Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & Stargate Atlantis: Post 01x15 "Before I Sleep".
Disclaimer: Anything copyrighted belongs to its legal owners.
Author's Note: Written for Day 3 of the 2023 August Fic-A-Day.

...This is Sheppard's POV of the first chapter...

"What do you mean you found someone else in a stasis chamber?" Major John Sheppard was going through some of the inevitable paperwork that always seemed to triple every time he looked away for even a second.

"Exactly what I said, we've been going through more of the labs and rooms in the City, and there's another woman in a stasis chamber. You need to come down here." He kept rambling on, but John was already shutting down his computer and getting up off his chair. Anything was better than paperwork. Well, almost anything.

"I'll be there in a few minutes, Rodney."

A short trip in a Transporter later and he was soon standing inside another one of the many, many labs in the City of the Ancients. Teyla and Elizabeth were already there, and McKay was impatiently waiting for him to arrive.

"Nice of you to join us, Major."

He was about to give a sarcastic reply to the acerbic scientist but stopped abruptly when he got a better look at the woman in the stasis chamber. "She looks a lot younger than the Old Elizabeth. How long has she been in there?"

"Very observant of you, Major Sheppard," McKay replied dryly. "According to the initial data I have accessed she's been in that chamber for ten thousand years; the same as the other Elizabeth."

The present-day Dr. Weir joined the conversation, "How is it possible for her to still look like she's in her mid-twenties? The other me appeared to be around a hundred years old. This woman doesn't seem to have aged at all."

"I don't know. The Ancients' technology is so far ahead of our own that I couldn't even begin to guess."

While they had been talking Dr. Beckett and Lt. Ford had joined them.

"Are we going to revive her to get some answers, or are we just going to stand around and talk about her?"

It took another few minutes for Dr. McKay to open the chamber and for it to deactivate and revive the young-looking woman inside it. Meanwhile, the six of them just stood in a loose half-circle around her, waiting for her to show any signs of life.

Abruptly she opened her eyes and stood up straighter as she stretched a little while she simultaneously first gave them a quick threat assertion before giving the rest of the room an even shorter survey before returning her attention to them. Unexpectedly she smiled politely and said, "Hello. It's rude to gawk at people. Especially when they have just woken up from a very long nap."

Beside him, Elizabeth naturally took control of the situation, "Hello. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir." She gestured first to one side of herself and then the other as she introduced everyone in the room, "These people are Dr. Carson Beckett, Major John Sheppard, Dr. Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, and Lt. Aiden Ford." Each of them gave a shallow nod or other greeting as their name was said.

Her response was an equally polite but superficial smile. Essentially what his father used to call a business smile you gave people you either didn't know or weren't certain you were going to like. Or in other words, a fake smile.

"Our apologies if we appeared to be rude. We didn't expect to find anyone else in the remaining stasis chambers."

Finding the other Elizabeth had been a shock. They had expected the City and some of its wonders and hoped for a lot more, but mainly they had anticipated a lot of highly advanced technology. Coming across a ten-thousand-year-old alternate version of their civilian commander was not part of any of their expectations. Neither was finding a woman none of them recognized.

While Dr. Weir was speaking, the woman walked out of the stasis chamber and into the room properly where she gave herself a good stretch to work out some of the kinks staying completely still for 10 millennia had probably given her.

Everyone else moved back to give her space automatically. Both John and Lt. Ford gripped their P-90 instinctively, just in case. Just because she was even smaller than Teyla didn't mean she was harmless. On the contrary, anyone who had sparred with the Athosian knew she was anything but harmless.

As she didn't make any attempt to introduce herself, he decided to move it forward, "Who are you?"

Except, McKay wasn't someone who was capable of being silent for very long, and naturally he added in his own questions. "Why don't you look a hundred years old like the old Elizabeth did? And why are you wearing jeans and not those Ancient tunic things?"

John's brow furrowed, what jeans? He looked down at the woman's legs, and sure enough, she was wearing a pair of well-worn blue jeans. In his peripheral view, he saw most of the others drop their eyes to check as well. It was an oddly specific thing for the scientist to notice since normally someone could pretty much wear a paper bag and he wouldn't have known.

She wasted a genuine smile on McKay before she began answering their questions, "In order of asking; My name is Buffy Summers. Classified. My jeans are much more comfortable and stylish."

"Classified? CLASSIFIED?!" He couldn't help but tense. That was an answer McKay would not accept, and he would be whining about it until he either got an answer he was willing to accept or someone made him stop. If the latter happened, he would probably be sulking for weeks.

Not that John himself was willing to take that as a real answer either, but there were other more proper ways to get her to tell them that didn't involve anyone yelling. Hopefully.

"Yes, Dr. McKay. Classified. Since you're surrounded by military people that should be a concept you're familiar with."

"If I may ask a question," Teyla interjected as she gave Summers a questioning look, and John gave her a small smile for having averted yet another McKay shouting match. At least for now.

Summers gave her an affirmative nod, and Teyla went on. "It appears as if you knew the other Dr. Elizabeth Weir. May we assume you were here in Atlantis when she arrived in the past 10,000 years ago?"

"You may."

A warning look from Teyla caused Rodney to close his mouth as quickly as he had opened it. John really needed to learn that trick, especially since it seemed to be effective on a lot of people, and not just on McKay.

"Are you an Alteran or did you arrive in the past in the same time machine as the alternate Dr. Weir?" All of them gave her their full attention. The Old Elizabeth hadn't said anything about any other time travelers, but that didn't mean there hadn't been any. She'd had limited time and rapidly declining health. Telling them about Summers would've distracted them unnecessarily.

"That's a negatory on both. I had been living on Atlantis for a while when her gateship crashed into the ocean outside the shield though."

They all stared at her. McKay's device had already told them that she'd been in the stasis chamber for the same amount of time as Old Elizabeth, but still. "The Old Elizabeth had aged into a very old lady, but you still look 25ish. Telling us the reason is classified when whoever you reported to had probably been dead for ten millennia makes no sense.

"It does if you didn't make a very big assumption."

John raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

Instead of giving a straight answer, she asked a question. "Have you heard of a town called Sunnydale?"

Surprised, he just shook his head. Summers sought out eye contact with everyone else in the room, but it was crystal clear that the name was unknown to all of them.

Dr. Beckett finally found his voice and asked, "Is that your homeworld?"

Summers shook her head and her blonde hair bounced around her head, "No, it's a town I lived in back on Earth. I asked because in my timeline or reality or whatever, it sank into a crater in 2003. It would've been kind of hard to miss since it was very sudden and made headlines for weeks. I just wanted to check if I had returned to where I'm supposed to be or if I'm still in the wrong place."

"It's 2006 if that helps. But I guess you're in the wrong something since none of us know what you're talking about, and we can't get into contact with Earth so we can't ask them either."

Her posture slumped a little at Ford's reply, but John was a little more preoccupied with his subordinate's information dump and he gave the younger man a small glare.

"Does that mean you're from Earth or that you have just visited there in the" Elizabeth hesitated for a split second while clearly debating if it would be rude or not, "the past?"

Deciding to interject again, McKay asked, "Where's Sunnydale?"

"Yes," Summers responded calmly, "I'm from Earth. Specifically from Los Angeles, at least originally. Sunnydale is about a two-hour drive northwest of there."

This wasn't getting them where he wanted the conversation to go, at least not quickly, so it was time to change tactics. "How about you go and get checked over by Dr. Beckett, and once he gives you the clear we can continue this little chat in one of the conference rooms."

She clearly hadn't expected that, "Why does he need to perv on me?"

It was John's turn to be confused, and a look around at the other men in the room proved that he wasn't the only one who had lost track of the conversation.

"He meant a medical check, not anything uncouth," Elizabeth soothed their... guest? "They are standard for anyone who has been off-world, or, in your case, is new to us. It's just to make sure you're healthy and don't carry anything dangerous to us."

"Oh." She looked a little sheepish at her misunderstanding, but obediently followed Carson to the door once she understood what was expected of her.

She stopped in the doorway and turned around halfway, "I will only consent to a medical check, no tests that I am not informed of in advance."

"Of course," both Dr. Weir and Dr. Beckett agreed.

When she turned around again and walked out, John inclined his head to Lt. Ford, and he followed their CMO and time-traveling guest over to Carson's domain.