Why did it have to be…

"He's disruptive of our plans," a higher being noted, one of hundreds of gathered beings all floating over the Pacific Ocean in the form of clouds.

"Janus is planning a large celebration on All Hallows' Eve," another brought up. "The resulting chaos would be perfect for finding a way to remove him."

"He has the favor of Janus," they pointed out, "he would hardly favor his removal, especially since I have heard he was considering setting his daughter up with him."

"As long as nothing has been finalized we have a chance to convince him," a voice spoke. "Janus is known to prefer 'happy endings', so long as we hold to that, he'll offer little complaint to us moving his favorite elsewhere." Having said their piece they dispersed their physical form and vanished.

Lightning played amongst the clouds as they watched the empty sea below them absorb the fury of the storm they were inhabiting.

"That was Janus, wasn't it?" a small cloud asked.

"Yes, it was," another answered.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Xander looked about him in confusion for a moment before he remembered... everything! Well everything in his genetic line at least and that of the alien who he had displaced. To say he was disturbed was putting it mildly, but thanks to memories of various self meditation, control, and centering exercises he was able to quietly push down his rising panic.

Xander calmly took stock of his situation. He was replacing an alien, who was pretending to be a god, under another alien on a planet far from Earth and they had just captured a party of Tauri... those were U.S. Soldiers, Xander realized as he put facts together from two different sets of memory. "I have them," Xander told the Jaffa. "Return their weapons and go about your patrol."

"My lord?" the Jaffa in charge asked confused.

"I am a god, I need no protection," Xander said arrogantly. "Do you doubt my word?"

"No Lord Anotet," the Jaffa replied and quickly followed orders leaving Xander alone with an armed and confused SG1.

"We gotta get out of here before one of the other local 'gods' realizes something is wrong," Xander said. waving for them to follow and heading directly towards the Stargate.

He set a quick pace, not giving them enough time, or leaving them with enough breath, to ask any questions. They reached the Stargate in just a couple of minutes. Naturally it was being guarded by a squad of Jaffa and one of his 'brothers'.

"Fuck," Xander muttered, not out of breath at all thanks to his greater stamina. "Play loyal and subservient while I handle this."

"Why are we following you?" Jack managed to gasp out.

"Best option at the moment," Xander replied honestly, "You're armed and free in hostile territory but that's better than disarmed and captive."

"Fair enough, Mi'lord," Jack said sarcastically as they approached the Stargate.

"Jaffa kree!" Xander shouted out as they approached close enough for the Jaffa to see the Stargate team were still armed.

"What is the meaning of this?" Arnet demanded suspiciously on seeing the murderous Tauri armed and acting subservient to his brother.

"You've done your job so poorly I simply had to-" Xander stepped forward and brought his knee up right into Arnet's crotch lifting him half a foot and stunning him long enough to grab his head and twist.

*CRACK!*

The Jaffa watched in shock as their 'god' fell dead to the ground, slain by his brother.

"Take him to get reborn," Xander ordered as he started dialing an address into the gate.

The Jaffa, used to obeying, rushed to comply, leaving Xander and SG1 alone in the clearing as the wormhole formed.

Xander stepped through the wormhole, took three steps, and collapsed to the ground. "Oh, thank god that worked!"

"What just happened?" Daniel asked, the young archeologist having caught his breath.

"I rescued you," Xander said lying on the ground and staring up at the sky as the wormhole shut down.

"Are you Tok'ra?" Sam asked, that being the most likely explanation she could think of.

"Still unscrambling my memory here," Xander replied, noting how Teal'c and Jack were pointing their weapons not quite in his direction. "Tok'ra is what I am philosophically though I'm not part of their group."

"Scrambled memory?" Jack asked.

"Genetic memory is a bitch to deal with," Xander replied, "It's no wonder the Goa'uld as a whole are insane."

"How do you figure?" Jack asked as Sam and Daniel tended to everyone's wounds, thankfully minor.

"Imagine remembering what Grandma's pie tastes like," Xander explained.

"That doesn't seem so bad," Daniel said.

"From Grandpa's point of view," Xander hinted.

"Oh," Daniel said wincing as he realized they weren't talking about baked goods.

"Ouch," Jack said as Sam made a face.

"Yeah, now realize that includes both sides of the memory and goes back forever," Xander said.

"So you helped us just because it was the right thing to do?" Sam asked, trying to change the subject as her high intelligence came with a vivid imagination that she sometimes regretted.

"Bingo," Xander said slowly getting to his feet. "Thankfully being a paranoid, evil, parasite has its advantages, as I had escape plan and supplies ready for an emergency."

"Swell, then if you don't mind we'll just head on home now," Jack said, not trusting the Goa'uld, but not about to make any hostile moves against one who'd rescued his team either, even if standard SOP included kill or capture orders for any and all Goa'uld.

"Go right ahead," Xander said. "It was nice meeting you and if I'm ever in the neighborhood I'll look you up."

Jack chuckled, much to his own surprise. "You do that.

Sam dialed Earth and sent the code for her team while Teal'c stood ready to fire in case this was part of an elaborate trap.

"Later," Xander said and strode off in search of the hidden space craft Anonet had traded a number of slaves to Loki for.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Any word on Buffy?" Willow asked Xander anxiously.

"Relax Wills," Xander said wrapping his arms around her. "I got her on the phone and she said she was fine, she got home safely and was going to bed early. She'll see us in the morning."

"Thank goodness," Willow said relaxing for a moment before she realized what was pressed up against her. Xander was responding to her? Gathering her courage she reached up and pulled his face down to hers and kissed him and he responded!

They made out for half an hour before Xander admitted to being exhausted and needing some sleep and promising to meet up again for breakfast. Once Willow was safely at home and Xander had gotten out of line of sight of her house his form shifted from one step to the next and a turned on and confused Buffy Summers hurried home while cursing Mystique for taking Xander's place on Halloween after seeing him unconscious on the ground.

She really didn't know what to do. She'd come back to herself while wearing Xander's form and didn't want to worry Willow about whether Xander was OK or not, especially since she was so concerned about her. She decided to go find Xander and let him know he was dating Willow now, even if she had to... convince him.

Completely retaining all of Mystique's powers and memories and completely unaware of how it was affecting her, Buffy Summers went looking for a certain dark haired teen planning to seduce him.

Sunnydale General

"He's in pretty bad shape, he was run over at least twice and his face is completely unrecognizable," the admitting nurse explained. "There's no ID, which is no surprise as there's no pockets in the Egyptian outfit he was wearing. We're labeling him as John Doe for the moment. We should be able to identify him when he's reported missing."

"Hook him up to an EEG; his jaw may be shattered, but he can still write when, and if, he regains consciousness," the on call doctor ordered, before moving on to the next case, a guy in a wolfman outfit with a shoe lodged in his colon.

Typing by: Abyssal Angel