Fic: Hello Again (7/8)
Title: Hello Again, Ch. 07: Security Clearance.
Author: mirrored_illusions aka 3am_moonlight.
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Stargate Atlantis / Stargate SG-1. Small mention of Charmed.
Rating: Gen.
Word Count: 2,424 (chapter) / 10, 215 (complete).
Timeline: Post-Chosen / SGA: Post-Enemy At the Gate. No comics or books for either.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss and the Stargate 'verse belongs to MGM.
Summary: Buffy and Daniel have a not entirely pleasant phone conversation.
Author's Note: This follows 2017's "A Face Full of Dust", and this years ' Hello Again', ' Dinner and a Guessing Game', ' Correspondence', ' Unanswered Questions', ' Disasters and Teasing', and ' Helping Earth'.
Author's Note 2: Written for the 2018 August Fic-A-Day, Day 26.
The next morning began with an email from John, canceling their meeting that afternoon.
----------------------
From: j.sheppard@sgc.com
To: bas@idc.com
Subject: Rescheduling
I have to reschedule tonight's dinner because of meetings. Apparently, our spectacular return to the States warrants endless questioning from the higher-ups. Imagine that... I'll email you with a new date and time.
You didn't answer me earlier, how did you know I would be in San Francisco?
J.S.
--------------------
Oops, maybe she shouldn't have added that to the email. Oh well, too late to fix it now. The cancellation did mean that her night was free. Maybe she and Faith could go back to P3 tonight. Last night had been great and they had even made some overtures that might result in a working relationship with the club's owners. She typed a quick reply to John and sent it off.
Before she was able to make up her mind her phone rang, and when she picked it up off the table where she had left it when she logged onto her laptop, the display read 'Dr. D.J.'. Smiling she accepted the call, maybe she wouldn't be left to her own devices after all. "Good morning, Indiana Jones. How are you this fine morning?"
He despised being called that, but it was too much fun to rile him up. "Hello, Buffy. Do you happen to know anything about a missing dart? And half a dozen missing wraiths?" Business, it was then. She pouted a little, even knowing he couldn't see her.
"Hello to you, too."
"Buffy." It was remarkable how some people could make her name sound like both a warning and a reprimand at the same time, but her favorite archeologist always managed to add in sarcasm as well.
"I've told you; the IDC looks into incidents of unusual origin. Aliens and spaceships are definitely included in that." It obviously wasn't their main purpose, but aliens weren't new to them either.
"Aliens and all things related to them are the responsibility of the Stargate Program, *not* the IDC! I've told you that. Major Davis and everyone else has also told you that!" He drew a quick breath to get air into his lungs. "You have to return them to us."
Did she now? "I don't think so. It isn't like you can sue me or the IDC to get them back. We have a legal right to anything on Earth that can be considered to be a threat to the planet, as long as it isn't human or if it's somehow related to our work. The wrath and their ship don't originate on Earth or even this galaxy, so we're in the clear. Especially since we gave you an advance warning and then took care of what you couldn't." She so did not want to fight with Daniel, but she couldn't back down either.
She had done extensive research in the Council Libraries, looking for anything related to the Astria Porta, the Goa'uld, the Alterans or Ancients as John called them, and anything else related. It turned out many Slayers several thousand years ago had fought and killed Goa'uld during their tenure as the Chosen One. At one point there had even been 13 Slayers at the same time, battling the alien invaders in various locations around the world. Regrettably, there were no explanations as to how this had been accomplished. All the text said was that the additional Slayers had lived out their lives fighting evil, but the original line had continued through the 'real' Slayer. Which she took to mean that no new Slayers had been Chosen to take their place when they were killed, but instead the new Slayer had been Chosen after the last Chosen Slayer was killed.
In other words, it explained why there had not been any new Slayers after Willow activated all the Potentials in Sunnydale. The girls/women would fight and die, but the real Slayer line would continue through Faith when she was eventually killed. The only person Buffy had told was Faith since it directly concerned her. No one else needed to know.
"There's going to be someone official, probably some high ranking military person, contacting you or Dr. Giles if you don't cooperate. Most likely both. Just give them back and we can forget about this." His plea was honest, he genuinely didn't want her to get into trouble, but there was no reason for him to worry. A group of Watchers and some of the IDC lawyers had looked through their official agreement with the United States government and since there was a Slayer Dream involved, actually there had been a dozen, the case was squarely in their favor. There was nothing anyone could do, in fact, they could've confiscated everything they had been in contact with and there would still have been nothing the SGC or the US government could've done to prevent it.
Buffy heard him take a deep breath to continue his appeal and said, "Daniel," in an unyielding tone. He exhaled but didn't resume his monologue. "I understand what you're trying to say and the consequences you believe I'll be susceptible to if I don't comply, but the law is on my side. I can't give you the specifics, but if you or someone higher up give the president my name, especially if you say something like 'Buffy Summers of the IDC', or possibly use Giles' name instead, they'll tell you we have carte blanche and you need to back off."
To say she was shocked to learn the President knew her name was a major understatement, but in cases like this, it was immensely useful. If it ended up going that far up the chain she would probably never hear the end of it from the others, but what could she do? When the Scoobies had found out Willow and Dawn had teased her, but Xander's jealousy had reared it's ugly head for a while.
"...Buffy?" Right, because there was such a good chance of him letting that go without doing his best to make her confess her secrets. After a few moments of silence the man on the other end of the line went on, "Could Jack get this information? From you or the President?"
"Not without my approval. Or the approval of certain other people in the organization." 'Certain other people' being Faith and three other Slayers. Giles or Willow could spill the beans, but only under certain circumstances and satisfying anyone's curiosity didn't qualify. Yes, the secret got out on occasion, she was guilty of that herself, but deliberately going and telling people, especially military personnel or politicians, was a big no-no.
"Does Sheppard know what you do? Any of it, or how high your reach goes?" Wasn't that the million dollar question.
"He knows some of what we do, a very small part of it, or at least he thinks he does. But he's really even more clueless than you are." Yay, Buffy, vague-ing it up. Of course, John did know she Slew vampires, but not much else. He definitely didn't know about the POTUS knowing her name and she had no intention of telling him. She'd had no intention of telling Daniel either, and look what happened.
"Look, Daniel, let it go. You and the military will lose this, so please don't. You'll only make a mess and the last thing we need is for the wrong people to start looking into what we do. Dr. Col. Carter attempting to hack into our servers over a longer period of time was one thing, but if you pursue this you're going to give us the wrong kind of attention and that could end up becoming deadly for some of our members."
She heard Daniel breathe across the line while he contemplated her warning and the ramifications. Hopefully, he would respect what she'd told him and make the appropriate inquiries on the down-low to confirm her statements. He was a reasonable person most of the time, right?
"You're talking about organizations like the NID or the Trust." It was a statement more than a question, but she answered anyway.
"They're two of the issues, yes. But there are others. They don't have jurisdiction over us, but it won't stop them from trying to get it or to do something else unfortunate. And believe me, that would be very, very bad. For everyone." Just the thought of what they might do to Slayers or force the girls to do for them was enough to give her nightmares. It was one of the many problems with there being so many of them now. They could kill the monsters and protect people from them, but who was going to protect the Slayers from the humans?
"According to the IDC website, your specialty is rare artifacts. Specifically old and rare books. You've even given me copies of pages from some of them. How does that make the IDC or its employees interesting to any of the shadow organizations?" Okay, she'd walked right into that one.
"You're an archeologist, Daniel. Surely you know how rabid people can get over old stuff. I've read about people killing to steal both new and old artifacts, both for their value and to keep things from changing our perception of history, and stuff." That came out a little jumbled but he would understand what she meant.
"You're not. I get you know your way around certain artifacts, but there has to be more to it than that. You don't get a clearance like yours because you deal in old, valuable things. And you definitely don't get to use the leader of the country as a reference. Come on, Buffy. Give me something substantial."
"Short version; what we deal in is classified and on a need to know basis, and I'm sorry Daniel, but you don't need to know. If you're really, really lucky you'll never find out. I know you're curious and this conversation has probably made it a lot worse, but I can't tell you. So, please, just let it go. Getting read into what the IDC really does won't help you. Focus on the alien problems and leave me to deal with my issues."
Buffy was regretting picking up the phone more and more and if she didn't hang up soon, or at least get him to change subjects, she would end up saying something she shouldn't. So she tried a diversion.
"What happened to the gigantic evil spaceship?" Please, please let me direct this argument away from the things you're better off not knowing about she pleaded silently.
"You win, for now." He sounded a little resigned, but he had clearly decided to try again some other time. Probably in person, where he could read her body language for clues.
"The Superhive was destroyed by Sheppard and his team. He volunteered for a suicide mission but his team managed to get on board to stop him and find another solution. They detonated a bomb from the inside and then gated straight to the Alpha site just before it exploded. I'm sure he'll want to tell you the thrilling story in person after Jack and the IOA releases him from all the debriefs he'll have to go through." Buffy blinked. He *what*? John had some explaining to do when she got him somewhere private enough to talk about super-secret stuff and suicide missions. Not that he owned her any explanations, but still.
"Buffy?"
"Sorry. I didn't expect to hear John is willing to go that far to save Earth. It threw me for a moment."
"Right," Daniel replied, his habitual sarcasm was back. "You're on a first name basis with him but he still doesn't know any part of your name, does he? Why is that?"
"Um," Buffy replied intelligently. "No, but he's the one who sort-of insisted I use his first name." It had started out as an avoidance tactic back when he was just some random person who got attacked by some fanged Americans. Then it turned into a fun game, but maybe it was time to give it up now.
She and Faith wanted a tour of the Lost City of Atlantis, and that involved getting introduced to a lot of people, including some high-ranking officials. I.E. Colonels and Generals, including the much talked about Jack O'Neill. It wasn't like she could ask John to put his fingers in his ears and go 'la la la' every time she had to say her name. There was also the tour of the SGC and the likelihood that Willow would remember to call her something other than Buffy or Buff. Or anyone else starting to call her Supergirl or something. Oh well, it had been fun while it lasted.
"Right," Buffy echoed his earlier comment. "I need to properly introduce myself to him before someone else spoils the surprise for me. I guess the dinner or rather dessert he owes me a raincheck on will work."
"Any chance I can witness this?" Daniel sounded amused all of a sudden and she laughed.
"Sorry, Dr. Space Traveler. No audience for this one, but you can tag along for the Atlantis tour I'm going to get him to give me and a friend." Some extra eye-candy would definitely be of the good, it would also stop John from asking questions she didn't want to answer.
"Ah ha! So you really are curious about what we do!"
"Careful, Daniel, you're sounding way to gleeful over there. But yes, I'm curious about the not-so-Lost City and since John has been trying to get me there and the military clearly wants me to sign on, we'll get the tour. Especially now it's on Earth. Your underground bunker doesn't sound nearly as interesting." The last part was said in a teasing tone even if she meant it. She'd had enough of secret underground bunkers for a lifetime.
"Well, I guess I'll see you then. Jack is finally coming out of his latest debrief, so I'll talk to you later. Call me when you get a time and date for the tour." He barely waited for her to agree and then he hung up.
Buffy put the phone in her pocket and surveyed the room. Faith had gone home with someone the night before and hadn't returned yet, so it was just her. She smiled at her own reflection in the mirror across the room, that meant there was a shopping spree on her agenda for today!
Author: mirrored_illusions aka 3am_moonlight.
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Stargate Atlantis / Stargate SG-1. Small mention of Charmed.
Rating: Gen.
Word Count: 2,424 (chapter) / 10, 215 (complete).
Timeline: Post-Chosen / SGA: Post-Enemy At the Gate. No comics or books for either.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss and the Stargate 'verse belongs to MGM.
Summary: Buffy and Daniel have a not entirely pleasant phone conversation.
Author's Note: This follows 2017's "A Face Full of Dust", and this years ' Hello Again', ' Dinner and a Guessing Game', ' Correspondence', ' Unanswered Questions', ' Disasters and Teasing', and ' Helping Earth'.
Author's Note 2: Written for the 2018 August Fic-A-Day, Day 26.
The next morning began with an email from John, canceling their meeting that afternoon.
----------------------
From: j.sheppard@sgc.com
To: bas@idc.com
Subject: Rescheduling
I have to reschedule tonight's dinner because of meetings. Apparently, our spectacular return to the States warrants endless questioning from the higher-ups. Imagine that... I'll email you with a new date and time.
You didn't answer me earlier, how did you know I would be in San Francisco?
J.S.
--------------------
Oops, maybe she shouldn't have added that to the email. Oh well, too late to fix it now. The cancellation did mean that her night was free. Maybe she and Faith could go back to P3 tonight. Last night had been great and they had even made some overtures that might result in a working relationship with the club's owners. She typed a quick reply to John and sent it off.
Before she was able to make up her mind her phone rang, and when she picked it up off the table where she had left it when she logged onto her laptop, the display read 'Dr. D.J.'. Smiling she accepted the call, maybe she wouldn't be left to her own devices after all. "Good morning, Indiana Jones. How are you this fine morning?"
He despised being called that, but it was too much fun to rile him up. "Hello, Buffy. Do you happen to know anything about a missing dart? And half a dozen missing wraiths?" Business, it was then. She pouted a little, even knowing he couldn't see her.
"Hello to you, too."
"Buffy." It was remarkable how some people could make her name sound like both a warning and a reprimand at the same time, but her favorite archeologist always managed to add in sarcasm as well.
"I've told you; the IDC looks into incidents of unusual origin. Aliens and spaceships are definitely included in that." It obviously wasn't their main purpose, but aliens weren't new to them either.
"Aliens and all things related to them are the responsibility of the Stargate Program, *not* the IDC! I've told you that. Major Davis and everyone else has also told you that!" He drew a quick breath to get air into his lungs. "You have to return them to us."
Did she now? "I don't think so. It isn't like you can sue me or the IDC to get them back. We have a legal right to anything on Earth that can be considered to be a threat to the planet, as long as it isn't human or if it's somehow related to our work. The wrath and their ship don't originate on Earth or even this galaxy, so we're in the clear. Especially since we gave you an advance warning and then took care of what you couldn't." She so did not want to fight with Daniel, but she couldn't back down either.
She had done extensive research in the Council Libraries, looking for anything related to the Astria Porta, the Goa'uld, the Alterans or Ancients as John called them, and anything else related. It turned out many Slayers several thousand years ago had fought and killed Goa'uld during their tenure as the Chosen One. At one point there had even been 13 Slayers at the same time, battling the alien invaders in various locations around the world. Regrettably, there were no explanations as to how this had been accomplished. All the text said was that the additional Slayers had lived out their lives fighting evil, but the original line had continued through the 'real' Slayer. Which she took to mean that no new Slayers had been Chosen to take their place when they were killed, but instead the new Slayer had been Chosen after the last Chosen Slayer was killed.
In other words, it explained why there had not been any new Slayers after Willow activated all the Potentials in Sunnydale. The girls/women would fight and die, but the real Slayer line would continue through Faith when she was eventually killed. The only person Buffy had told was Faith since it directly concerned her. No one else needed to know.
"There's going to be someone official, probably some high ranking military person, contacting you or Dr. Giles if you don't cooperate. Most likely both. Just give them back and we can forget about this." His plea was honest, he genuinely didn't want her to get into trouble, but there was no reason for him to worry. A group of Watchers and some of the IDC lawyers had looked through their official agreement with the United States government and since there was a Slayer Dream involved, actually there had been a dozen, the case was squarely in their favor. There was nothing anyone could do, in fact, they could've confiscated everything they had been in contact with and there would still have been nothing the SGC or the US government could've done to prevent it.
Buffy heard him take a deep breath to continue his appeal and said, "Daniel," in an unyielding tone. He exhaled but didn't resume his monologue. "I understand what you're trying to say and the consequences you believe I'll be susceptible to if I don't comply, but the law is on my side. I can't give you the specifics, but if you or someone higher up give the president my name, especially if you say something like 'Buffy Summers of the IDC', or possibly use Giles' name instead, they'll tell you we have carte blanche and you need to back off."
To say she was shocked to learn the President knew her name was a major understatement, but in cases like this, it was immensely useful. If it ended up going that far up the chain she would probably never hear the end of it from the others, but what could she do? When the Scoobies had found out Willow and Dawn had teased her, but Xander's jealousy had reared it's ugly head for a while.
"...Buffy?" Right, because there was such a good chance of him letting that go without doing his best to make her confess her secrets. After a few moments of silence the man on the other end of the line went on, "Could Jack get this information? From you or the President?"
"Not without my approval. Or the approval of certain other people in the organization." 'Certain other people' being Faith and three other Slayers. Giles or Willow could spill the beans, but only under certain circumstances and satisfying anyone's curiosity didn't qualify. Yes, the secret got out on occasion, she was guilty of that herself, but deliberately going and telling people, especially military personnel or politicians, was a big no-no.
"Does Sheppard know what you do? Any of it, or how high your reach goes?" Wasn't that the million dollar question.
"He knows some of what we do, a very small part of it, or at least he thinks he does. But he's really even more clueless than you are." Yay, Buffy, vague-ing it up. Of course, John did know she Slew vampires, but not much else. He definitely didn't know about the POTUS knowing her name and she had no intention of telling him. She'd had no intention of telling Daniel either, and look what happened.
"Look, Daniel, let it go. You and the military will lose this, so please don't. You'll only make a mess and the last thing we need is for the wrong people to start looking into what we do. Dr. Col. Carter attempting to hack into our servers over a longer period of time was one thing, but if you pursue this you're going to give us the wrong kind of attention and that could end up becoming deadly for some of our members."
She heard Daniel breathe across the line while he contemplated her warning and the ramifications. Hopefully, he would respect what she'd told him and make the appropriate inquiries on the down-low to confirm her statements. He was a reasonable person most of the time, right?
"You're talking about organizations like the NID or the Trust." It was a statement more than a question, but she answered anyway.
"They're two of the issues, yes. But there are others. They don't have jurisdiction over us, but it won't stop them from trying to get it or to do something else unfortunate. And believe me, that would be very, very bad. For everyone." Just the thought of what they might do to Slayers or force the girls to do for them was enough to give her nightmares. It was one of the many problems with there being so many of them now. They could kill the monsters and protect people from them, but who was going to protect the Slayers from the humans?
"According to the IDC website, your specialty is rare artifacts. Specifically old and rare books. You've even given me copies of pages from some of them. How does that make the IDC or its employees interesting to any of the shadow organizations?" Okay, she'd walked right into that one.
"You're an archeologist, Daniel. Surely you know how rabid people can get over old stuff. I've read about people killing to steal both new and old artifacts, both for their value and to keep things from changing our perception of history, and stuff." That came out a little jumbled but he would understand what she meant.
"You're not. I get you know your way around certain artifacts, but there has to be more to it than that. You don't get a clearance like yours because you deal in old, valuable things. And you definitely don't get to use the leader of the country as a reference. Come on, Buffy. Give me something substantial."
"Short version; what we deal in is classified and on a need to know basis, and I'm sorry Daniel, but you don't need to know. If you're really, really lucky you'll never find out. I know you're curious and this conversation has probably made it a lot worse, but I can't tell you. So, please, just let it go. Getting read into what the IDC really does won't help you. Focus on the alien problems and leave me to deal with my issues."
Buffy was regretting picking up the phone more and more and if she didn't hang up soon, or at least get him to change subjects, she would end up saying something she shouldn't. So she tried a diversion.
"What happened to the gigantic evil spaceship?" Please, please let me direct this argument away from the things you're better off not knowing about she pleaded silently.
"You win, for now." He sounded a little resigned, but he had clearly decided to try again some other time. Probably in person, where he could read her body language for clues.
"The Superhive was destroyed by Sheppard and his team. He volunteered for a suicide mission but his team managed to get on board to stop him and find another solution. They detonated a bomb from the inside and then gated straight to the Alpha site just before it exploded. I'm sure he'll want to tell you the thrilling story in person after Jack and the IOA releases him from all the debriefs he'll have to go through." Buffy blinked. He *what*? John had some explaining to do when she got him somewhere private enough to talk about super-secret stuff and suicide missions. Not that he owned her any explanations, but still.
"Buffy?"
"Sorry. I didn't expect to hear John is willing to go that far to save Earth. It threw me for a moment."
"Right," Daniel replied, his habitual sarcasm was back. "You're on a first name basis with him but he still doesn't know any part of your name, does he? Why is that?"
"Um," Buffy replied intelligently. "No, but he's the one who sort-of insisted I use his first name." It had started out as an avoidance tactic back when he was just some random person who got attacked by some fanged Americans. Then it turned into a fun game, but maybe it was time to give it up now.
She and Faith wanted a tour of the Lost City of Atlantis, and that involved getting introduced to a lot of people, including some high-ranking officials. I.E. Colonels and Generals, including the much talked about Jack O'Neill. It wasn't like she could ask John to put his fingers in his ears and go 'la la la' every time she had to say her name. There was also the tour of the SGC and the likelihood that Willow would remember to call her something other than Buffy or Buff. Or anyone else starting to call her Supergirl or something. Oh well, it had been fun while it lasted.
"Right," Buffy echoed his earlier comment. "I need to properly introduce myself to him before someone else spoils the surprise for me. I guess the dinner or rather dessert he owes me a raincheck on will work."
"Any chance I can witness this?" Daniel sounded amused all of a sudden and she laughed.
"Sorry, Dr. Space Traveler. No audience for this one, but you can tag along for the Atlantis tour I'm going to get him to give me and a friend." Some extra eye-candy would definitely be of the good, it would also stop John from asking questions she didn't want to answer.
"Ah ha! So you really are curious about what we do!"
"Careful, Daniel, you're sounding way to gleeful over there. But yes, I'm curious about the not-so-Lost City and since John has been trying to get me there and the military clearly wants me to sign on, we'll get the tour. Especially now it's on Earth. Your underground bunker doesn't sound nearly as interesting." The last part was said in a teasing tone even if she meant it. She'd had enough of secret underground bunkers for a lifetime.
"Well, I guess I'll see you then. Jack is finally coming out of his latest debrief, so I'll talk to you later. Call me when you get a time and date for the tour." He barely waited for her to agree and then he hung up.
Buffy put the phone in her pocket and surveyed the room. Faith had gone home with someone the night before and hadn't returned yet, so it was just her. She smiled at her own reflection in the mirror across the room, that meant there was a shopping spree on her agenda for today!