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: I decided to skip over the scene where Sam witnessed the news report about the F-302 bombings in Ireland, but I hope you like what I decided to include instead... or rather, WHO I decided to include instead...

AN 2: We open this chapter from the perspective of someone we've briefly seen before, but have patience as far as the lack of identification goes; I'll reveal their identity before this chapter's over

The Ghost in the Team

Crouching outside the large office building, she couldn't believe that her target had done this; even if Spike had somehow found some way around the sunlight issue- seeing him in sunlight had brought back some unpleasant memories, even if she knew that there was no way he could do that again-, how the hell had he managed to acquire the kind of clearance necessary to accompany America's single greatest hero anywhere?

She wasn't sure what was more shocking right now, really; the fact that Spike was alive and in this kind of position of power, or the fact that nobody she'd spoken to seemed to be willing or able to tell her where he'd come from. For a moment she thought about her old contacts, but quickly rejected that as an option; anyone who might be able to tell her anything useful from that time of her life had pretty much disdained contact with her after she'd taken her new path.

It wasn't like she needed them most of the time, anyway- if they'd had trouble with what she'd chosen to do with her life, that was their own fault for not recognising what had to be done in this new world-, but there were a few moments...

Shaking that thought off, she turned her attention back to the matter at hand, her eye narrowing grimly as she stared at the building in front of her.

She'd let Spike and his 'squeeze'- a part of her didn't like to think of anyone that important to the rest of the world succumbing to Spike's 'charms', but she knew that anything was possible in the mess they lived in now- finish their meeting, let them lower their guard as they left, and then...

She clenched her hand with a resolute grin.

Once he was outside, Spike was going to learn what a serious mistake he'd made in coming back from wherever he'd been after she'd last dealt with him...

As she stood impatiently in the office of McKay's counterpart in this world- an excessively elaborate and modern bit of architecture with a window for one wall that looked out over a larger office area and various architectural sketches on the other three walls, along with statues that Sam thought might be modern art even if her time with Daniel had left her more inclined towards more classic examples when examining statues or paintings-, Sam couldn't believe that this was what she'd come to; having to contact Doctor Rodney McKay for assistance because she couldn't count on anyone else from the world that she was currently trapped in (She might trust Spike, but he couldn't actually contribute anything that would solve this problem, even if his presence behind her as he idly studied the various sketches on the walls leant her a strangely reassuring strength).

However, regardless of how difficult it might be to get back, she had to take action if she was going to get anywhere; the news report that she'd witnessed earlier about F-302 bombings in Ireland had only reinforced how different this world was compared to the situation back home. The people at the SGC might have started out with the same intentions as her world, but everything she'd seen so far made it obvious that they'd lost their way; even General Hammond and President Landry, two men that she'd been convinced could be counted on to do the right thing regardless of the personal cost, seemed more concerned with maintaining their power and image rather than actually doing anything positive to bring Earth back to what it had been before their paths diverged from each other

She might be just about able to accept Hammond's story that the village in Ireland had been bombed because it was the location of a terrorist group- F-302s were an excessive response, but a part of her wanted to convince the rest that the terrorists might have acquired alien technology, but that didn't change the fact that the SGC had pulled back on all offworld resources to focus exclusively on their commitments to Earth, particularly when their only defence was that there were still threats out there.

Didn't they understand that if they didn't take action to stop the Ori expanding into the rest of the galaxy now, they'd inevitably find themselves under siege? She could almost have suspected that Kinsey had played a part in the development of this new policy, but apparently the former Vice-President had been arrested and sent to prison as a scapegoat for delaying the SGC's response to the threat posed by Anubis; Sam wasn't sure if his lack of involvement made it more or less depressing.

Still, as much as what she kept learning about this world disturbed her, she wasn't going to give into the potential trap of thinking that she could make this world better. Right now, her first priority was to get Spike and herself back to her world; the only thing that she was in this reality was a symbol rather than a soldier against the Ori, to say nothing of her continued existence in this world preventing anyone from actually mourning for her counterpart.

As strange and warped as it might sound, she wanted people to know that her other self was dead; her hanging around and staying alive wasn't going to help anyone who'd known the other her get over the fact that the Samantha Carter they'd known wasn't coming back, and her trying to fit into her other self's role long-term just wasn't practical on any level.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice said, prompting Sam to turn around as McKay's counterpart walked into the room, wearing small glasses and dressed in a smarter shirt than anything Sam had ever seen 'her' McKay wear, "if it isn't the toast of Washington... and her ever-present shadow."

"I do my job," Spike said, his gaze neutral under his glasses as he glared at the other man.

"Hi, Rodney," Sam said, smiling politely at him in the hope that she could draw attention away from Spike; the last thing they wanted was someone paying too much attention to Spike. "Thank you for seeing me."

"Well, why wouldn't I?" McKay said, his hands behind his back as he smiled at her in the self-satisfied manner that Sam had almost forgotten 'her' McKay had possessed (It was funny how you forgot what people used to be like on the first meeting after a while). "I mean, we're still friends, aren't we? Saw you on TV… well, recorded you, actually…not that I-I watched it more than once… I mean, I recorded it in order to… watch you once…"

Looking at him wince as he babbled awkwardly, Sam wondered if this would be more or less awkward if she'd been the Sam he thought she was; considering that she still wasn't entirely clear why they'd divorced in this reality- nobody who knew the truth about her 'transference' had known those kind of details and she wasn't keen to ask any more people about it than she had to in case they started asking the wrong questions-, but quickly resolved to ignore that thought; it wasn't going to help her.

"How can I help you?" McKay asked, clearly trying to collect back some of his nearly lost dignity.

"Well, this is going to come as a bit of a shock, but... I'm not who you think I am," Sam said; hopefully McKay would appreciate the direct approach that he often delivered to others.

"Oh my God, you're a lesbian!" McKay said, his eyes widening behind his glasses. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?

"What?" Sam said, looking incredulously at him; how McKay could jump to an assumption like that she had no idea (A part of her wondered if it could be possible, but pushed it aside; even if other versions of her might have 'experimented', she was confident that this timeline hadn't diverged from hers at a point where her other self would have tried something like that).

"I mean, I've got nothing against the lifestyle- I've got this one new programmer; brilliant with computers but lives with this very 'New Age' woman-, but-" McKay continued, looking at her in what was probably meant to be a reassuring manner.

"I'm not a lesbian, McKay!" Sam said, glaring at the Canadian; she briefly registered Spike move slightly towards McKay as he spoke, a somewhat startled expression on his face, but he stepped back without saying anything.

"Well, no," McKay said, his hand waving awkwardly around as he tried to come up with a better way of saying what he was trying to say. "I-I-just… I think... I thought, uh… hmm..."

"Don't stoop to the 'worst' scenario, you prick," Spike said, glaring firmly at the Canadian scientist as he raised a warning finger. "If you do, I will hurt you."

"Hold on; are you with-?" McKay began to say again, only to halt when Spike removed his glasses and glared at the other man, the sheer intensity of his stare forcing even McKay into silence.

"Spike is... a friend," Sam said, looking at McKay with a resolute expression that made it clear that she wouldn't accept further discussion about that topic. "What we are trying to tell you right now is... well, he and I are from an alternate universe."

"Huh?" McKay said, his tone and expression both relatively non-committal, as though he was waiting to see what else she had to say before he said anything else.

"Your Samantha Carter was working on an experiment when she inadvertently pulled me in," Sam clarified.

"This some kind of a joke?" McKay said, smiling slightly as he walked around to the other side of his desk. "It's very funny. Who put you up to this?"

"This is not a joke, McKay," Sam said, staring firmly at him as he stood casually on the other side of the glass desk in the room. "In my reality, you're a key member of a team of international scientists and explorers based in the Pegasus Galaxy. You go on dangerous adventures. You deal with high level alien technology."

"Hmm. Sounds like, um, I'm a chump," McKay said, smirking slightly at what he'd just heard.

"I'll show you who's a sodding chump, you arrogant git..." Spike muttered under his breath, his fists clenching as he glared at McKay.

"Nice try, Sam," McKay said- either he hadn't noticed the sudden tension around Spike's appearance or he had dismissed it as irrelevant-, "but, uh, even if travel between universes was possible, the likelihood of you two surviving is, uh..."

"Spike and I were in a force shield when we were pulled through," Sam said, giving McKay a moment to process that new information before she continued speaking. "Your Samantha Carter was killed in the same accident that brought us here. I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but I don't have a lot of time, and I need your help."

The bleak expression on McKay's face when he realised that she was telling the truth at least reassured them that they'd made the right impact, but that still left her facing the evidence of what she'd already told herself for the first time; her other self was never going to find the peace she needed if she was hanging around pretending to be her counterpart, depriving everyone who'd known her of the chance to accept her death.

If only to give her other self the peace she deserved, she had to get home...

"Okay, you need to slow down," McKay said; he'd been listening to Sam explaining her story for the last few minutes while Spike stood slightly off to the side- he was dividing his attention between the door, the windows and Sam to ensure that he was aware of anything that might threaten them while McKay paced around the room-, but clearly he wanted clarification from his own assessment rather than relying exclusively on their side. "You're telling me my ex-wife is dead even though you look exactly like her- except for the hair, which is nice, by the way- and on top of that, you and your bodyguard are from another universe, and you need me to help you get back?"

As much as he found the guy annoying as a person, Spike had to admit that McKay didn't seem to be that bad as a scientist; he might be confused at the implications of what they were telling him, but at least he wasn't dismissing the whole concept as impossible.

"In our reality," Sam clarified, "you successfully designed and built a bridge between parallel universes…with a little help from your sister."

"He did?" Spike asked, looking over at Sam in surprise.

"Shortly before you joined us, actually," Sam clarified, looking over at Spike by way of explanation.

"I did?" McKay said, looking curiously at Sam after hearing this new information. "What, so, uh, she and I get along in your universe?"

"Not exactly," Sam said.

"Oh," McKay said, his expression becoming slightly more depressed at that news.

"Anyway," Sam continued, turning the conversation back to the original topic, "I've been trying my best to recreate your calculations, but I keep coming up short. That's why I'm here."

"I have not done a lot of theoretical physics, lately, okay?" McKay said, holding up a hand in protest. "I mean, these days I tend to do a little more of the, uh, buying and selling of companies!"

"The Rodney McKay I know wouldn't back down from a challenge," Sam said, staring firmly at the other man. "He is one of the most forthright, courageous, and... selfless men I have ever met."

"Mmm?" McKay said, smiling slightly at that description of himself before he looked directly at Sam and the grin faltered. "Aw, you're making that up, aren't you?"

"Most of it, yeah," Sam admitted.

"OK, I'll help you," McKay said, rolling his eyes as he walked back around to sit behind his desk. "Just send me your calculations, and... I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Sam said, smiling warmly at him. "I'll just go and get them; I didn't want to bring anything now in case you decided against it..."

"Besides," Spike added- anything to add to his 'professional reputation', after all-, moving in closer to Sam just to make sure, "these government types get jittery if we're away for too long; know what I mean?"

"Yeah, sure; I... uh, see you soon?" McKay said, looking slightly awkwardly yet hopefully at the two of them as they turned and left the office, heading for the elevator that would take them back to the ground floor.

"Well," Spike said, looking over at Sam with a slight smile as the doors closed behind them and the elevator began to descend, "that went well, right?"

"Considering how things could have gone, it went better than I might have expected," Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked over at Spike. "The first time I met McKay, he had several flawed theories about the Stargate that he was convinced were correct despite the fact that he'd never even seen the Stargate before we met; he kept on trying to tell everyone who'd listen that what we were trying to do would just destroy the Stargate and there wasn't any point to what we were doing anyway..."

"What were you trying to do?" Spike asked, looking curiously at her.

"Basically, we were trying to get Teal'c out of the Stargate's memory storage system," Sam explained, smiling slightly when Spike looked at her in confusion at her description. "We'd been under attack by a Goa'uld with a personal history with Teal'c- he'd killed a Jaffa priestess that Teal'c was in love with-, and Teal'c shot at his ship with a staff cannon we'd acquired before he retreated back through the Stargate. Unfortunately, something disrupted the Stargate at the other end- we think that the ship crashed into the other Stargate when it was destroyed- with the result that the wormhole disconnected before Teal'c came through the other end, leaving him basically stuck in the Stargate's memory. We had to move the iris on our Stargate back a few micrometres so that the gate would register as being 'buried' to prevent Teal'c's data being lost when a new wormhole was formed, but McKay's government contacts accepted his assessment that Teal'c's pattern had already started to degrade and would be past the point of recovery after two days."

"I'm guessing that was wrong?" Spike asked, smiling slightly as the doors opened and they walked out of the building.

"Yes, it was," Sam replied, smiling back at him as they walked out of the building. "Not only did we rescue Teal'c, but we managed to capture a rogue colonel who'd acquired a Goa'uld a few months back and was trying to pump it for information; he genuinely seemed to think that we wouldn't realise where he got his information from-"

Further conversation was cut short when Spike felt something suddenly violently enter his right arm- he was suddenly glad he wasn't wearing his usual coat; the bodyguard suit might be nice, but at least he could get a new version of it if the situation required him to-, followed by whatever-it-was yanking him across the thankfully-quiet street into an alley on the opposite side of the road, where he found himself pinned to the ground and staring in horror at the figure who'd attacked him.

Her hair was cut in a severe manner that he'd never seen on her counterpart back in his world, she was dressed in a dark top and trousers that were far more severe than anything she'd worn back in Spike's world, and the cybernetic implant where her left eye had been would have been a shock even without the gleaming silver fist at the end of her left arm, but Spike would have recognised her under any circumstances.

"Buffy?" he said, his eyes widening in shock as he shook his glasses off, staring at this world's version of the woman he loved incredulously.

He'd read about the injuries she'd sustained fighting Glory in this reality, but that still didn't prepare him for the shock of actually seeing what she'd become here; the idea that she'd accept bloody artificial limbs, after all the crap she'd gone through with Adam (If he'd understood all that stuff about alternate worlds that Sam had told him, Buffy's life here probably matched what he knew before Anubis attacked), was just something he really hadn't expected...

"Bingo," Buffy said, her voice a cold, brutal tone that he'd never heard from her even on her worst day. "Now then, Spike-"

"Stop!" a voice said from off to the side; Spike wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or disturbed at the sight of Sam pointing a gun at Buffy that she must have been keeping in her bag or something (He was not going to be insulted at the thought of Sam packing some extra security; they were in a very complicated situation here and it was only natural, it was not a dig at his skills).

"You're trying to protect this thing?" Buffy said, looking at Sam as though the scientist was mentally handicapped. "Lady, you have no idea what this piece of shit-"

"I know who and what he is, neither of which you can know if you're doing this to him," Sam countered, glaring back at Buffy. "Whatever happened to the Spike you know, Spike isn't the same person-"

"He'll always be the same fucking person, Colonel Part-Brain," Buffy spat, staring in contempt at Sam before turning her attention back to Spike. "I don't know how you came back-"

"Came back?" Spike interjected, staring at Buffy in shock at this news. "I'm dead here?"