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 always, what you don't see took place the same way that it did originally
AN 2: Further information about the Scoobies' activities in this world will be revealed here; hope you like it (And thanks to Elgin for helping me work out some of the fine details about their new lives)
The Ghost in the Team
As he sat impatiently in Sam's office, Spike made a mental note to try and get in some background reading about what Sam was actually up to; science might have never been his thing, but if it was down to just him and Sam until they got home, he might as well do something to help her beyond remind her that they had another world to get back to in the first place.
Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions to motivate him, Spike doubted he'd ever be able to focus on that science stuff given the topic currently dominating his mind after the discovery of Oz's CD had sparked off the questions he hadn't even realised he'd been asking himself since Sam told him where they were; if this was an alternate reality, with a totally new history, what was everyone he knew doing in this world?
It might be a bit of a risk to draw attention to himself, but if he was going to move on, he needed to find out what had happened in this world to the people he knew; even if they weren't his friends- not that he felt entirely comfortable considering them any kind of friends; aside from Buffy and Dawn (And, as much as he hated to admit it, even the Niblet was slightly questionable after what he'd done to Buffy before getting his soul back), most of them would probably have been fine to see him dead-, he still felt like he should know what happened to them...
Finally, lost for anything else to do with himself, Spike got up and walked out of the office- only just remembering to open the door before he walked into it; even if he'd been doing it this way for longer, a few months' worth of habit wasn't going to go away that easily-, heading along a few corridors before he finally reached his destination, knocking on the door in front of him.
"Yes?" Doctor Lee said, looking around and starting slightly as he saw who was coming in. "Oh, Spike; what can I... do for you?"
"Just wondered if you could help me look up... some friends of mine in this world," Spike said, shrugging slightly; Lee might be a bit odd in either reality, and he was definitely uncomfortable with Spike's anomalous nature no matter what world they were in- even if he was just puzzled at how Spike ever got recruited by the SGC in this world rather than his counterpart back home occasionally freaking out about the 'intangible vampire' thing-, but he was a fairly pleasant chap to talk to, and Sam had described him as a capable scientist who was always willing to help out when he could. "Only joined the SGC back home a few months ago, and my... condition... meant I haven't had much practise or reason to check through these things; just thought... well, you're not doing much, I've got squat on right now, good a time as any to get some answers..."
He shrugged awkwardly, hating how pathetic he sounded even to himself, but, to his credit, Doctor Lee just nodded and turned around to turn the computer on, tapping a few keys as he entered in the names that Spike gave him.
"Buffy Summers..." Lee said, thoughtfully studying the information on the screen after Spike had finished recounting the last of the group of names he had asked for. "You say she lived in Sunnydale?"
"Well, that's where she'd have been when this world went its own way from mine, anyway," Spike confirmed. "What happened to her here?"
"According to this, she was involved in an NID operation against what they thought was a Goa'uld presence on Earth-" Lee began.
"NID?" Spike interrupted, looking curiously at Lee, manners forgotten as he remembered the tales he'd heard about that group in his own world. "Heard of those guys back home, but didn't get much out of it beyond that they're some kind of Earth intelligence sods who had some sort of splinter a few years back; bunch of 'em got taken over by the remaining Goa'uld in our world."
"Oh," Lee said, before he shrugged slightly. "Well, they definitely haven't been taken over by the Goa'uld here; actually, in the current climate, we're forced to... tolerate them a bit more than we did in the past, given that most of the more official agencies just aren't equipped to cope with the kind of situations we're faced with these days."
After Spike nodded at Lee in a prompting gesture, Lee turned back to the screen before him and continued reading. "Anyway, after Anubis's invasion, the SGC were given first priority on any cults involving anyone claiming to be a living god, and... well, there was this woman in Sunnydale who proclaimed that she was a god-"
"Glory?" Spike said, his eyes widening at the implications of this new information.
"You knew her?" Lee asked, looking back at the vampire inquiringly.
"Yeah, and she wasn't a goddamn Goa'uld; she was an actual god," Spike said, looking slightly scornfully over at Lee, enjoying the scientist's shock at his last statement before he continued speaking. "The woman got banished from her dimension and ended up hanging around here looking for the way back; in my world, she ended up hunting for this Key thing that she needed to get back home for a year before we managed to take her out..."
Noting the awkward expression on Lee's face, Spike swallowed apprehensively, taking a moment to bring himself back under control before he continued speaking. "I take it things didn't go that smoothly here?"
"That's... probably a good assumption; I don't have clearance to access more than the basic details, but what is here is not encouraging," Lee said, looking uncomfortably back at the vampire. "The operation is recorded as having been a success- they were eventually able to corner this 'Glory' after they discovered her attacking someone on the street for reasons that weren't established-, but although the team was able to weaken her after taking her by surprise and hitting her with a large number of bullets and zat blasts- it's recorded as being enough to disintegrate anyone, but whatever she was she could take far more punishment than expected-, she was still strong enough to..."
Lee swallowed slightly as he read the words before him one more time before he looked back at Spike. "Did Glory do much damage to anyone in your world?"
"Well, she drove some people nuts- something 'bout her feeding on human's mental energy to cope with her own mind having trouble thinking on our level-, but I don't think she did much physical damage to anyone..." Spike said, shrugging slightly awkwardly at Lee; he acknowledged that Glory had probably hurt some people while she was active, but since he'd been soulless back then and he'd never known anyone she'd injured (Tara and the Knights of Byzantium didn't count, given that she'd recovered later and he'd never really cared about the Knights; it's not like anyone knew that Joyce's tumour had been Glory's fault, after all), it had never really been that important to him, particularly when most of the people she'd brain-sucked returned to some kind of normality after she'd died.
"Well... I can't say what she was like on a larger scale- there weren't reports of her doing anything in particular, but that might just be because they didn't bother putting that information into this file-, but from what I'm reading here, the final confrontation with her resulted in at least one serious injury," Lee said, his expression making it clear that this wasn't going to be good news. "When Glory was weakened by the weapons they used against her- apparently an accumulation of zat attacks and conventional munitions was enough to basically overcome whatever physical strength and natural invulnerability she possessed-, Miss Summers attempted to attack her more directly- they refer to her as the team's 'technical specialist', but from what I can read here she was the only person who could have been referred to as such-, but when she got in close enough to actually attack Glory... her opponent tore her arm off."
If Spike wasn't already dead, his blood would have frozen at that statement.
Buffy had lost an arm?
"According to the report," Lee continued- Spike resisted the urge to punch the guy for sounding so damn clinical about the Slayer's fate; Lee had never met Buffy, it was perfectly understandable for him not to get the significance of that revelation-, "Miss Summers's subsequent punch apparently went almost straight through Glory's head- there's some speculation that the amount of adrenaline, hormones and other chemicals her body produced to cope with the agony gave her a temporary burst of strength-, but the damage was done; not only did she lose that arm, but she sustained a not-inconsiderable amount of cranial trauma when Glory fought back in her last moments, dislodging one of her corneas and leaving her virtually blind in one eye, as well as some reports about significant damage to her internal organs caused when she lost her arm. There are some reports that she was given treatment by various factions in the NID after the fact, but I can't find anything about what that treatment consisted of; there seems to be some... clearance difficulties..."
"Clearance?" Spike repeated, looking at Lee with a sharp glare. "As in, you don't have the clearance to find out more about what happened to her? In other words, she might be associated with these bastards now?"
"Well... that's the most likely guess, anyway; I can't really give you any definite information..." Lee said, looking at Spike with just a slight apprehension about his body language; evidently Spike's attitude wasn't encouraging the other man to be calm.
"It's... it's OK," Spike said, pausing to calm himself as he tried to look reassuringly at the other scientist; as angry as he was right now, losing his temper wouldn't get him anywhere. "So, if Buffy's unknown, what about her sister?"
"Dawn Summers was apparently transferred to the custody of a Doctor Rupert Giles shortly after her elder sister's involvement in the NID operation," Lee replied, looking back at the screen. "They apparently left America to return to Britain a year or so ago, accompanied by a Miss Faith Lehane- well, Doctor Giles brought three one-way tickets to England when he left the country and Miss Lehane departed at the same time-"
"Hold on a minute; Faith?" Spike interrupted, looking incredulously at Lee. "Last time I checked in my reality, Faith was in prison when things fell apart here; how'd she get clearance to leave the bloody country?"
"Well, there's some stuff here about a personal request from the British Ambassador on behalf of the Home Secretary resulting in the charges against Miss Lehane being dropped, but again the full details of what happened to her are a bit above my clearance level," Lee said, looking apologetically at Spike. "Sorry I can't tell you any more..."
"Don't worry about it; that's enough on her for the moment," Spike said, waving a dismissive hand at Lee as he thought over that particular new piece of information; given the apparent lack of records about Buffy since her time with those 'NID' sods, coupled with the Watcher's Council's ties to various political agencies, it sounded like they'd arranged for Faith to be removed from prison to ensure that there was at least some kind of Slayer presence active, but whether that meant Buffy was dead or not was something Spike suspected he wasn't going to find out any time soon...
"Anyway," he said, looking at Lee with a slight smile to conceal his own doubts, "how about... Harris?"
"Well, we have an Alexander Harris from Sunnydale listed as having joined the army a couple of years ago, but that's not particularly surprising; after news of the Stargate program went public, people tended to become more concerned about doing something to deal with the current situation," Lee said, shaking his head grimly at the memory as he continued to read from the screen. "He's made a fair impression on most of his superiors, but since he enlisted directly he's not really had many opportunities to advance as an NCO, although he's made a reputation as someone who's good at thinking on his feet. Anya Jenkins was listed as his co-habitant in an apartment he owned at the time he enlisted, and they were apparently in a relationship for a while afterwards, but she seems to have vanished a year or so ago- dropped off the grid as far as I can tell-, and there aren't even any records of her going back further than five years anyway; there's various school records confirming that she was attending Sunnydale High for her senior year five years ago, but that's about it."
"Yeah, well, her history was always a bit complicated anyway," Spike said, shrugging dismissively even as he wondered about the implications of that news; if she'd 'dropped off the grid', did that mean that Anya had become a vengeance demon again in this reality- particularly since the timings matched the time she'd regained her powers back home-, or was it something else? "How about the others?"
"Willow Rosenberg was recently employed as a software writer for a major computer company- a couple of sources suggest that it has some ties to the NID, but there's nothing definite one way or the other and she herself has never done anything suspicious anyway- immediately after graduating from Sunnydale University," Lee continued, his attention back on the screen. "Her partner Tara Maclay seems to have set herself up as a 'faith healer' of some sort; uses various herbal remedies and things to help treat diseases in some of the rougher parts of society, that kind of thing-"
"Hold on; she uses?" Spike interrupted, looking at Lee in surprise, torn between wanting to believe the first encouraging news he'd heard and not wanting to believe it; after everything this world had thrown at him, the idea that it had something that good was almost impossible to believe. "As in, present tense? She's alive?"
"Tara Maclay?" Lee said, looking curiously at Spike. "Yes, she's alive... oh; she's not where you come from?"
"Got shot by a stray bullet from some nut last year," Spike said, shaking his head grimly at the memory. "Poor girl never did anything to anyone that'd merit getting shot- bastard family kept her terrorised for years by telling her she'd become a monster just to make her stay home and do the work for 'em; all she wanted to do was get away from those bastards and make her own life away from all that bollocks-, but... well, crap happens, I s'pose."
"Oh," Lee said again, looking sympathetically at Spike. "I... I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Spike said, nodding briefly in response to Lee's awkward apology; the other man might not really know him that well, and definitely hadn't known Tara, but it was still nice to be acknowledged as someone with feelings about that kind of thing.
Even if he and Tara had never exactly hung out together on their own when she'd been alive, she'd still been one of the few people to treat him decently even after his feelings for Buffy became public; that won her more than a few points as far as he was concerned.
"Is there anything on... Cordelia Chase?" he asked at last, deciding to focus on the last question facing him; since he couldn't remember the name of that Watcher who'd joined Angel's team, and Captain Forehead was unlikely to have any kind of paper record, the ex-Cheerleader was really the only way he'd ever have a hope of finding out any kind of clue regarding what had happened to his grandsire in this world.
"Cordelia Chase did a few auditions in Los Angeles while working for some kind of unlicensed detective agency," Lee explained, his attention back on the computer once again. "After Anubis's attack, the agency seemed to get a degree of official status based on Doctor Giles's recommendation- I don't know what kind of strings he had to pull, but the police commissioner of the city acknowledged Doctor Giles when he issued the order granting them official authority-, and Miss Chase currently alternates between her work at the agency and some work on this mystery drama series; 'Lockley', it seems to be called..."
"'Lockley'?" Spike repeated.
"It's about a somewhat loose-cannon detective called Kate Lockley; Miss Chase apparently plays the department's medical examiner," Lee said, although the way his eyes studied the screen before him made it clear that he had only just read this particular piece of information.
"Ah," Spike said, nodding thoughtfully as he took in everything that he'd just heard, before smiling briefly at Lee. "Well... thanks for that; I appreciate the help."
This new world definitely wasn't perfect- Buffy and Anya unaccounted for, no real definite idea what had happened to Angel, stuff like that-, but at least he knew that most of them were still around; the fact that Tara was still alive in this world at least gave it some kind of positive 'leg-up' over his own world, even if Anya's disappearance raised a few question marks.
Nodding briefly at Lee in thanks, he walked out of the office and headed down another passage, only to run into Sam as she walked along the corridor, shaking her head as she stared at the files in her hands.
"Problem?" Spike asked, looking at her with a slight smile as she looked up at him.
"Just... stuck, really," the lieutenant-colonel replied, looking back at the notes before she looked at Spike as he started walking along beside her, noticing a slight dejection in his manner. "How about you?"
"Well, I just found out where most of the old guard from my pre-amulet life are these days," Spike replied, shrugging slightly as he looked at Sam. "On the bright side, this one girl who died back home's still alive, but two people have dropped off the bloody map, the only person who really liked me as a friend has moved over to England, and I've got no way to know where a couple of the others are because they don't sodding exist on paper..."
"Oh," Sam said, looking at Spike sympathetically. "I'm... I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Spike replied, giving Sam a brief smile of thanks. "How about you? Learn anything interesting about yourself here?"
"Well," Sam said, shaking her head slightly as she spoke, obviously surprised at the news she was about to reveal, "it turns out that I was married in this reality."
"Really?" Spike said, his previously weak smile becoming more teasing as he looked at her. "You met the other half yet?"
"We're divorced, but I actually do know his counterpart," Sam said, looking slightly awkwardly at him. "It's... well, I was married to Rodney McKay."
"Oh, I- hold on, as in the slightly chubby Canadian bugger who worked in Atlantis?" Spike said, looking incredulously at her. "You married that sod here?"
"Trust me, I don't know how I got to that point either," Sam said, shaking her head slightly at the memory before she turned to look more firmly at Spike. "That's not important right now; what is important is that I need to find General Hammond."
"What seems to be the problem?" the distinctive deep Texan accent of the general in question suddenly said, prompting the two to turn around as the bald man walked up behind them, now wearing a suit that Spike was fairly sure was his 'dress blues' (Or whatever the term was).
"General," Sam said, automatically straightening slightly as she looked at the man who was officially her superior, even if he wasn't technically her superior (Now that Spike thought about it, did rank restrictions even apply in this kind of thing, given that Sam was actually a higher rank than her counterpart and therefore obviously not entirely part of the chain of command?). "I've been going over the calculations, and..."
"Yes, I received the information from the science department earlier," Hammond said, indicating a nearby elevator as the doors opened, Sam and Spike walking into the elevator after him as he pressed a button for an upper level. "They informed me you have additional concerns about power?"
"Hold on; additional concerns?" Spike said, looking sharply at Sam. "I thought you said this would take less power-"
"I underestimated how much power was lost during the fight against the Ori ships," Sam clarified, looking briefly at Spike before focusing her attention back on Hammond. "I'm sorry, sir, but your ZPM was simply too over-taxed. I think I may have traded one power requirement problem for another."
"Not necessarily," Hammond said
As the doors opened, Spike was surprised to find himself facing a large number of men in suits, along with various paintings on the walls that he was fairly sure he'd never seen during his 'hauntings' of the SGC back in his reality (Which, considering that he'd covered virtually the whole base when he was bored, meant that this was probably another example of a difference between this world and theirs).
"Uh... what's with the suits?" Spike asked, as the two of them followed Hammond through the corridors.
"Secret service," Hammond clarified.
"Since when have you had secret service outside your office?" Sam asked, looking at the bald man in confusion.
"Hasn't been my office for three years," Hammond replied, before one of the men opened a door and showed them into the briefing room, revealing a variety of unfamiliar men in a combination of suits and formal military uniforms gathered around the table, with a man Spike quickly recognised dressed in an unfamiliar formal suit at the head of the table.
"Colonel!" this world's Hank Landry said, walking down from the other end of the table to smile at Sam before his expression faltered slightly as he looked at the other new arrival. "Mr... Spike. Good to finally meet you."
"Colonel Carter, Mr Spike," Hammond said, "meet President Hank Landry."
"President?" Sam repeated, looking at Landry in surprise. "Of the United States?"
"That's right," Landry replied, looking between the three people before him. "Is there a problem?"
"Let's just say things are... really different where we're from," Spike said, shrugging slightly awkwardly at the other man when Sam didn't reply immediately.
"I understand you're dealing with a little power shortage," Landry said, his attention back on Sam after a brief glance at Spike made it clear that the vampire wasn't going to elaborate. "How much do you need?"
"Uh, well, about 700 gigawatts," Sam replied. "That's roughly eighty percent of the power generating capacity of the continental United States."
"So, it's doable then," Landry said with a slight smile.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, looking uncomfortably at the man before her. "I don't understand."
"We've known about the condition of the ZPM for some time, Colonel," Hammond explained as Landry briefly turned aside to sign some papers that an aid had brought him. "In addition to our Major Carter's research, as a backup we've been building an infrastructure to channel energy to the Ancient chair directly from the U.S. power grid."
"Not enough to give us the upper hand in a shooting battle against a whole fleet," Landry said, as he led the three of them to the table, "but if your plan works, there won't be any battles at all."
He turned to address one of the nearest men, a tall man with white hair that Spike- and apparently Sam- didn't recognise. "Charlie, I need a speech explaining to the American people why it's a good thing they'll be without power for an undisclosed period of time."
"Yes sir," the other man said, walking off as Landry turned back to Sam.
"Pack your things," he said. "You're going to Area 51."
"We're going," Sam interjected firmly, indicating Spike before Landry could turn away.
Spike might be apprehensive about leaving the SGC- for all that it wasn't the one he'd grown used to, it was still what he'd grown used to-, but he had to be grateful for that announcement; the last thing he wanted was to be cut off from the only person he really knew here.
The people at the SGC might not have done anything 'wrong' yet, but the stories Spike had heard about Willow's vampire double were enough to make him more than slightly nervous about the possibility of him being left on his own in an alternate universe...
The flight to Area 51 hadn't been as bad as it could have been- Sam had been able to subtly delay their departure until it was dark to ensure that nobody realised what Spike was due to his reaction to sunlight, and Spike had managed to grab a couple of quick snacks in the form of the blood bags from the infirmary without anyone noticing-, but Spike quickly came to the conclusion that he wasn't that wild about being stuck here any more than he had enjoyed being stuck at the SGC.
Admittedly, there was something kind of cool about learning that all the theories everyone had out there about Area 51 were pretty much right- it really was the location where the government worked on alien technology-, but there still wasn't that much he could do apart from help Sam carry the equipment right now; Lee was being more of a help to her right now as they set up the device near some large crystal-throne-like thing, along with various assorted other scientists that Spike had never seen before. They'd apparently completed the last connection a few minutes ago, but there were still some last-minute technical details about voltage requirement and storage capacity that needed to be straightened out before they were ready to start channelling everything into this gizmo...
"My fellow Americans and citizens of all nations," Landry's voice said from a television set that someone had set up nearby, "tonight our world faces a grave threat. The same hostile forces that recently attacked us without warning or provocation are again massing for another assault. Let me assure you that we intend to meet this aggression as we did previously with unwavering resolve and fully confident that we will once again emerge victorious. In order to achieve this victory, we will need to divert a significant portion of our electrical generating capacity to a government facility in the Nevada desert..."
"OK," Lee said, as though Landry's words had been a cue for him to make a statement as he looked up from his position crouching alongside the throne-thing, "try it now."
"We're still getting too much variance," Sam said, shaking her head after she briefly tapped a few keys on her keyboard.
"Damn it..." Lee muttered, before heading over to another computer that was also linked up to the device. "Uh, give me a sec."
Glancing over at the television screen as Landry's speech continued, Spike wondered how the supernatural world was coping with these events; were they trying to rally witches to carry out some kind of whacky last-minute ritual that might be able to fend off the Ori, or were they trying to find some way to evacuate Earth through a dimensional portal if they couldn't save it?
It was useless to speculate, of course- it wasn't like he'd ever know for sure what the answer was-, but that didn't mean he couldn't wonder...
"...believe, that out of adversity, greatness is born," Landry said, Spike turning his attention back to the television out of a lack of anything else to maintain his interest right now. "And with your help, we will emerge from this stronger, and more unified than ever before. Thank you, and God bless us all."
"That's it," Lee said, standing back from his laptop and walking around the desk to another computer to Sam's left. "All systems are in the green."
"All right," Sam said, turning her attention to the same computer. "Let's plug it in."
"Allow me," Spike said, stepping forward to press a button on the laptop in front of them before Lee could do it himself- if he'd come this far, he was going to do something to help out, no matter how small it was in the overall scale of things-, stepping back to watch as the screen apparently displaying their current power output on top of a diagram of the United States began to rise, a section that seemed to be focused on their current location displaying an ever-increasing number even as they watched.
Spike may not know how much they needed, but he had to admit that he liked the way things were looking for them so far...
"Colonel," Hammond's voice suddenly said over the radio, his tone a harsh, abrupt one that put Spike uncomfortably in mind of a frustrated Angelus, "you're out of time."
"We're almost there, sir," Sam replied, looking upwards at the apparent source of the voice. "Capacitors are loading."
"Seventy-five percent and climbing!" Lee said, glancing at the power input screen
"It's now or never, Colonel," Hammond said again.
"This is an all or nothing proposition, sir," Sam countered. "If we initiate without sufficient power, the field will just collapse."
"We're at eighty-five percent," Lee added, still studying the screen with increasing anxiety. "Ninety... ninety-two... it's slowing down; we're not going to make it!"
"Your position is about to be compromised!" Hammond yelled over the radio. "Colonel?"
"Ninety-three percent," Lee said, turning to look at Sam and Spike after another period of staring at the display showed no sign that it was going to get any higher. "That's got to be close enough."
"I guess we're about to find out," Sam said.
"Heigh-ho, here we go," Spike said, crossing his fingers out of a lack of anything else to do as Sam activated the device and a brilliant blue wave burst from it at a far more rapid rate than anything Spike had witnessed the device produce before.
"So... did it work?" he asked, looking curiously at Sam after a few moments of apprehensive silence had gone by, only for his question to be apparently answered when the entire lab was suddenly filled by some kind of golden energy, the effect putting Spike in mind of some kind of energy waterfall due to the pattern in the 'light' before it vanished.
"Whoa, wow, what the hell was that?" Lee asked, jumping back in shock at what they'd just witnessed.
"Ori weapons fire, passing right through us!" Sam said, smiling broadly.
"Yes!" Spike said, raising one hand to give Sam a high-five before Lee, grinning like a maniac, suddenly pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, only to step back with an embarrassed grin as he realised what he'd just done.
"So... how long can we stay like this?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at her.
"It shouldn't take long; the Ori aren't going to wait around when they don't understand what we've done," Sam said, smiling slightly at him. "Once they've given up and left, we can turn it off and get back to work on getting ourselves home."
Spike bit back his automatic retort that it was never going to be that easy; that had been more effective when he'd had potential alternatives, even if they were basically selfish ones, but right now all he wanted to do was get back home himself...
Just once, would it be possible for the universe to prove him wrong and make it easy for them to get home?