git? The Slayer has the sodding Watchers' Council and that 'Travers' gimp, and this place has that guy and this stupid 'International Oversight Assholes'.
Honestly, like he hadn't had to deal with enough crap back in Sunnydale what with the One-Eyed Carpenter wanting him staked for what he'd done in the pre-soul days; now he had some prick who'd read about him in a file wanting him to spy on the people who were trying to help him?
OK, so they hadn't actually managing to do anything about his current 'condition' right now; that didn't mean they weren't at least trying to find out what was going on with this whole intangibility mess rather than just leaving him high and dry.
The important thing here was that, even when he was soulless, Spike wouldn't have done something like that to people who'd helped him (Those times the Scourge had pretended to have been ambushed to get into a house of some kind or another while claiming to need somewhere to stay didn't count as being helped; they'd never been in any danger in the first place). Admittedly, back in his soulless, pre-chipped days, if people helped him his only thanks was to not brutally murder them when he was about to go, but given how he'd been back then, that was still pretty polite by his usual standards.
You've got to miss the simple days sometimes, Spike mused to himself as he arrived at the door to the room where the next part of his evaluation would take place. Sometimes, it just utterly sucks to be the 'good guy'; makes everything a hell of a lot more complicated.
He just hoped this next little experience of the SGC figuring out what made him tick was a bit easier to figure out the purpose of than the last one. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't get what showing him a bunch of ink blots and asking him what he thought they looked like could tell anybody about his mental state.
As he entered the room- once again walking through the door rather than trying to attract the attention of somebody else to open it for him-, Spike's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the strange sight before him. It seemed to be a shiny silver console, its sleek contours reminding him slightly of a spaceship he'd seen in some science fiction shows he'd watched when he was bored, and a bright blue, seemingly touch-sensitive console on the left side. A small curved metal rod stretched up from the top of the machine, positioned further to the left than to the right, with a glowing red 'eye' at the top of it, positioned in front of a chair in the middle of the room.
"What the hell?" Spike said, as he stared incredulously at the machine before him before turning to look at Hutchinson. "What the sodding hell is this thing?"
"It's a zatarc detector- essentially, a highly advanced lie detector developed by an alien race to determine whether any of their people had been brainwashed by their enemies," Hutchinson explained as he indicated that Spike should sit in the seat. "Your current condition makes conventional lie detectors impossible- indeed, from what I gather about your… unusual history… you'd be unable to use them even if you did have a body, what with you being technically dead and all-, so we decided to use this. Based on Colonel Carter's tests, you should still be capable of using this machine regardless of your physical status at present; it works based on reading your brainwaves rather than any other physical signs, and I gather that you're still capable of sitting down, so aligning your head with it shouldn't be a problem. All you need to do is keep your head still and your eyes open; do that, and we should have this part of the evaluation over in a few minutes."
"That simple, eh?" Spike sighed, as he walked back towards the chair and slumped down into it, staring straight ahead of himself at the device in front of him. "So, what else do I have to do here?"
"Just look into the eye and answer all my questions truthfully," Hutchinson replied, as he sat behind the machine. "It's programmed to respond to any difference between your conscious and subconscious memories, as well as any difference between what you say and what you think; even if your conscious memories have been altered, this thing will pick up on that and let us know of any discrepancies-"
"As well as letting you know when I'm actuallylying on purpose rather than being tricked by something?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes once more before he fixed his gaze on the device in front of him. "OK then; let's do this."
As Hutchinson walked over to the device in front of him and began to prepare the machine for his 'examination'- some parts could clearly only be worked out when he was actually here- Spike allowed his mind to wander briefly as he reflected on the differences between his time as a would be 'hero' here so far and the time he'd spent with the Sunnydale 'team of heroes'.
As far as Spike could gather, at some point or another over the last century or so, the whole 'saving the world thing' had clearly become increasingly both more difficult and more important if this kind of thing was necessary. Back when he'd first become a vampire he would have been lucky to go up against anything more seriously intimidating than a Slayer who'd lasted for a year or so; most of the non-superpowered vampire hunters were little more than amateurs with a vendetta against the bloodsuckers, and even those lucky enough to survive longer than a few weeks were rarely much of a challenge.
Back in those days, you could try to be a 'hero' with no more backing needed than your own nerve; if you started hunting vampires and that, either nobody noticed or they thought you were a bit of a whackjob.
These days, either- when facing vampires and demons, something people liked to think didn't exist- you did it because you felt obligated to help the world and got nothing back for your efforts, or- as in this instance, when you ended up tackling actual aliens, which people were more prepared to officially accept the existence of- you got paid for it but had to sit through all kinds of crap tests beforehand…
Spike honestly wasn't sure which kind of hero he preferred to be. On the one hand, kicking demon arse was what he'd done for the last few centuries, but on the other hand, this way he did get a bit more recognition than he'd ever got fighting vampires…
No, he took that back; in his current condition, he preferred the first option. At least then he'd chosen to do it while knowing that the 'pay' would be non-existence; in this new role, he had the option of being paid, but he wouldn't actually be able to get any money. After all, how could he get money out when it would just fall through his pockets any time he tried to put anything that wasn't his hands inside them?
"Right then; let's start with the obvious questions first," Hutchinson said as he looked at Spike. "I'm not entirely clear how this works, so I'll just need to establish a baseline first; your name?"
"Spike," Spike replied bluntly.
"No, your real name-" Hutchinson began.
"I've gone by that name for the last hundred or so years; I think it counts as my 'real' one by now," the vampire interjected, wishing he could tap his fingers on the seat to demonstrate his impatience; he may have decided to be honest, but he was not about to admit to having once been known as 'William' of all things. Unfortunately, whatever quirk of his condition allowed him to sit down didn't extend to include that particular means of stress relief, so he was forced to fume without tapping something.
"Fine," Hutchinson sighed, as he glanced briefly at his notes before looking back at Spike. "Since I'm not sure whether this machine would count that as a lie or not, I'll need to try something else to establish the baseline; you've spent the last few days inside the base, correct?"
"Too right you haven't let me out; I don't think anyone's even told me what sodding state I'm in any more," Spike groaned, one arm briefly flapping through the arm rest of the chair he was in before he pulled it back towards him and continued to stare ahead in frustration.
"Yes… well… moving on from that," Hutchinson said, waving his hand awkwardly before he spoke once again. "You've been walking through walls and unable to actually touch anything since you materialised in Doctor Jackson's office from out of an… amulet of some kind, correct?"
"Can't so much as lift up a sodding penny any more," Spike groaned, shaking his head critically. "You think I've been lying about that?"
"No; just needed to establish the baseline for differentiating between when you're lying and when you're telling the truth," Hutchinson said, smiling slightly at the vampire in a manner that suggested he wasn't sure how to react to the vampire's comments before he voiced his next question. "Right then, let's get started; how long, according to you, have you been fighting these… 'demons'- or whatever they are- down in Sunnydale?"
"About three or four years," Spike said nonchalantly. "Before that I was still evil; any demons I'd have tackled then would've just been tackled because I didn't like them."
"Uh… O-kaaaay…" Hutchinson said, nodding uncertainly at the vampire in front of him before he turned his attention back to the rest of the questions he could ask.
He'd hoped that his earlier assessment had been incorrect, but as it turned out, he'd been right on the money from the beginning; this 'Spike' person was proving to be almost as hard to interview as Vala Mal Doran had been…
AN: Should anybody feel that the zatarc detector shouldn't have worked on Spike, I'll just explain my reasoning. In "Just Rewards" it was established that Spike was giving off readings of brain activity in his intangible state, thus suggesting to me that the machine would work on him as he is giving off an energy it can 'read'. As for the vampire immunity to telepathy, my explanation is that the immunity only extends to when their thoughts are actually being read by somebody who isn't 'directly' accessing their brain; this machine is directly analysing Spike's memories inside his head, rather than a telepath simply picking them up from a distance, and it isn't reading his thoughts anyway.
As he walked out of the room about an hour later, Spike had rapidly come to the conclusion that his earlier hopes had all been for nothing; this part of the evaluation hadn't included anything that he felt particularly related to why he'd make a good member of one of the Stargate teams. He'd ended up having to repeat some of his answers several times- apparently because the guy couldn't believe some of the stuff he was saying had actually happened; what was so unbelievable about a demonic loan shark who looked like a shark?-, had been asked several questions about what he'd been like in his pre-soul and post-soul days, and all kinds of crap like that; he couldn't even remember some of the answers he'd given any more.
"Damnit!" he yelled, as he walked through the door to Daniel's office- at least he no longer had to worry about door handles, although the fact was of little comfort to him in his current state-, once again wishing he could just punch something and vent at least some of his frustration at his current condition.
"It didn't go well, I take it?" a voice said from behind him.
"God, are you still here?" Spike groaned, turning around to glare in frustration at where Woolsey was nonchalantly standing against the wall, apparently reading one of Daniel's books. Spike strongly suspected he was only holding the book as a pretext for his presence, and he'd really just been waiting for the vampiric 'ghost' to get back from his evaluation.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Woolsey replied, as he closed the book and put it back on its shelf. "I just wanted to check if you hadn't reconsidered our offer after that-"
"What; you think just because I don't fit into your little space-wandering club I'm going to moan and complain about it?" Spike retorted, walking up to stare Woolsey in the face; he may not be able to hit this berk, but by God he was going to loom at the guy. "If you don't sodding want me because I'm going to screw up, fine; you think I want to put this sodding planet in danger?"
"I assumed that, as a vampire-" Woolsey began.
"I'd want the world to get blown up?" Spike interjected, rolling his eyes in frustration. "Read my bloody file again, idiot; if Captain Cardboard ever actually listened to anything Buffy told him about me, it'll mention that I actually like the world as it is even before I got my soul back. If me going out there increases the likelihood of it getting blown to smithereens, I'm not going, got me?"
With that said, he walked through Woolsey, strode through the door behind the man, and turned to walk along the corridor, no fixed destination in mind as he studied his surroundings.
He had no idea where to go now, no idea what he could do to keep himself occupied when he got there, and nothing to brighten up his future prospects but the oh-so-slim hope that he'd end up with his body once again at some point or another.
It was official; life sucked.
"Great…" he moaned to himself, as he turned around to walk into another office- he vaguely registered Samantha Carter's name on the door, but he didn't care about that beyond the fact that it meant the place would be empty for a while-, slumped down in the chair behind the desk in frustration, and glared in frustration at the wall in front of him.
No body, no opportunity to do anything useful here, nothing to keep himself occupied, not even a decent type of ghost to help him figure out how to touch stuff…
What the hell was he going to do with his new lease on unlife; haunt this stupid place until somebody figured out a way to send him on to whatever waited for him afterwards?
He knew he'd done some crap in his time, but did he really deserve this? Stuck in some underground dump where he wasn't even able to find a decent TV, never mind so much as a nice view to keep himself occupied, forced to put up with that Woolsey git sitting around, a smug little grin on his face as he constantly reminded Spike that he was only in this mess because of his 'conscience'…
Spike couldn't live like this for very long.
If there was any way around it, he'd find out about it now.
As Colonel Feretti- currently in command of the SGC given the continued absence of Landry and the rest of SG-1 on their twenty-four-hour recon mission- entered the makeshift firing range located on level seventeen, he could only blink in surprise at the sight before him; he'd heard the reports, but a part of him had somehow assumed that the soldiers had slightly exaggerated to convince him to come down earlier. Spike's spectral form- although given that he was technically dead already Feretti had his doubts that he would have been in much danger even if he was solid- was strolling up and down the firing ranger, between the targets and where the soldiers would have been if he hadn't driven them out due to him constantly yelling at them.
"Come on, can't one of you bastards at least try and blow the sodding thing up?" he yelled as he paced around the room; either he didn't register that nobody was there any more or he he'd just started yelling as soon as he'd heard the door open. "It's only up in the sodding labs, for crying out loud; stuff must blow up there all the time! I'm not asking much from you sods, I just want-"
"Spike," Feretti stated, looking inquiringly at the vampire. "What are you doing; I've heard reports that you've been yelling at the staff for the last twenty minutes or so?"
"I've been trying to convince one of these sods to see how that sodding amulet reacts to being shot at; what do you think I've been doing?" Spike yelled in frustration as he walked up to look at Feretti, once again standing inside the partition between where the soldiers would stand and the targets would be located. "Look, Colonel Whoever-you-are, I'm not going to sodding hang around here until you sods figure out a way to make me solid again, OK? I'm just going to get somebody to see what'll shatter that amulet, and then I'll be gone for good; don't even think about trying to stop me!"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Feretti said, smiling slightly at Spike. "I just would have thought you'd have wanted to stay around after you'd passed the evaluation."
Spike blinked.
"I… I passed?" he said incredulously. "But… but…"
"You thought it went worse than it did?" Feretti asked, the smile still on his face as he looked at the vampire. "Don't worry about it; Vala had pretty much the same reaction to the whole situation."
"Although," a familiar voice said from off to the side, "you did come up with a conclusive response to my 'offer' more rapidly than she did; Miss Doran had to actually think about it before she made a decision either way."
Spike's eyes widened in surprise.
God, just when he thought he'd got a handle on this whole situation…
"You?" he yelled, spinning around to glare at Woolsey. "You're telling me you were part of a scam?"
"Not a 'scam', per se; just a little test to make sure that we could trust you," Feretti explained, smiling reassuringly at the vampire. "You didn't take the easy way to get what you were after when you had every reason to believe you were failing the tests, and your commitment to Earth is evident by your comments about how you wouldn't want to join a team if it put us at risk. As well as that, your evaluation- when combined with the files Agent Finn sent us regarding what he knew of your history over the last few years; he'd told us that everything you were before that isn't relevant- shows a strong person, dedicated to fighting for what he believes in, whose resolve to protect Earth- and, by extension, his allies- from being destroyed certainly can't be questioned."
"Oh," Spike said, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed as he looked between Woolsey and Feretti, remembering all the times he'd insulted the prick.
Given that he couldn't just hand the bastard over to the people in charge on the grounds that he'd been trying to bribe a member of staff, Spike somehow doubted he'd won himself any brownie points in dealing with that guy for the rest of his time here…
Ah well, he mused to himself, allowing himself a slight smile as he looked at the man in front of him, there's always the possibility of a good old haunting to get back at the sod later on.
"Right then," he said, clasping his hands together as he looked inquiringly at the two men in front of him, "with all that crap sorted out, any chance I can get an actual room now instead of just waiting around in somebody else's office like some prat?"
The next day, having returned from their survey mission to a relatively quiet SGC- they'd stayed a few hours longer on the planet than they'd originally planned to enjoy some time off from saving the universe, as well as giving Jack a chance to catch up with his old teamamtes-, SG-1 walked into the briefing room shortly after arriving at the base, to find Spike casually sitting in one of the chairs, his hands held up in front of him as he looked piercingly at Woolsey, who was currently sitting opposite him.
"Oh, good; you're here," Vala said, smiling casually over at Spike, as soon as she saw him before indicating Woolsey. "So, given that you and my old 'friend' here aren't arguing your heads off about you being at this briefing, shall I take it that you've been given probationary status with the team?"
"We've managed to reach an… accord, yes," Woolsey said, nodding briefly as he looked over at Spike, clearly making every effort not to look at Vala. "Mr. Spike here will be allowed to go on various missions with you over the next few weeks, during which we shall determine whether or not he serves as an asset or a hindrance to SG-1's performance as a unit. Should he prove to be a disruptive element of any sort, he will be taken off the team and confined to Stargate Command until a means of restoring him to his corporeal form have been discovered, allowing him to sign the Official Secrets Act and subsequently make his own way away from here."
"Really?" Spike said, looking critically at the political weasel before him as he folded his arms. "No offence, but what the sodding hell makes you think I'd ever-"
"Spike," Mitchell interjected, glaring over at the vampire 'ghost' as he spoke, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the man before him. "Two things; Shut. Up. You're on a team here, you'll play by the rules or you don't get through the 'gate at all no matter how good you did in the evaluation. Comprende?"
For a moment, the two men stared at each other, their eyes locked directly on the other man's, before Spike finally rolled his eyes.
"Fine," he groaned, as he turned around and slumped down once again in a nearby chair. "I'll stick around here if things don't work out on other planets; you happy?"
"That's fine," Landry said, nodding briefly at Spike before he turned to look at the rest of SG-1. "In any case, your next mission is a fairly straightforward one; you're going to join the Odyssey and investigate reports that an Ori spacecraft recently landed on a world near the area of space they're currently patrolling-"
"Back up a minute; what the hell's the Odyssey?" Spike said, looking critically at Sam and Daniel. "I'm not going anywhere until I know what to expect."
"Oh, it's one of the ships in Earth's space fleet," Sam replied, smiling slightly at Spike. "It's a bit primitive compared to some of the ships out there, but we've got allies among some of the more advanced races who've given us some extra technology after we've helped them out of a few tight spots."
Spike could only blink at that.
"You have sodding spaceships?" he yelled, after a moment's pause as SG-1 enjoyed the dumbstruck reaction on his face; it was somehow refreshing to be talking to somebody who had no real idea what to expect from them.
"Well, as I said, they're a bit primitive compared to some of the ships out there, but we generally manage to hold our own in them whenever we need to take them anywhere," Sam replied, shrugging slightly at the vampire. "The Stargates are still faster to get from place to place, but the occasional use of a ship can be helpful if we want to keep our presence secret; they always make a noise when we dial a wormhole to that address."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding in understanding before he stood up, clasping his hands together as he smile at his new 'team'. "When do we start?"
"As soon as possible," Landry replied, looking around at the now six-man team as he spoke. "Mr Spike will receive a quick crash course in team protocol from yourselves and Mr Woolsey here, and then-"
"Uh, there's just one thing I'd like straightened out first," Daniel put, raising one hand as he looked at Landry anxiously. "General, we've established that Spike is tied to the amulet; he can't go much more than a short distance from it before being pulled back to wherever it's currently located. I was just wondering, well…"
"Who's going to be looking after the amulet, right?" Landry said, smiling slightly as he pulled the gem in question out of his pocket and tossed it over to the archaeologist. "That would be you, Doctor Jackson; Finn sent it to you, so, as far as I'm concerned, that makes it yours."
"On the topic of the amulet, isn't there a possibility it might interact badly with the Stargate?" Sam added, looking anxiously over at Mitchell. "Did Captain Finn mention anything about how it worked when you were talking to him?"
"Well, he thought it was safe, if that's what you mean," Mitchell replied, shrugging slightly. "Something about how the entity Spike was fighting tried to tap into the power source below him- this 'Hellmouth' thing he's mentioned-, and the conflict of energy between the two caused the explosion. Unless we've got something trying to attack the SGC without us knowing it, I think it'd be safe to take the thing through the 'gate without any problems."
"Good," Landry said, nodding at Mitchell before he turned to look at the rest of SG-1. "Right then; let's get this down to business."