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: Usual rules apply as what you don't see here happened pretty much the same way as it did in the original episode, although I'll cover what happened in the skipped scenes if I think it's relevant
The Ghost in the Team
As she sat in the small 'interrogation room', waiting for someone to come and talk to her, Sam couldn't believe that things had gone this wrong this quickly; she'd always accepted that there were risks in working with Ancient technology, particular something as unique and complicated as Merlin's device, but the thought that she'd ended up trapped in another universe while using it was one of the rare possibilities that had never even occurred to her.
Admittedly, the fact that Spike had come along with her was slightly comforting- at least, unlike the time that Daniel had first activated the Quantum Mirror, she wasn't completely alone in trying to convince everyone around her to believe her story-, but the fact that he was corporeal now meant that she couldn't count on him coming to help her out by walking through the walls to find her, particularly not after she'd all-but-ordered him to cooperate with Major Lorne's decision to separate them until they could establish what had happened to 'Major' Carter...
God, she hoped that Spike would go along with that request.
He might not be strong enough to break down any doors that they would use to contain him- according to Teal'c's assessment of Drusilla, her main advantage in a fight between the two had been her speed as their strength had seemed to be relatively even, so from everything Spike had told them about vampires he should have at least Drusilla's strength level given that she'd turned him a few years after being turned herself-, but that didn't mean he couldn't try and fight back against the guards that might take him to wherever they decided to keep him.
The fact that they clearly weren't they should be would probably discourage Spike from doing anything too drastic- he'd already gone through one significant upheaval in his personal life in the last few months, and Sam doubted that he'd be inclined to make himself go through another when there might still be a way to get back to what they'd had before; in Sam's experience dealing with the Goa'uld, long-lived beings tended to get stuck in patterns-, but Sam couldn't pretend that she knew exactly how Spike thought; anything she and the rest of her world's SGC had come to understand about Spike was based around the idea of him as an intangible man who could only touch something after a great deal of concentration and whose essence was tied down to the amulet, and without those restrictions...
Sam was saved from pursuing that line of thought any further when the door to the room opened and Major Lorne walked in, followed by two guards, the three quickly setting up a large video camera focused on Sam before Lorne sat down opposite her, the guards taking up position outside the door before it closed.
"So," Lorne said at last, looking at her with an uncertain expression, "if you are from another universe, why are you here?"
"We didn't do it on purpose, believe me," Sam said, looking pointedly at Lorne; if he wanted her to focus on her own dilemma and forget about Spike, she wasn't going to make it that easy for him to do so.
"What about that machine you brought with you?" Lorne asked.
"It demolecularizes matter and transports it to another dimension," Sam replied, sighing slightly as she guessed what Lorne was about to assume
"Well, there you go," Lorne said, opening his hands in a manner of casual acceptance.
"No, no, this is different!" Sam interjected, staring resolutely at him; this situation was too complicated for her to waste time dealing with misunderstandings like that. "Look, according to M theory, there are a fixed number of alternate dimensions existing in parallel with our known universe. The multiverse theory, on the other hand, posits the existence of an infinite number of alternate universes, each evolving concurrently with our own."
"Well," Lorne asked,
"is there a universe out there somewhere where you're giving me a straight answer?"
Despite the situation, Sam couldn't help but feel slightly reassured at this familiar moment- her explaining something scientific to the leader of SG-1 and him not understanding what she was saying-, but pushed it aside to focus on what she needed to know.
"Look," she said, sighing in frustration, "there must be some reason why I was brought here, of all places. I need to know what was happening in that lab."
"I'm not authorized to give you that information," Lorne replied.
If there was one thing Sam had always appreciated about Daniel, it was that he was able to convince people when there was a time and a place to stick to the rules and regulations regarding disclosure and when it would be appropriate to ignore them, and this had to be one of those times; she and Spike had already provided more than enough evidence to confirm that they weren't from this reality- her new rank, Merlin's device, Spike's knowledge of the SGC-, and Lorne still thought that rules mattered at a time like this?
"OK," she said, deciding to follow that train of thought to a more hopeful line of questioning, "maybe I could talk to Daniel. Is he here?"
"Doctor Jackson was captured by the forces of the Ori several weeks ago," Lorne replied.
"OK," Sam said, trying not to show her frustration at the synchronicity of some events across universes compared to others- she hadn't been promoted yet, but Daniel still got captured?- as she thought of the other obvious people she could ask for help, "what about Colonel Mitchell? Cameron Mitchell?"
"The 302 pilot?" Lorne asked, evidently confused as he looked uncertainly at her. "Went down over Antarctica?"
"That's right," Sam replied, hoping that Lorne's confusion just meant that Mitchell hadn't been promoted or something like that. "Is he here?"
"I have no idea where he is," Lorne replied. "The last I heard, he quit the military."
"Teal'c?" Sam asked, becoming increasingly desperate. "Vala?"
"Teal'c went back to the Jaffa several years ago, and if you're talking about Vala Mal Doran, I hate to break it to you, but she is currently occupying a cell at Area 51. Care to take a stab at anyone else?"
Sam couldn't believe it; she'd known from Daniel's report on the original quantum mirror incident that he'd had a hard time when he'd arrived in that other reality, but at least then he'd known everyone he was dealing with from his encounters with them in his reality and at least had some idea of how to get them to listen to him. So far, the only people she'd met here that she knew back home were Doctor Lee and Major Lorne, and while she had always gotten along with them both she didn't really know them socially well enough to try anything like that...
"At least let me see the surveillance footage from the lab," she said at last. "There may be a clue."
Lorne's expression was closed as he looked over at the camera, clearly debating the merits of that suggestion even in the face of this unusual situation, and Sam finally decided to cut to the chase.
"Look," Sam said, addressing the lens directly- if this was anything like the interview cameras she used back in her universe, someone else was probably watching the footage 'live' at the other end-, "I know you want your Carter back as much as I want to go home, but we stand a much better chance of figuring this out if we work together."
Lorne's nod of acceptance after a few seconds might have been somewhat reluctant, but he was at least willing to give her a chance; considering how things could have turned out, that was more than Sam really had a right to expect when she herself didn't know what was happening here.
As he sat fuming in the small room where he'd been left for the last few hours- he wondered if these sods were trying to run 'background checks' on him or something-, Spike cursed the poor timing of his return to a solid body; if he could walk through walls, he could probably have found Sam by now and they'd already be brainstorming a plan to get out of whatever Bizarro-world they'd woken up in...
His train of thought was halted as the door to his room opened and a familiar blonde-haired figure in a blue 'jumpsuit' walked in, smiling slightly at him.
"Sammie!" Spike said, smiling at the first familiar face he'd seen that he knew was familiar to him, before he took in her sullen expression and the guards still stationed outside the door and his own smile faded. "Bad news?"
"Well... it ties in to what happened to bring us here, so yes, it's bad for all of us," Sam said, nodding grimly at Spike as she sat down on a chair near him, Spike settling in as she continued to speak. "From what I've learnt since arriving here, I'm still unclear on where this world and ours diverged- apart from the fact that it was probably before I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel; I've been focusing more on how we got here rather than where our histories differ-, but apparently, in this reality, my counterpart was working on another method of completing Project Arcturus."
"What's that?" Spike asked.
"Essentially, it was an abandoned Ancient experiment to generate unlimited power by extracting zero-point energy from our own universe," Sam explained. "They'd already perfected a smaller method of doing that which involved drawing on energy created in small subspace universes, but this would have generated significantly more power if it had worked."
"How much more?" Spike asked, curious despite himself.
"Theoretically, if the experiment had worked, the power capability it produced would be as great as the scope of the universe itself," Sam replied.
Even with the limited amount he knew about astrophysics, Spike had to be impressed by that.
"That's... well, sounds pretty powerful," he said at last.
"It would be if it could work," Sam said, shaking her head in regret as she continued to speak. "Unfortunately, the creation of zero-point energy in our universe randomly altered the laws of physics in the area where they were being created, which created various exotic particles that couldn't be predicted; the resulting particles breached the containment field the Ancients were using as hard radiation and killed the research team, and prolonged generation of them could have created a rift that would have destroyed the entire universe."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding thoughtfully as he tried to process what he'd just heard. "So... basically, we tried making this 'zero-point' stuff, and the universe's immune system went wonky?"
"That's... well, that's probably a good analogy for it, yes," Sam said, smiling briefly in surprised approval at Spike- not that Spike could blame her; he rarely understood conventional science, so it was as much of a surprise to him as Sam that he'd come up with a good analogy for advanced alien science- before she continued. "In our world the Atlantis expedition rediscovered Arcturus last year, but when they tried to attempt it themselves by manually adjusting the field to compensate for the particles it triggered an overload that... well, it destroyed most of the solar system where the original experiments took place."
"Hold on; the solar system?" Spike repeated, looking incredulously at Sam. "As in, planets were destroyed because this thing didn't work?"
"Exactly," Sam confirmed with a grim nod. "We tried to repeat the experiment shortly before your amulet was delivered to the SGC by using a matter bridge to generate the exotic particles in another universe, but since there was no way to predict whether we'd just be passing the problem on to another inhabited universe, we eventually gave it up after our first attempt nearly resulted in us destroying another universe."
"And... what does that have to do with how we got here?" Spike asked.
"Well, apparently my other self had devised a similar experiment to Arcturus- I haven't been able to determine if it's because we found Arcturus here or if it's just a coincidence; I certainly haven't heard anything about whether or not we went to Atlantis in this world-, which involved extracting minute amounts of zero point energy from many parallel universes simultaneously," Sam explained. "This would have allowed them to avoid the build-up of exotic particles that were a problem for our experiments- since they were extracting such small quantities from each universe, the particles wouldn't be produced in sufficient quantities to be a real threat-, but since we were out of phase when the experiment happened, we were pulled through the matter bridge she'd created."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding in uncertain understanding before looking curiously at her. "And... the other you?"
"Vaporised when we came through," Sam replied grimly. "It was a one-way bridge; there was nowhere else for her to go."
"So... she's dead?" Spike said, staring silently at Sam for a moment before he sighed out of a lack of anything else to do. "Well... that's the first time I ever killed someone without knowing I was killing 'em."
Then he paused as another thought occurred to him, causing him to look curiously at Sam. "Any ideas why it made me solid when we came through that thing?"
"Well, I've only got a theory when it comes to that, but I think it makes sense," Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked at Spike. "When we passed through that rift, we emerged on the other side in-phase with this universe, so, since I never deactivated Merlin's device after our arrival, I'm assuming that the portal essentially broke us down into our component molecules and put back together in phase with the universe; maybe, when we were being reconstructed at this end, the portal just... put you back together more completely than you were on the other side?"
"So... this portal dealie basically fixed the cracks?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at Sam. "Like... I was a broken plate and it was the glue?"
"Again, that's a... basic assessment, but it covers the essential details, anyway," Sam said, nodding at Spike after a brief, contemplative pause.
"OK," Spike said, smiling at her in gratitude for her summary. "And... this is permanent, right? I'm not going to come apart when we go back through?"
"Well, you shouldn't, but... well, it's the getting-back part I'm not so sure about," Sam said, looking apologetically at Spike. "I was actually sent down here to tell you that the commander of this SGC wants to talk to us both about their current situation before they send us home; I'm not entirely clear on what the problem is, but it sounds..."
"It sounds like they want us to tackle their mess before they help us out with our mess, huh?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes as he looked upwards in exasperation. "Bloody politics..."
"I'm not happy about anything that delays us getting back where we belong either, Spike, but we have to at least see what they want if we're going to get anywhere," Sam said, looking pointedly at him for a moment before she sighed and indicated the door. "Anyway, are you going to come along?"
"Why do you even want me there?" Spike asked, looking curiously at Sam even as he stood up. "I mean, not that I'm not glad to get out of this room, but I can't really contribute anything to whatever you're doing-"
"Spike..." Sam said, taking a deep breath as she looked at him, clearly determined to ensure that he understood what she was about to say. "You're the only person here that I know I can trust."
Spike blinked.
"Really?" he said at last.
Even after all his time in the Scoobies and at the SGC, to have someone just say that they trusted him...
Even Buffy's request for him to keep an eye on Dawn had just implied trust rather than explicitly provide him with it; the fact that Sam had outright said that she trusted him... well, it meant a lot to him.
"Look, I know that we've been... uncomfortable... around you since that whole thing with Drusilla, but... when I get down to it... you've always made it clear what your motives are, and I know that you want to get back to our world as much as I do," Sam said, sighing slightly as she glanced at the door of their room. "Everyone else here... I know what they're like back home, but I don't know what they're like here; I'd rather not enter into any kind of agreement with them to do anything without knowing that I can count on someone in that room."
He might be a whole reality away from where he should be, but Spike had never felt like he belonged somewhere more than he did at that moment.
Even if he could contribute virtually nothing to this situation now- he had doubts that his physical strength was going to be any kind of asset in this mess-, someone had just stated that she would feel safer if he was with her...
"Sure," he said, smiling in understanding at her. "Where's this meeting taking place?"
AN 2: OK, since this part of the story is probably going to be a long one, I'll get this issue out of the way right now; are there any alt-Scoobies that people would particularly like Spike to encounter during his time in this reality, or should I just go with whatever springs to mind (If anyone has any requests, keep in mind that 'canon' for the Scoobies diverges shortly after Dawn's introduction based on the timeline I'm using- where Season Seven of 'BtVS' concluded shortly after the start of Season Ten of 'SG-1', so Cordelia, Tara and Anya MIGHT be alive in this reality, even if nobody else is guaranteed to have made it either)?