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

AN: As with my usual policy, what I don't show will happen basically the same way that it did in the show, although I'll include some details about what happened 'off-screen' when the time comes, I assure you.

The Ghost in the Team

As he raced through the streets of the village, Spike forced himself to ignore the worst of the violence around him, pausing only long enough to eliminate a couple of soldiers who might be immediate threats to others- a well-thrown rock could do some damage no matter what kind of armour you were wearing, and the occasional karate-chop to the back of the neck at least disorientated the other guy long enough for one of the villagers to score a fatal shot-; right now, his main priority had to be making sure that Sam stayed safe long enough to finish whatever she was trying to accomplish with that device. He was relieved to note that Mitchell and Vala had apparently armed the villagers with P-90s and were helping them coordinate some kind of defence against the attacking soldiers, but that would only work for a while.

If they could just activate the device, they might not stop the soldiers who were already there, but they could at least prevent any reinforcements getting in; Spike might not have Angelus's tactical know-how, but even he knew that defending something with limited numbers was a lot easier when the enemy didn't know the territory and couldn't get reinforcements either...

As he dived through the wall into the library- after confirming that nobody was looking in his direction, of course; the last thing he wanted was to start a panic among the people they were trying to help-, Spike's eyes quickly took in the sight before him; Sam, still studying her laptop as it was connected up to the device, unaware of an Ori soldier that was coming up behind her. Unwilling to waste time by calling at Sam to look behind her- given how close the guy was he'd probably shoot her before Sam could draw her own weapon- Spike leapt through the table and grabbed the man's staff weapon, hauling it out of his hands as the other guy struggled to keep hold of it before he brought it down on his opponent's head, leaving him to collapse to the ground in a heap.

It was only when Spike turned around to look at Sam that his satisfaction with his actions was dashed; while he'd been busy jumping, the other guy had apparently managed to not only fire off the staff weapon, but had struck Sam a rather nasty-looking blow to the side with a shot that seemed to have damaged a couple of the generators they'd been using to power Merlin's device.

"Oh, bugger..." Spike whispered as Sam fell to the floor with a yell of pain, just as Mitchell hurried into the room, looking only briefly at the unconscious Ori soldier before he knelt down beside his teammate.

"Sam?" the colonel said, crouching down and grabbing her shoulder as he looked her over. "It's OK. You'll be OK."

Spike didn't need his rather extensive knowledge of wounds to know that Mitchell was talking a load of proverbial crap; the wound Sam had sustained might not be immediately fatal, but the sheer size of it wasn't going to do her any favours, particularly not when they were stuck in hostile territory without any way of treating it...

He didn't need to pay much attention to what was happening outside to know that the sudden lack of gunfire was a bad thing; he was fairly sure that the villagers wouldn't be able to stop themselves being very vocal if they'd managed to drive the Ori soldiers off, so the lack of distinctive sounds outside suggested that they'd been overrun by the bad guys.

"Just stay with me!" Mitchell yelled urgently at Sam, now writhing in pain on the floor even as Spike heard people outside give orders to search the village; he didn't need to see people walking past the windows to know that things were really bad now.

"All right," Mitchell said, standing back as Spike looked urgently between his teammates, trying to figure out some way that he could contribute to this mess. "We have to move."

"We can't!" Sam practically yelled.

"Look, I get that we don't want to leave these people, but we're pretty much screwed if we stay here-" Spike began.

"The device..." Sam interjected, pain somehow enhancing the resolution in her voice as she looked over Mitchell's shoulder at the table with the equipment on it.

"All right," Mitchell said, his tone grim as he took a lump of what Spike was fairly sure was C4 explosive out of his vest pockets.

"No!" Sam said, suddenly taking a tight grip of Mitchell's left sleeve. "You can't destroy it!"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Mitchell countered in exasperation. "I can't carry you and all that junk, and Spike can't remain focused long enough to get everything back to the gate!"

"Activate it!" Sam said, grimacing despite the resolution on her face as Mitchell stood up and walked over to the table, the lieutenant colonel examining the device for a few moments before he glanced over at Spike.

"Don't suppose you've got any technical expertise that could help us get this thing working?" he asked uncertainly.

"I was able to set up my crypt to get illegal cable; that's about it," Spike said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked back at Mitchell; he'd been proud of that feat back when he'd just been a vampire, but it felt slightly embarrassing admitting to that kind of thing when he was technically working for the government (And God, why was he making such a big deal about that; he wasn't even getting bloody paid by these sods apart from being provided with somewhere to stay!).

"You lived in a crypt?" Mitchell said, looking at him incredulously for a moment- Spike couldn't exactly blame the guy for it; it wasn't like he'd really emphasised the whole 'crypt' thing before now- before he turned his attention back to the device. "We can talk about that later; right now, these generators are fried!"

"All of them?" Sam asked; whether she'd been listening the whole time or had just picked up on the essential details of this conversation, Spike didn't know.

"Well, we've got one working!" Mitchell noted, indicating the still-illuminated generator nearest Merlin's device.

"Ah..." Sam gasped, her mind still working to find a solution despite her current pain. "Bypass the other two; connect the leads."

Exchanging grim glances with Spike, Mitchell obeyed Sam's instructions, disconnecting the relevant cables and linking them up to the active generator.

"All right," he said, Spike trying to ignore the gathering soldiers outside the library as he anxiously hovered around his friends, "what's next?"

"There's a macro... on the... main control screen," Sam replied, her voice growing increasingly weaker as Mitchell crouched down in front of the laptop.

"I have no idea where that is!" SG-1's commanding officer said after a few moments of anxiously staring at the confusing screen in front of him, only to turn around and see that Sam had just fallen unconscious. "Sam? Sam!"

"Oh God, we're so sodding screwed..." Spike muttered, glancing anxiously out of the window as Mitchell anxiously clicked through the various windows on the laptop screen. Vala might have the amulet, but that still wouldn't do anyone any good if she ended up getting shot in just the right place- maybe the amulet was like something he'd heard once about diamonds having a weak point where they could shatter if you hit the right bit-, and where was the point in him staying alive if Mitchell and Sam were both going to get killed...?

"That's it, I think," Mitchell said, Spike turning around to see Mitchell looking grimly up at the library window before he returned his attention to the computer screen. "Well, it better be it..."

He hit a button on the laptop's keyboard, and suddenly the entire building was illuminated by a brilliant white light- the same light that had accompanied their 'shift' into other realities when the device had been activated the first time around-, the light fading away as the soldiers looked in obvious confusion at the area where the library had seemingly vanished.

It might not be a long-term solution, but at least they weren't going to get killed any time soon...

Then Spike saw one of the soldiers start yelling at Vala as she lay kneeling on the ground, an Ori soldier aiming some kind of weapon on his wrist at her, and thoughts of their continued survival in hiding ceased to be an issue.

"Vala!" he said, moving towards the wall in frustration, walking through it even as Mitchell yelled at him to get back inside. Ignoring the calls from the lieutenant colonel that only he could hear, Spike hurried over to stand alongside his teammate- 'girlfriend' seemed a bit juvenile even without the added complications of their relationship taken into account-, grateful for his current invisibility as another Ori soldier walked up to Vala and her near-executioner, ordering the other man to stop.

"Commander," the man who'd been about to shoot Vala said, walking over to address the new arrival in a low voice, "all those here have resisted with force."

"And they shall be punished," the commander said, taking off his helmet to reveal a face that looked surprisingly sullen; Spike got the impression that this guy really didn't get much job satisfaction in his life.

"Tomin," Vala said, looking at the now-helmetless man in obvious shock.

Spike only needed a second to remember where he'd heard that name before; it was the name of Vala's Ori-aligned husband.

Damnit... he thought to himself.

He'd had some complicated relationships in the past, but he'd really been trying to ignore the issue that Vala was technically married- even if it might not count under Earth law, it took him to an area that a part of himself wasn't entirely comfortable with-, and now her goddamn husband had to drop in...

"Have her taken to the rings; transport her to the ship," the commander said, after he had spent a moment silently looking in Vala's direction before turning back to the other soldier. "Kill the rest."

Spike tried not to think too much about the order that this guy had just given even as Vala screamed in desperation for this 'Tomin' guy to take back the order; even if he could deflect the current staff weapon blasts to save these villagers, he'd never be able to maintain concentration long enough to stop every attempt the soldiers might make to kill them, and that was before he factored in the possibility of them using a grenade or something...

Bugger, he thought to himself as he turned away from the sight of the Ori soldiers as they opened fire on the captive villagers, sticking his head through a nearby wall in a desperate attempt to muffle the sound of the violence that he could do nothing to stop.

Invisibility might have been kind of a neat power back when Buffy had it- even if he hadn't liked the fact that she'd used it so that she wouldn't have to look herself in the mirror after they'd spent 'time' together-, but intangibility was turning out to have far more bloody downsides than people would think.

What had he done to deserve this crap?

Where was the point in punishing him for the stuff he'd done when he was soulless when he was so goddamn limited in his ability to make up for it?

He could stick his head here to try and ignore it all he wanted, but sometimes life really just sucked-!

"Oh, shhiiii-!" he yelled, his thoughts cut short as he felt the now-frustratingly-familiar feeling of something trying to pull his technically non-existent insides out of his body...

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room that he recognised from the Ori ship he'd helped the SGC capture over Dakara- evidently he must be on one of the two ships remaining in this galaxy-, with Vala and a couple of guards standing nearby as a series of rings collapsed back down into the ground around him.

Spike didn't take long to realise what had happened; Vala must have been taken up to the Ori ship by one of those 'ring transporter' things he'd heard about, and since she'd had the amulet on her at the time he'd been dragged along with her.

Spike had just started to take in his surroundings when the guard began to lead Vala out of the room, leaving Spike with no choice but to follow her as she was lead through the corridors- Spike tried to keep track, but he had a feeling he'd just try taking the more direct route back anyway; it wasn't that likely that he'd had the opportunity to take Vala back to the 'ring room' or whatever it was called on his own anyway-, until the guard led Vala into a particular room. There was a large desk just in front of the door, with a metal box, a couple of books, and a few pieces of parchment scattered over it, along with a surprisingly ornate wooden bed with what looked like velvet covers. Candles were scattered around the room, along with a chest of drawers off to one side and a large ornate bowl of some sort positioned in front of a large window above the bed, looking out onto space.

Spike hated to admit it, but for a spaceship, this room looked a lot comfier than anything that Earth had produced so far; then again, considering that what he'd read in the files suggested that the Ori's followers hadn't done much in the way of space flight before this 'crusade' began, it was possible that they'd just been ordered to make these things elaborate to encourage people to volunteer for the assault.

"Change and wait," the soldier said, indicating a blue dress draped over the bed with some kind of wooden symbol on the front that reminded Spike of some of the Ori artefacts he'd seen earlier; it was probably their equivalent of a crucifix or something like that. "The commander will be here shortly."

With that, the soldier turned and walked out of the room, leaving Vala to stare grimly at the dress before her.

"Great..." she sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed as she stared up at the ceiling. "Of all the things that could have happened to me, I have to experience the worst-case scenario..."

"Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it?" Spike said, only to mentally curse when Vala didn't respond to his comment; he'd forgotten for a moment that he was inaudible in this phased state on top of everything else...

Then he remembered what he could still do in this state, and smiled slightly as he walked up to Vala and placed a hand on her arm.

"What-?" Vala began, turning around to look in his direction, only to falter when she saw nobody there. "What the...?"

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Spike leaned forward to plant a quick- albeit slightly awkward- kiss on Vala's lips, smiling as he stepped back to take in the dawning realisation on her face.

"Spike?" she said, looking around herself with a suddenly hopeful smile. "Are you... are you there?"

Unable to reply verbally, Spike reached out to place his hand on Vala's cheek, rubbing his thumb underneath her eye as he smiled at her.

"You're here..." Vala said, her eyes faintly gleaming with tears as she reached up to rub her hands over the slight lump underneath her BDU that indicated the presence of the amulet. "I'm not alone..."

Never, Spike thought silently as he leaned over, brushing a brief kiss against Vala's forehead.

He might not be able to say anything to Vala right now, but he was going to make sure she knew that she wasn't on her own...

"How are Cam and Sam?" Vala asked, looking apprehensively in his general direction. "Are they... all right?"

After a quick glance around the room confirmed the absence of anything he could use to write with that wouldn't attract far too much attention to his possible presence- the only paper he could see were those large books that were probably something to do with the Ori Bible, and while he had a low opinion of these guys as a religious group he wasn't about to risk getting Vala in trouble for further blasphemy-, Spike resorted to the basics; hoping that Vala wouldn't mind later, he reached up to briefly touch Vala's breast before ramming his hand with a decent amount of force into an area underneath her ribcage, stepping back as Vala winced.

"What the-?" she began, before what Spike had been trying to say apparently occurred to her. "Sam was shot?"

Spike tapped brief on the bed, creating a faint but obvious sound that reverberated throughout the room.

"That's... yes, right?" Vala asked, Spike responding to her query with another tap. "Great... and how's Mitchell? Is he hurt?"

Spike tapped against the wall twice on this occasion, hoping that Vala would continue to understand what he was saying.

"Two means no?" Vala asked, sighing as Spike tapped against the wall in confirmation once again. "Great... I assume they're safe?"

Spike gave a gentler knock against the wall on this occasion that Vala's grim expression confirmed she'd understood.

"Safe, but not able to help us?" she said, groaning as Spike tapped against the wall more firmly. "Any idea where Teal'c is?"

Spike tapped against the wall twice at that comment, groaning in frustration at his inability to provide more help than what he had said so far; he might be able to interact more than most people could in this situation, but that still wasn't much.

"So, it's just you and me?" Vala asked, smiling awkwardly at the area where Spike was currently standing. "Well... at least I'm not alone up here."

Despite the grim mood of their current situation, Spike had to admit that he was slightly touched at the obvious comfort she drew from his presence.

"Things are going to get... difficult here, Spike," Vala said at last, looking awkwardly in his direction. "Just... don't do anything unless I ask you for help; if I'm right about what I'll be dealing with here, you just...beating up everyone who comes through that door won't help anything."

Spike momentarily wondered if he should be offended at the insinuation that he'd automatically resort to violence, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort; not only was it accurate, but there wasn't much else he could do like this, and even what he could achieve would be very limited.

Still... the fact that Vala did seem to appreciate the fact that he was even here helped him feel a lot better; feeling like someone appreciated his presence because he made them feel safe wasn't exactly a normal feeling for a vampire, but he felt like he could get used to it...