Fic: Wanderers Far At Sea, STXI/Buffy/Angel fusion, Kirk/McCoy, R (2/5)
Title: Wanderers Far At Sea
Author: sail_aweigh
Artist: votaku
Mixer: vengefuldemon69
Betas: thistlerose, lindmere
Series: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Uhura/Spock, Spike/Surprise Guest, Khan, Marla McGivers, Joanna McCoy
Warnings: beheadings and gore, swearing, minor character death
Rating: R for violence and language
Word Count: ~39,000
Summary: STXI/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series fusion. Jim has kept one part of his life a complete secret from his best friend Bones, but now it appears the bizarre occurrences happening to Joanna McCoy may force him to reveal things to Bones that will either sunder their friendship forever or bring them closer together than either had ever expected. Can Bones trust Jim with Joanna's life, when he's been lied to by his best friend about his very nature?
2264.41
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I broke off another doorknob yesterday, after my argument with Mom. That's the first one in three weeks, though. I'm learning how to control my strength better. Guess something has to start going right, right?
Sorry there isn't more, today. I'm still mad at Mom. I'm not nuts! I have some crazy dreams; I tell her about them. I'm allowed to have fantastic dreams, aren't I?
Love,
Jo
P.S. I swear I saw someone dressed like that guy in my dream, green skin and red horns, coming out of a new Karoake bar in Little Five Points when we went to Vortex for burgers last night. Maybe I'm prophetic!
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The next evening Jim had retired to his ready room after his shift to work on reports. He barely had time to register the swish of his door opening before the book he'd loaned Bones dropped with a loud thud on the desk in front of him. Jim looked up at Bones glowering down at him.
"That's some fantastic shit in there. How am I supposed to believe most of it?" Bones dropped into a chair, his hands clenched on the arms as if to keep himself from taking the book and throwing it into the nearest recycler and then possibly doing the same to his captain. Jim understood the feeling; he'd wanted to do it plenty of times after Tarsus.
Jim dropped his PADD and leaned back in his chair. "Trust me and believe it. Or, don't trust me and just watch."
"Watch what--" Bones' voice cut off with a snap of his teeth and his eyes bulged out when the book he'd dropped on Jim's desk came floating back into his lap. He shot out of the chair, the book dropping to the floor with a crash.
"Hey, hey, that book is centuries old! Not nice, not nice at all." Jim rushed around the desk and shook the book out, straightening pages and refastening the clasp holding the cover down. He leaned his butt back on his desk and clasped the thick tome to his chest.
Bones looked at him closely. Jim burned under his gaze, trying not to lose it at the thought that he was now something to be looked at with suspicion, like a deadly virus under a microscope, by the person he loved best in the world.
"What are you, Jim? That book dealt mainly with vampires and "higher" demons. And the Slayer. Where do you fit in there, what category?" Bones started pacing from one side of the ready room to the other, firing questions at Jim without giving him time to answer.
"Bones, sit down, please. And I'm human, purely human. Well, as human as someone descended from a green glowing mystical Key given human form can be." Jim set the book back on the desk and took one of the chairs in front of his desk. He wouldn't hide behind it; Bones needed to see him and they needed a level playing field for this.
Bones sat on the edge of the chair. Jim knew it was taking him considerable willpower not to just bolt and pretend none of this was happening. Hell, he'd pretended until Pike pulled him out of that bar in Riverside and dared him to do better.
Jim was shaken out of his maundering by Bones' next question. "So, you can move things with your mind because you're mystical?"
"There's no correlation. I move things with magic. Anyone with the right knack can do it, the ability to tap into the ley-lines and Gaia-force. Sometimes, all it takes is speaking Latin at the wrong place and time, no talent required. No, the magic is independent of having Summers' blood." Jim looked Bones in the eye as he dropped that bomb on him.
Bones jerked in his chair. "Damnit, Jim, you’ve lied to me! I asked you about that after Manwah IV."
Jim looked down at his hands and then shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry. There's only three people on this ship with a need to know, and you weren't one of them. That had nothing to do with Jo and everything to do with my family, my burden. Let me tell you one of those fairy tales you're so quick to dismiss."
Jim picked up his PADD and scrolled through until he found the file he wanted. He tapped it open and handed the PADD to Bones once it displayed a picture of a young blonde woman and a taller brunette. "At the beginning of the 21st century, there was a Hell-god named Glorificus who wanted to open a portal between our dimension and hers.
"A Hell-god named Glorificus?" Bones eyes rolled. "Was her superpower being a cliche?"
A laugh escaped Jim at Bones' comment. "Demons and Big Bads tend to take themselves awful seriously. They all have an overweening sense of their own superiority. Just ask the First Evil."
"Really, the First Evil? If evil is so unimaginative, I can't see it ever being triumphant."
"It's a balance, Bones; which is why we have Slayers to counteract the baddies. But, back to Glorificus and the family legends. Glorificus needed a mystical construct called the Key to open the portal. The monks that guarded the Key sent it to the Slayer of that day, Buffy Summers, in the form of a younger sister, Dawn. Dawn Summers was my great-times-eight-grandmother."
"Which one's Dawn?" Bones stared at the picture. Jim knew he was seeing the resemblance between the girls and Jim in the shape of the face, particularly the chin. It was pretty obvious, too, that Buffy's hair gained as much assistance from chemical enhancement as Jim's did.
Jim smiled faintly. "The one that looks like Jo. Dawn was quite feisty, forthright, fierce, and willing to fight the good fight with the only thing she had--her blood. She married one of Buffy's friends--Xander Harris." He reached over and touched the PADD again. A picture of Dawn and a tall man with black hair and an eye-patch popped up.
"Get used to hearing these names. The Watcher's Council is an extremely incestuous little organization, even after many millennia." Jim looked at the picture fondly. He never knew most of these people and he wasn't always grateful that they had given him such a bloodthirsty legacy, but their stories were inspiring and gave him a sense of belonging to something larger than himself and even Starfleet.
"The blonde, Buffy--she was the Slayer, then?" Bones paged back to the first picture and looked at her again. "She looks awful young for so much responsibility."
Jim nodded. "Buffy was called at sixteen. Most Slayers are called between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Jo is a little on the young side, but not out of the zone for being Chosen."
"The Chosen One." Bones muttered to himself, staring at the picture of Buffy. "How do these girls get unchosen? When is their job done? What if Jo doesn't want to be a Slayer? Maybe she wants to be a doctor, or a teacher."
Jim wished he could wrap Bones up in his arms right now, because he knew the man was going to need it when he got the answer to those questions. He needed to make an end run around the explosion he knew was forthcoming.
"First, you have to know that there is no longer a Chosen One; it's more like the Chosen Two Thousand. She'll be in good company." A quick tap on the PADD and a picture of a castle set in green forested hills popped up, young women lined up in formation, filling the forecourt.
Bones' eyebrows shot up. "What did they do, start breeding them once they knew what genes controlled it? How did this ever get past the fallout of the Eugenics War and the ban on genetic manipulation? Is Jo a sport, a throwback to someone who left the program?"
Jim rubbed his forehead at Bones' obtuseness, more likely his unwillingness to believe that there was anything science couldn't provide an answer for. "It's not genetic, it's mystical. Think about it. There always has to be a Slayer. Evil doesn't sleep, it's always out there. If we had to wait for each girl to grow up after a Slayer vacated her post, there would be gaps. One girl is chosen at a time, therefore there has to be one girl ready to replace the next--she has to have Potential that can be triggered at a moment's notice. Being Chosen doesn't happen on a day that's planned, but it's planned for by the mystical forces that empower her."
"A moment's notice." Bones echoed the phrase, it taking a few seconds to sink in. And, as Jim had predicted, he could see the lit fuse in the sparks in Bones' eyes before he exploded into action.
"You mealy-mouthed bastard. Why don't you just say the only way a girl is Chosen is for another girl to die? How young? How long does Jo have before she dies and calls the next Slayer?" Bones tossed the PADD onto Jim's desk as he shot to his feet.
Jim stood up, too, striding over to stand in front of Bones, chest to chest, eye to eye. "Because most Slayers die in their beds these days. Of old age. Sit down." Jim put both his hands on Bones' biceps and urged him back into his chair. Bones resisted only a moment and then complied. Despite his anger, it was obvious to Jim that he wanted answers.
"I know you're concerned for Jo, but what I'm more concerned with is which Slayer has died who activated Jo, because we don't know who died. Pike has sent bulletins to all our Watcher outposts and we've got an agent tracking down some of the more far-flung Slayers who haven't reported in recently. There have been no confirmed Slayer deaths since Jo started exhibiting signs of being Chosen." Jim turned away to hide his face from Bones with his next words. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep the pain off his face with what he had to say next.
"It's highly possible that someone's mother or wife or daughter is dead and we don't know it yet," Jim's voice broke a little. "As large as this galaxy is, you know how long communications from one end to the other can take and how unforeseen events can affect them." Jim took a moment to get his face under control before he turned back to face Bones. His back to the desk, he sat on the edge and crossed his arms in front, holding in the hurt of that particular memory. It had taken three months to get word from Tarsus of the massacre. Three months to find out that even though his mother had eliminated Kodos and his renegade cell of the Scourge, she had perished during the attempt.
Jim could see the light bulb going on over Bones' head. "Your mother. You said Jo reminded you of your mother."
Jim scrubbed a hand across his eyes. Maybe he still wasn't as in control as he thought. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Bones. I didn't want to have to be the one to tell you this. Being a Slayer is a very dangerous job. And while many Slayers do live to a ripe old age, many don't. Just like not all members of Starfleet have uneventful careers to retire peacefully at home. Saving the universe one apocalypse at a time is a very dangerous business. But at least in Starfleet we're given a choice; Slayers aren't. I'm sorry, Bones. I'm so sorry."
Bones got up and walked over to stand in front of Jim. When he looked up he could see the the struggle Bones was having with himself. He was frowning, but he still reached out to Jim. "Jim. C'mere." Jim was caught totally by surprise when Bones pulled him into his arms, smoothing his hands up Jim's back, coaxing his muscles into relaxing.
Jim caught a small whimper coming out of his mouth before he could call it back. "Bones." He found himself shoving his nose in to the warm skin of Bones' neck and practically collapsing into the man's arms. It felt so good to be in those arms, something he'd only hoped for and still didn't really believe he'd have in the long term. Finally allowed to put his arms around the other man, he wanted to hold onto this moment forever.
"Just tell me that you're doing everything possible to keep Jo safe. That's all I want. Promise me." Bones' hands were warm on his back, one skimming up to the back of Jim's neck and used his thumb to prod his chin up to look at him.
Jim nodded, then squirmed out of the hold Bones had on him reluctantly. "Let me get my PADD."
Picking the PADD up off the desk, he paged quickly through to the picture he wanted. "Jo’s already spotted one of our allies." He held up the PADD so Bones could see a picture of Lorne.
Bones gave out a surprised grunt. "That guy looks like what Jo described in her last couple of letters. Who, what, who...does it have a name? "
"It's a he. Lorne is from Pylea, a demon dimension adjacent to ours. After we got Jo's letter where she started describing her dreams I was sure she'd been Chosen, but Pike wouldn't send out a Watcher until we had confirmation of a slayer down. Until then she's only listed as a Potential. She should still have a Watcher, but we needed to step lightly around Jocelyn."
Bones gave a start of surprise. "What's Joce got to do with this?"
"Possibly nothing. However, you were the one who told me that Jocelyn hired Wolfram and Hart to handle your divorce." Jim shook his head. "We couldn't risk it being a set up."
Bones looked at him, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. "I'll be the first to admit that Joce's lawyers took me to the cleaners, but any lawyer worth his salt probably would have gotten the same result. I was a mess and I didn't put up much of a fight. But I don't see what that has to do with Jo being a Potential."
Jim shook his head. "You don't have the background, yet, but I'll fill you in. By now, you do have the need to know, so it's going to have to be a crash course."
Jim pulled the two chairs facing his desk together and sat down in one, urging Bones into the other. He looked at Bones while he clasped two of their hands together and got a squeeze of confirmation in return. "Wolfram and Hart is the earthly presence and representatives of a trio of ancient demons who want to literally bring hell to Earth. They are the physical embodiment of evil in our dimension. The Council tends to play things very close to the vest around Wolfram and Hart. It's been centuries since their physical representatives, the Circle of the Black Thorn, were destroyed, but the firm, and its evil, is slowly making inroads into our dimension again."
Bones nodded along with this recitation, taking it all in. "So, this Council was afraid that Jo might be a puppet for this group, due to Jocelyn having a connection?"
Jim nodded. "Exactly. I have no doubt that she isn't; Jo has too strong a personality to be easily controlled by anyone. But the Council didn't want to take the chance that they were trying to plant a sleeper in the Slayer ranks."
"And this Lorne is there to protect her?" Bones looked relieved at the thought.
Jim picked at one of his cuticles with his free hand. "Not exactly."
Bones' eyebrows did a complicated dance from surprise, to suspicion, to ire and stayed beetled over his eyes, while his eyes started to heat up again. "Do not tell me he's an assassin." He didn't let go of Jim's hand, though, which showed his level of trust in Jim outmatched his mouth.
"No, no! That was only the one time! Lorne is an anagogic demon, he reads auras. He can tell if you're good or evil just from listening to you speak or sing." Jim pressed Bones' hand between both of his. "He was sent to check out the people around Jo, to make sure their motives were pure."
Bones grunted. "Wouldn't call Joce pure, but she's not evil."
"No, Joce is just a frazzled mother trying to navigate her daughter's passage through adolescence. Not knowing her daughter is a Slayer isn't helping things any. The sooner we get confirmation that Jo has been Chosen, the sooner we can send a bona fide representative of the Watcher's Council to convince Joce that Jo would do better at the Academy where she can get the proper training amongst her peers." Jim felt Bones relax next to him, his body molding closer to his seat as he digested the efforts that Jim and the Council were making to protect his daughter.
"That's not going to make Joce very happy; her life is in Atlanta. Isn't there any way Jo could get her training at home?" Bones picked up the PADD sitting in Jim's lap, paging through to the picture of the castle. "Where is this, anyway?"
Jim looked at the picture. "Scotland, but that place doesn't exist any more. The Slayer Academy was absorbed into Starfleet close to two centuries ago. Then, once the UFP was created, it was placed under the aegis of Section 31. The current Slayer Academy is in the Presidio, part of the UFP complex there."
"So there's going to be two thousand slayers there for Jo to go to school with?" Bones looked up at Jim, gesturing to the girls in the picture.
Jim chuckled. "No, only about forty or fifty at any given time. That picture was of the first class of slayers that Buffy activated. Before that, there was only one at a time. Then Buffy and Willow Rosenberg came along and activated every single Potential simultaneously."
"That sounds like a hell of a lot better odds than just one at a time. Smart girl." Bones had started paging through the photos in the file, when his head popped up in surprise. "Wait. Rosenberg? As in Ensign Rosenberg of the rash?"
Jim smirked at Bones and pushed his hand away from the scroll bar on the PADD, flipping quickly to a picture of a sweet-faced redhead with brilliant green eyes. "And yes, you would be right that Ensign Rosenberg is related to her. He's actually a fairly decent magic practitioner; he's our contact with the coven back at headquarters. If he was harvesting contraband from the botany lab it was for a spell of some kind, not to smoke."
"Is everyone on this ship in on the secret mumbo-jumbo handshake?" Bones frowned at Jim. "I thought you said only three people had the need to know."
Jim nodded. "Yes, and he's one of them. The other two are Uhura and Spock. It's not just alien languages that Uhura knows, but every demon dialect out there."
"How can she know all of them?" Bones sounded skeptical. Jim looked at him, at the way he was now completely relaxed in his chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his body language saying he was likely open to more new experiences. Leaning over to his comm panel he hit a button.
"Lt. Uhura, could you meet me in my ready room? I'd like you to show something to Doctor McCoy." Jim settled back into his chair to await the next act of what was rapidly becoming a three-ring circus.
A moment later the door slid open and Uhura entered the ready room. Coming to a stop, she looked at the two men, her head cocked to one side like a bird evaluating a bug to be consumed.
"Lt. Uhura, thank you for--" Jim didn't get any of the niceties out before he was interrupted.
"Has the doctor's offspring finally been confirmed as one of those puny Slayers that you must call me in here to play show and tell?"
Jim saw Bones start at the tone of voice. He straightened up in his chair at the words, sputtering defensively. "Puny? What's a string bean like you calling someone puny?"
"Uhura, play nice. Doctor McCoy has had some tremendous shocks today; I would like you to--." Again, Uhura interrupted Jim.
"I care nothing for the likes and dislikes of someone who is but a worm beneath my frailest tentacle. But, in getting this humiliation over with quickly so I may return to my duties I will comply with your wishes." Jim felt Bones' hand jolt in his as his communications officer allowed the svelte form of Nyota Uhura in her Stafleet red uniform to fade away into the blues, reds and browns of the shell the Old One known as Illyria inhabited since she'd been resurrected in the body of Winifred Burkle. It still looked as if a stiff breeze would send the willowy brunette spinning away like a leaf before the storm, but Jim knew how deceptive that fragility was; he'd watched her and Spike spar more than once.
Illyria turned to face Bones completely. "I am much diminished from my original form. For millenia, I ruled over vast territories of the Primordium, crushing my enemies and feasting on their entrails. Now, I assist these measly humans in their quest to spread their pestilence throughout the galaxy."
Bones looked a little shocked, then turned to Jim with a pungent observation. "I always wondered what Nyota saw in Spock, now I understand completely. They've both got an overweening belief in their own superiority."
"I am superior; it would be illogical to attempt to refute it." Her form once more flowed between aspects until she was again Nyota Uhura in her red uniform. "I will go now. There is a strange disturbance in the frequencies in the subhertz range, yet we are not close enough to any stellar body that would be giving out those kinds of signals. I must observe this phenomenon more before I can decide if it is something of value to us."
"Thank you, Uhura." Jim smiled at her before she turned abruptly and marched out the door.
Bones turned in his chair to look at Jim. "So, this Illyria, what is she exactly?"
Jim ran his free hand through his hair and huffed out a breath while figuring out the best way to explain Illyria. "Well, what you see is only a shell. Illyria was an Old One, one of the original true demons that ruled over the Earth before mankind arose. Her form was shaped more in the nature of a giant cephalopod. Think something large enough to stomp a twenty story office building into dust. The shell you see now was Winifred Burkle, a scientist that worked for Wolfram and Hart's headquarters in Los Angeles back at the turn of the twenty-first century."
Bones' eyebrows shot up. "Wolfram and Hart, again. So why's this evil demon working for the good guys?"
"One--not all demons are inherently evil, although Illyria certainly was. Two--Wolfram and Hart took away most of her powers, and made her feel vulnerable. She swore vengeance and agreed to help take them down. It didn't hurt that the residual emotions of Fred that were left in the shell caused Illyria to feel pain, fear, love, attachment. She decided to live as a human since she couldn't escape them."
"Christ, Jim. This is all so unbelievable. Just answer me this: is Spock some kind of devil? Isn't him being Vulcan bad enough?" Bones tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He had dark rings under them, telling Jim he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Probably poring over the book Jim had pushed at him.
"No, Spock is exactly what he is: a human/Vulcan hybrid." Jim reassured him.
"Then why is he a member of the cool kids club?" Bones rolled his head sideways and leaned on Jim's shoulder. It was obvious there wasn't much more to be talked about tonight. Bones might have more questions, but it looked like he was going into information overload and there would be time for more revelations in the coming days.
"Well, he is a touch telepath; Illyria couldn't exactly hide what she was from him. So, we recruited him." Jim brushed his mouth against the rumpled brown hair presented to him by the top of Bones' head. He was tempted to let Bones fall asleep against his shoulder, but knew it would only result in more restless repose which the man obviously did not need. The fact Bones felt comfortable enough with him to let his guard down so far told him that he hadn't lost his trust and that there was still hope that they could find something together out of this quagmire of misunderstanding and secrets. Jim smiled to himself, happier than he'd been in a long, long time.
"Bones, I think you've had enough for today. Why don't you go get some sleep and I can answer more of your questions later." Jim raised one hand to stroke it through the bangs that had flopped over Bones' forehead, smoothing them back into place so he could see the droopy hazel eyes blink up at him.
Bones struggled to sit upright. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm about useless right now. Can I take that book back to my quarters, again? There's still a lot of stuff I want to read about."
"Sure. Keep it for a while, just don't leave it where anyone can see it. I usually keep it locked up." Jim stood up and offered Bones a hand, giving a slight tug to help him out of his chair. Bones let himself be pulled up into Jim's space, the two of them standing chest to chest. Jim looked into Bones' eyes, searching for the remnants of his earlier anger.
"Are we good?" Jim raised one hand to clasp Bones' elbow, but it wasn't necessary. Bones stayed exactly where he was, his hands reaching for Jim's waist.
With a tug, he pulled Jim in tight. "Yeah, we're good. I'm sorry I went off half-cocked earlier. I guess you really understand where I was coming from, though, don't you?" Bones reached a hand up and skimmed it over Jim's mouth. "I just want Jo to be safe, to live a long life and be able to chase her dreams. Being a Slayer doesn't seem to bring anyone a lot of peace and joy, only an early death."
"The peace and joy are there, just interspersed with hard work and dedication. Not a lot different than any job that's worth doing." Jim smiled under Bones' touch. "Now, old man, why don't you go to bed before you start making promises your body can't keep."
Bones snorted. "Old man? I'll show you old man. But, yeah, not tonight." Pressing a brief kiss to Jim's mouth, he stepped back and straightened his shirt out from where it had crept up under Jim's hands while they'd been talking. "Give me that damn book and I'll get out of your hair."
Jim laughed. "I'll take that as a promise." He turned back to his desk, picked up the book that Bones had practically thrown at him earlier and handed it back to him.
"No more reading this tonight. We'll talk more about it later." Placing one hand on his shoulder, Jim walked Bones to the door.
"Sleep well, Bones. It's all going to turn out for the better, you'll see." Bones gave him one last tired smile before the door swished open, releasing him into the corridor to return to his quarters with much to think about. Jim watched him go from the open door, until he finally stepped back far enough for the door to automatically close. He reached up and touched his lips. Such a brief kiss, but he'd waited so many years for Bones, a few more days wouldn't matter until they could take time to really explore what had been building between them for so long. Jo came first, the mission, as always, came first.
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2264.44
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I've quit trying to tell Mom about my dreams; she's starting to look a little crazy-eyed at me any time I mention them. She's got me scheduled to go see Doctor Schneider in two weeks. I'm not looking forward to it. I don't think I need it. Dreams are just dreams, right?
But I don't know! My dreams feel so real, sometimes. I'm dreaming of all these girls, that I am these girls. Most of the time, I'm running through cemeteries. Sometimes, I'm crawling through sewers. Stinky, by the way. Sucks having stinky dreams. And the weird creatures I keep killing. Yeah. Every dream, I'm a teenage girl and I'm doing my best to kill or not be killed.
Last night, I was in a fight in a train with this guy all dressed in black and denim, covered in safety pins. I smashed his head through the window, but all he did was laugh and come back at me. We fought up and down the car and I thought I had him when the lights went out. But when they came back on, I was on the ground with him kneeling over me and then his hands reached for my face and that's the last thing I remember. I think that girl died. It's a good thing a person can't really die in their dreams, but I think it would almost be better that way than to die from a real monster killing me. I think it would hurt. Those poor girls must get so tired. Heck, I'm tired and they're only dreams!
I just wish these dreams would go away, Dad. They creep me out and I'm only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night because I wake up terrified. Could you prescribe me something? Maybe then I can tell this Doctor Schneider that it was all just a big mistake. I ate the wrong thing at lunch and it gave me nightmares.
Love,
Jo
P.S. I've included a drawing I made of the man in my dream. He's kinda dreamy looking, isn't he? Ha, I crack myself up! Hey, don't you think he looks a little like that guy you like who sings that song "Rebel Yell," Uncle Jim?
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A few night later, Jim tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as he waited for the comm panel on the desk in his quarters to signal that his connection was ready. When it finally activated, he was facing the agent from Section 31 that he'd sent out to investigate the whereabouts of the last three unaccounted-for Slayers. As soon as the picture was stable, he got right down to business.
"Listen, Spike, have you had any luck following up on McGivers, Lester or Madison?" Jim watched as the platinum-haired agent leaned back in his chair and threw booted feet up on the console in front of him. His left hand moved out of range of the video feed, only to come back into view a moment later with a pack of contraband cigarettes. Jim watched as Spike tapped one out of the pack, stuck it between his lips at the corner of his mouth and pulled out a silver lighter. A quick flick and he'd sucked the tip into a glowing ember, taking a drag before finally answering Jim's question. Jim shook his head; what a drama queen.
Spike wiggled a little, getting comfortable before he finally blew out a cloud of smoke. He had a distinct leer on his face as he reported the first of his findings. "Lester and Madison took a little detour together to Risa. Tracked them down to a cozy little seaside resort where they were sunning their bits side-by-side on a very isolated beach. Coulda made some serious dosh off the holovid rights to the action those two were getting. Sent them a private communiqué on Section 31 channels and told them to get their sunburned little arses back on their scheduled outing. Don't think they'll be taking any more unsanctioned vacations. Described in living color how I'd vivisect them for breakfast and fry up their organs for elevenses if they tried something like that again."
Jim smiled at the gory image he painted. "You old blowhard, you'd never--"
Spike cut him off with a pointed finger, his cigarette dangling precariously from the vee of his pointer and middle finger. "Oi! Don't even think it, Cornfed... I may have a soul, but I didn't get my teeth pulled the way the Poofter did." He sniffed and stuck the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth. "Couldn't even gum someone to death by the time he finally kicked it. That's what you get for Shanshuing: dentures and those nappies they had retired movie stars advertise on the telly back in the 21st. I'll go down fighting the good fight."
Jim rolled his eyes at the litany. "Yeah, yeah, Angel was lame and he had funny hair. You're a fine one to speak, Captain Peroxide. Your look hasn't changed in over two centuries."
Spike shook his head. "You know, if the overgrown hall monitor could have seen what his bloody progeny would come to, he'd bleedin' weep. You're a fine one to talk, Cadet Clairol." Stubbing his cigarette out on the bottom of his boot, Spike tossed the butt over his shoulder.
Jim tsked. "That's Captain Clairol to you. And look at you! Littering, is that the worst you can come up with these days?"
Spike tipped his head back, looking down his nose at Jim. "Nothing has been the same since World War III. Used to be a man could get a bit of crash and bash on when he'd had a hankering for a pint or two, count on the bobbies to come around for a nice dust up to top off the evening. These days, you get a ticket in your comm stack and your credit chip gets docked. What's the fun in that? Takes the piss out of a man." Spike's feet thudded to the floor and he leaned forward in his chair, his face suddenly serious.
"No whitewashing it, and if you tell anyone I said this, I'll bite that helmet-haired Ken-doll you're so stuck on: once the Scooby Gang passed on, there wasn't as much to keep me fighting the good fight. I thought of moving on to a new planet once reliable warp engines were developed. Somewhere I could stand under a sun that wouldn't burn me right to ashes. 'Snot anything you need to know, but it's about the mood a lot of folk were in, human or demon. We were all floundering in the wake of the Eugenics War. Around that time, started hearing some rumbling that some wanker had stuffed a ship full with desiccated Old Ones and taken off for Alpha Centauri. Planned to set up a new age of true demons. Thought for a while that's what we were going to find on Tarsus and all we'd have to do was smash up some sarcophagi, didn't plan on a whole host of the Scourge." Spike threw Jim a commiserating look.
"Yeah, I know." Jim looked down for a minute; that had been a major clusterfuck. Bad intel had led to inadequate personnel assigned to the mission and a supply chain fuck-up that had left the few people involved scrambling to live off the land while waiting for supplies that came three months too late. Reinforcements that should have been part of the original mission. Too little, too late.
"Your mum was a real trooper, Sprout. She had some moves on her. Reminded me at times of Buffy, the way she thought at ninety degrees to everyone else, catch you totally by surprise. It would have been an honor to be done for by her; take my word for it." Spike's finger stabbed out at him again.
Jim nodded, a lump in his throat keeping him from saying anything in agreement, or disagreement. He knew how Spike felt about Slayers. After a moment, he regained his composure to ask after the final Slayer.
"What about McGivers?"
Spike nodded. "Getting to that. She was last seen leaving here about two weeks ago. I don't know if you knew the bint, but she was obsessed with the history of the Old Ones. Read up everything she could on them, took a sight-seeing tour of the Deeper Well, even found her trying to tap the Blue Meanie's comm records whenever she was in range of the Enterprise."
Jim startled at that. "That's not good. Those are supposed to be secure transmissions between members of Section 31 on a need-to-know basis. Why--?"
Spike leaned back in his chair, a frown on his face. "Think maybe she suspected Blue was in touch with other Old Ones, maybe had found the Botany Bay."
Jim shook his head at the thought. "Uhura would have told me if she made contact with them. She hasn't heard anything--" He sat up straight in his chair as a thought occurred to him.
"Something you forgetting to share with the class, Flyboy?" Spike cocked his head at Jim's sudden silence.
"Uhura did hear something she couldn't identify a couple of days ago. Considering she communes with plants, there 's not much out there that stumps her. I'll have her pinpoint the location on the star charts and we'll go back and check it out." Jim felt a sense of exhilaration that he had a lead toward finding something that had confounded section 31 for well over a century.
"Keep an eye out for that McGivers bint along the way. If she was playing peeping tom to Blue's frequencies, she may have gotten a jump on you. Her interest in Old Ones was unhealthy-like. Fair worshipped them, she did." Spike spun his chair sideways to the desk, throwing his feet up on the corner and one elbow on the console, apparently satisfied that their conclusions were correct and that Jim would follow up with action to resolve the issue. As Jim watched him tap another cigarette out of the pack in front of him, the door chime announced a visitor. He wasn't expecting anyone, so he hoped whoever it was could be fobbed off with a lick and a promise. Well, maybe not the lick, unless it was Bones.
"Don't go yet, Spike; I've got a couple of questions to ask you still. I'll get rid of whoever it is." Jim got up from his desk and went to the control panel on the wall, hitting the button that opened the door.
It was a pleasant surprise to find the visitor was Bones, but a little awkward, too, as he hadn't finished his conversation with Spike. Making a snap decision of the kind he was famous for, Jim went ahead and invited him in. It was time Bones was given a more in-depth tour of some of Section 31's inner workings.
"Hey, great timing, Bones. I have someone I want you to meet." Jim urged Bones forward into the office area of his quarters, one hand on the small of his back. He'd get that lick later when Spike wasn't around to mock him for it. As they came around the privacy screen, he saw Spike sit up in interest.
"Is this the heartthrob, then?" Jim felt his ears heat up at the words and a slight blush rose up in his cheeks at Spike's words. Considering he and Bones hadn't really had time to define the change in their relationship, it was a little embarrassing to hear Spike throwing out such laden buzzwords.
"Could you make me sound any more like a 15-year-old with his first crush, Spike? Thanks for nothing." Jim scowled at the agent. He turned to look at Bones, even though it was hard to meet his eyes after Spike's needling.
Jim started to introduce the two men to each other. "Bones, I'd like you to meet--"
"Jim, that man's a killer. What are you doing communicating with him?" Bones looked at Jim, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"You've heard of me, then?" Spike looked at Bones with interest, leaning forward slightly in his chair, the cigarette again being used as a pointer. "Has Buck Rogers over there been telling tales out of school to impress you?"
Bones scowled at Spike. "Jim hasn't told me anything. But you're the spittin' image of a picture Jo drew of a killer."
Jim scrubbed one hand through his hair. "Yeah. That's what I was going to talk to Spike about next. And since you're here, you can sit in. There's stuff you need to know and this will kill two birds with one stone."
"It better explain why you're talking to a murderer who's not in prison right now."
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Bones, it will. Would you sit down, please? We need to talk about Jo's dreams." Jim pointed Bones to a chair and watched as he settled into it, his back straight and his shoulders stiff.
One of Spike's eyebrows peaked in interest. "'At's right; he's got a snack size back home, doesn't he?"
"Don't tell him anything, Jim. He might go after Jo next." Bones crossed his arms over his chest, reluctance in his entire posture.
"Spike is not a danger to Jo, okay? He's got a soul. For all he plays the evil undead, he's a pussycat." Jim quelled Spike's outraged squawk with a pointed glare. "Let me show him the letters and the picture she drew and we can talk about what it is and what it means." Jim laid a hand on Bones' knee in an attempt to soothe him. Bones' leg twitched, but he let Jim's hand stay where it was. Jim couldn't blame him for being wary, even if on the surface he seemed to be overreacting to what was ostensibly a very vivid dream not based in reality. Except...it was Jo's dream.
Bones nodded his head. "This better be good."
"Only the best, mate." Spike relaxed his interested hunch so he was sprawled back in his chair, one leg up on the console, the other one draped off to one side, bringing the thrust of his hips into prominence.
Jim shook his head at the display. "Knock it off, Spike. Bones isn't even your type. Tall, dark and forehead, right? Should be anathema to you."
"Spoil sport." Spike took another drag of his cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the viewscreen. He waved his hand at Jim in a 'go ahead' gesture, beckoning towards himself. "Right, then. What did you need the good sawbones here for?"
Jim keyed in a command at his console, pulling up Jo's letters tiled along the left side of the viewscreen for all of them to read. "Jo's been having dreams for a while now that smack of Slayer Prophecies."
"Prophecies, Jim? More occult claptrap?" Bones scoffed, one eyebrow flying high on his forehead.
"Bones, did you or did you not recognize Spike as soon as you saw him?" Bones conceded the point with a reluctant nod.
"Slayer dreams can be pretty damn accurate; we've learned that over the years. We need to know if Jo's are prophecy or just a result of the greater Slayer gestalt." He looked at Bones to expand on his comment. "Slayers have a form of inherited memory or consciousness; what one Slayer has felt or seen can be passed on through dreams, a timeline of past Slayers and their history, but not necessarily prophecy." Jim pulled up the picture she'd drawn and heard Spike curse at the likeness.
"Shit, must be me from back around the end of the twentieth century. Before I got the coat off Nicki Wood." Spike leaned towards the viewscreen, cataloging the piercings, the spiked hair, the eyeliner. "Might even be the last night I danced with her. Sister had a death wish."
Bones glared at him. "You killed her."
Spike shrugged, then looked straight at Bones from the viewscreen. His face rippled and the next thing they saw was the ridged brow, golden eyes and jagged teeth of his true visage. Bones shrank back in his chair at the change for only a moment before he straightened up again, attempting to remain uncowed by all the new information being thrown at him. Seeing pictures in a book was one thing, being confronted with the reality required a complete rearranging of his known world. "Vampire, mate. Kill or be killed when there's a Slayer in play." Jim watched as Spike's face smoothed back out and he ground his cigarette out in an ashtray off to one side.
Jim interrupted before it could turn into a verbal slinging match. "So the description of the fight in the subway car, that's accurate?"
Spike scanned the letter intently, fiddled with his lighter, looked to one side and then gave a short nod. "Yeah, that was Nicki Wood. My second Slayer."
Bones shot up out of his chair. "Listen to him, Jim! He admits killing her. Why are we having anything to do with him? I don't care what he knows, he's evil."
"Sit down! Now." Jim jumped up and pointed to the chair Bones had flown out of. "We need to know how accurate Jo's dreams are; they could be very important. To us and to her. To keeping her alive. And it's not just that we need Spike to help evaluate that, but he's earned his place."
Bones threw his hands up and sat down in his chair. "Fine. Fine, we need him."
"If it's any consolation to you, ya big girl's blouse, I won't be passing go and collecting two hundred dollars when I finally kick this immortal coil; I'll be going straight to bloody Hell. Think being punished for eternity will be enough retribution for you?" Spike shivered a little in his chair, his hands tucked into his armpits. A haunted look passed across his face. "Almost went there once already; not looking forward to that final journey."
Bones looked at him curiously. "How do you know you'll go there?"
"Evil dead, here; spent nearly one hundred an' thirty years doing evil, loving every minute of it until the bloody Initiative shoved a behavior modification chip in my noggin. You can thank the Sprout's great-whatever-grandad Finn for that. Then, well, then I went batshit insane and got a soul for love. Beside the point, though. The good, like Buffy, go to Heaven; us demons, the right evil ones, go to Hell. If you're lucky, your friends save you before that happens." Spike lit up another cigarette, attempting to look nonchalant, but Jim could see that he was still a little rattled by the way his hand shook.
"So the only reason you do good is because you're programmed to, like a robot or a computer?" Bones had a sour look on his face.
"Bleedin' hell, you tosser! How many times do we have to tell you; I have a soul. Now I see why it's taken Cadet Clairol so long to get through to you; you're bloody thick!" Spike kicked one of the legs of the console in frustration and Jim heard it give out a slight groan at the abuse. "Let me ask you this, Doctor--what keeps you from killing someone?"
Bones looked taken aback at the question. "My oath. I'm a doctor."
"Besides your oath. What, as the oh-so-special bloody human you are, keeps you doing the right thing time after time? When there's no one there to tell you what the right thing to do is, how do you know?" Spike stared at Bones, waiting for his answer.
It came immediately. "My conscience. I listen to my conscience." Bones peered sideways at Spike. "So, are you saying a soul is the conscience? And you've got a soul."
"Give the man a cigar. Bloody right I do. Had to fight for the bugger, too, and it wasn't a cake walk. Wasn't exactly what I asked for, either, but you know how that goes. Wishes and horses and all that rot." Spike looked at Jim through the viewscreen. "Can we get back to business, now? I've got places to be, people to do."
Jim shook his head with a wry grin. "Yeah, let's see if we can wrap this up. My last question for you, Spike: How accurate are Slayer dreams, in general?"
Spike looked surprised. "Didn't your mum ever talk to you about them? They could be fair cryptic at times, until you shook the pieces out on the table and put them together proper. But it was usually all there, just a mishmash until you made sense of it."
Jim swallowed past a lump in his throat. "She quit dreaming, she said. After I was born. Mom said the dreams were useless if they couldn't save my father. But I think if she'd still had them, she wouldn't have failed at Tarsus." He rubbed his hands against his thighs in agitation, only stilling when Bones reached over and took one of them to hold. Jim wouldn't look at him, though; didn't want to see the pity in his eyes. His mom was the only thing that could make him feel weak.
"That's a right shame, Sprout. No one on the Council ever realized that, I reckon. Dreams wouldn't have helped during the Kelvin Incident, though. Weren't no supernatural baddie that got your Da, just that tosser Nero. Slayer dreams don't work that way." Spike leaned forward, planting both elbows on the console and crowding in close to the viewscreen to speak directly to Jim. "Your mum didn't fail, though; I won't have you saying that. She saved four thousand colonists from the Scourge. Not many Slayers out there with that kind of moxie in her. Buffy, maybe one or two other and that's it."
Jim sat mute in the face of Spike's vehemence. He'd had to live with his mother, and without her, both during his childhood and after her death. Winona may have been a Slayer and heroic for all that was worth, but she never let him forget that the mission came first. All he had wanted to do was help and she wouldn't allow him to. He supposed he should be grateful she didn't let him go to Tarsus with her, but maybe she'd be alive today if he had. He'd never know and they might have, if she hadn't given up her dreams. Jim finally looked at Spike. "I know--it's the mission that matters."
"That's a crock of shite! And your mother knew it, as like any parent knows." Spike sat up straight and jammed a finger at the viewscreen. "Ask your Doctor McDreamy there why he does what he does out here in the black void."
Bones lifted a hand to Jim's face and turned it toward him. "For our children, Jim. To keep them safe, to protect them from harm. We may join from a sense of adventure, and if it serves a larger purpose in the long run, that's all to the better, but at the heart of it we want our children to be able to grow up without being afraid of the things that scare us. Sometimes that takes us far away from them, but it doesn't make it any less worthwhile. Do you think I'm a bad parent for being out here?"
"No, never! It's not that I didn't want Mom to go, I was proud of her. She was the best. I could see it with every mission; she got better and better. And I was helping her, but she--" he broke off, his mouth moving soundlessly in distress.
"She what, Jim? How were you helping?" Jim's hand pulled out of Bones' grip as he jumped out of his chair and he stalked from one side of the office space to the other. One hand on the back of his neck and the other clenched in front his mouth, Jim bit back words that would damn him. He was forced to stop his pacing when Bones stood up and blocked his restless movement, one hand reaching out to steady Jim under his elbow. "C'mon, tell me. Tell me what you did. It couldn't be that bad. You said you were helping."
Jim shook his hand off with a jerk and, turning abruptly, slammed his fist into the bulkhead. Keeping his back to Bones, he leaned his forehead against the cold metal, both hands resting on the wall next to his head. Strength...he could feel the strength of the ship; he let it flow into him, bolster him as he drew what he could from the inert metal. "She shouldn't have gone to Tarsus! I told her. I told her about my dreams and she wouldn't listen. She quit having dreams because I stole them. I don't know how, or why, but I started having them. If I'd never been born, she would never have gone to Tarsus or she would have been better prepared. I should have made her listen, really listen. It's all my fault." Jim's words were coming in gasps as he confessed to the blank wall how he had killed his mother. The cold comfort of the bulkhead was all Jim could hope for at the moment; there was no way that Bones would still want him when he found out his mother's death was his fault.
"Oh, Jim." Bones came up behind him and placed his arms around his waist, pulling him back into his chest. Jim remained stiff in his arms for a minute, before relaxing into the embrace, a shudder rippling through him as he took in a deep breath.
"I killed her, Bones," Jim whispered. He wrapped his arms around the ones holding him close, held on tight as if he'd never let Bones go. If this was all he ever got, he didn't want to forget it, ever.
Part 3
Author: sail_aweigh
Artist: votaku
Mixer: vengefuldemon69
Betas: thistlerose, lindmere
Series: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Uhura/Spock, Spike/Surprise Guest, Khan, Marla McGivers, Joanna McCoy
Warnings: beheadings and gore, swearing, minor character death
Rating: R for violence and language
Word Count: ~39,000
Summary: STXI/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series fusion. Jim has kept one part of his life a complete secret from his best friend Bones, but now it appears the bizarre occurrences happening to Joanna McCoy may force him to reveal things to Bones that will either sunder their friendship forever or bring them closer together than either had ever expected. Can Bones trust Jim with Joanna's life, when he's been lied to by his best friend about his very nature?
2264.41
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I broke off another doorknob yesterday, after my argument with Mom. That's the first one in three weeks, though. I'm learning how to control my strength better. Guess something has to start going right, right?
Sorry there isn't more, today. I'm still mad at Mom. I'm not nuts! I have some crazy dreams; I tell her about them. I'm allowed to have fantastic dreams, aren't I?
Love,
Jo
P.S. I swear I saw someone dressed like that guy in my dream, green skin and red horns, coming out of a new Karoake bar in Little Five Points when we went to Vortex for burgers last night. Maybe I'm prophetic!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next evening Jim had retired to his ready room after his shift to work on reports. He barely had time to register the swish of his door opening before the book he'd loaned Bones dropped with a loud thud on the desk in front of him. Jim looked up at Bones glowering down at him.
"That's some fantastic shit in there. How am I supposed to believe most of it?" Bones dropped into a chair, his hands clenched on the arms as if to keep himself from taking the book and throwing it into the nearest recycler and then possibly doing the same to his captain. Jim understood the feeling; he'd wanted to do it plenty of times after Tarsus.
Jim dropped his PADD and leaned back in his chair. "Trust me and believe it. Or, don't trust me and just watch."
"Watch what--" Bones' voice cut off with a snap of his teeth and his eyes bulged out when the book he'd dropped on Jim's desk came floating back into his lap. He shot out of the chair, the book dropping to the floor with a crash.
"Hey, hey, that book is centuries old! Not nice, not nice at all." Jim rushed around the desk and shook the book out, straightening pages and refastening the clasp holding the cover down. He leaned his butt back on his desk and clasped the thick tome to his chest.
Bones looked at him closely. Jim burned under his gaze, trying not to lose it at the thought that he was now something to be looked at with suspicion, like a deadly virus under a microscope, by the person he loved best in the world.
"What are you, Jim? That book dealt mainly with vampires and "higher" demons. And the Slayer. Where do you fit in there, what category?" Bones started pacing from one side of the ready room to the other, firing questions at Jim without giving him time to answer.
"Bones, sit down, please. And I'm human, purely human. Well, as human as someone descended from a green glowing mystical Key given human form can be." Jim set the book back on the desk and took one of the chairs in front of his desk. He wouldn't hide behind it; Bones needed to see him and they needed a level playing field for this.
Bones sat on the edge of the chair. Jim knew it was taking him considerable willpower not to just bolt and pretend none of this was happening. Hell, he'd pretended until Pike pulled him out of that bar in Riverside and dared him to do better.
Jim was shaken out of his maundering by Bones' next question. "So, you can move things with your mind because you're mystical?"
"There's no correlation. I move things with magic. Anyone with the right knack can do it, the ability to tap into the ley-lines and Gaia-force. Sometimes, all it takes is speaking Latin at the wrong place and time, no talent required. No, the magic is independent of having Summers' blood." Jim looked Bones in the eye as he dropped that bomb on him.
Bones jerked in his chair. "Damnit, Jim, you’ve lied to me! I asked you about that after Manwah IV."
Jim looked down at his hands and then shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry. There's only three people on this ship with a need to know, and you weren't one of them. That had nothing to do with Jo and everything to do with my family, my burden. Let me tell you one of those fairy tales you're so quick to dismiss."
Jim picked up his PADD and scrolled through until he found the file he wanted. He tapped it open and handed the PADD to Bones once it displayed a picture of a young blonde woman and a taller brunette. "At the beginning of the 21st century, there was a Hell-god named Glorificus who wanted to open a portal between our dimension and hers.
"A Hell-god named Glorificus?" Bones eyes rolled. "Was her superpower being a cliche?"
A laugh escaped Jim at Bones' comment. "Demons and Big Bads tend to take themselves awful seriously. They all have an overweening sense of their own superiority. Just ask the First Evil."
"Really, the First Evil? If evil is so unimaginative, I can't see it ever being triumphant."
"It's a balance, Bones; which is why we have Slayers to counteract the baddies. But, back to Glorificus and the family legends. Glorificus needed a mystical construct called the Key to open the portal. The monks that guarded the Key sent it to the Slayer of that day, Buffy Summers, in the form of a younger sister, Dawn. Dawn Summers was my great-times-eight-grandmother."
"Which one's Dawn?" Bones stared at the picture. Jim knew he was seeing the resemblance between the girls and Jim in the shape of the face, particularly the chin. It was pretty obvious, too, that Buffy's hair gained as much assistance from chemical enhancement as Jim's did.
Jim smiled faintly. "The one that looks like Jo. Dawn was quite feisty, forthright, fierce, and willing to fight the good fight with the only thing she had--her blood. She married one of Buffy's friends--Xander Harris." He reached over and touched the PADD again. A picture of Dawn and a tall man with black hair and an eye-patch popped up.
"Get used to hearing these names. The Watcher's Council is an extremely incestuous little organization, even after many millennia." Jim looked at the picture fondly. He never knew most of these people and he wasn't always grateful that they had given him such a bloodthirsty legacy, but their stories were inspiring and gave him a sense of belonging to something larger than himself and even Starfleet.
"The blonde, Buffy--she was the Slayer, then?" Bones paged back to the first picture and looked at her again. "She looks awful young for so much responsibility."
Jim nodded. "Buffy was called at sixteen. Most Slayers are called between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Jo is a little on the young side, but not out of the zone for being Chosen."
"The Chosen One." Bones muttered to himself, staring at the picture of Buffy. "How do these girls get unchosen? When is their job done? What if Jo doesn't want to be a Slayer? Maybe she wants to be a doctor, or a teacher."
Jim wished he could wrap Bones up in his arms right now, because he knew the man was going to need it when he got the answer to those questions. He needed to make an end run around the explosion he knew was forthcoming.
"First, you have to know that there is no longer a Chosen One; it's more like the Chosen Two Thousand. She'll be in good company." A quick tap on the PADD and a picture of a castle set in green forested hills popped up, young women lined up in formation, filling the forecourt.
Bones' eyebrows shot up. "What did they do, start breeding them once they knew what genes controlled it? How did this ever get past the fallout of the Eugenics War and the ban on genetic manipulation? Is Jo a sport, a throwback to someone who left the program?"
Jim rubbed his forehead at Bones' obtuseness, more likely his unwillingness to believe that there was anything science couldn't provide an answer for. "It's not genetic, it's mystical. Think about it. There always has to be a Slayer. Evil doesn't sleep, it's always out there. If we had to wait for each girl to grow up after a Slayer vacated her post, there would be gaps. One girl is chosen at a time, therefore there has to be one girl ready to replace the next--she has to have Potential that can be triggered at a moment's notice. Being Chosen doesn't happen on a day that's planned, but it's planned for by the mystical forces that empower her."
"A moment's notice." Bones echoed the phrase, it taking a few seconds to sink in. And, as Jim had predicted, he could see the lit fuse in the sparks in Bones' eyes before he exploded into action.
"You mealy-mouthed bastard. Why don't you just say the only way a girl is Chosen is for another girl to die? How young? How long does Jo have before she dies and calls the next Slayer?" Bones tossed the PADD onto Jim's desk as he shot to his feet.
Jim stood up, too, striding over to stand in front of Bones, chest to chest, eye to eye. "Because most Slayers die in their beds these days. Of old age. Sit down." Jim put both his hands on Bones' biceps and urged him back into his chair. Bones resisted only a moment and then complied. Despite his anger, it was obvious to Jim that he wanted answers.
"I know you're concerned for Jo, but what I'm more concerned with is which Slayer has died who activated Jo, because we don't know who died. Pike has sent bulletins to all our Watcher outposts and we've got an agent tracking down some of the more far-flung Slayers who haven't reported in recently. There have been no confirmed Slayer deaths since Jo started exhibiting signs of being Chosen." Jim turned away to hide his face from Bones with his next words. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep the pain off his face with what he had to say next.
"It's highly possible that someone's mother or wife or daughter is dead and we don't know it yet," Jim's voice broke a little. "As large as this galaxy is, you know how long communications from one end to the other can take and how unforeseen events can affect them." Jim took a moment to get his face under control before he turned back to face Bones. His back to the desk, he sat on the edge and crossed his arms in front, holding in the hurt of that particular memory. It had taken three months to get word from Tarsus of the massacre. Three months to find out that even though his mother had eliminated Kodos and his renegade cell of the Scourge, she had perished during the attempt.
Jim could see the light bulb going on over Bones' head. "Your mother. You said Jo reminded you of your mother."
Jim scrubbed a hand across his eyes. Maybe he still wasn't as in control as he thought. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Bones. I didn't want to have to be the one to tell you this. Being a Slayer is a very dangerous job. And while many Slayers do live to a ripe old age, many don't. Just like not all members of Starfleet have uneventful careers to retire peacefully at home. Saving the universe one apocalypse at a time is a very dangerous business. But at least in Starfleet we're given a choice; Slayers aren't. I'm sorry, Bones. I'm so sorry."
Bones got up and walked over to stand in front of Jim. When he looked up he could see the the struggle Bones was having with himself. He was frowning, but he still reached out to Jim. "Jim. C'mere." Jim was caught totally by surprise when Bones pulled him into his arms, smoothing his hands up Jim's back, coaxing his muscles into relaxing.
Jim caught a small whimper coming out of his mouth before he could call it back. "Bones." He found himself shoving his nose in to the warm skin of Bones' neck and practically collapsing into the man's arms. It felt so good to be in those arms, something he'd only hoped for and still didn't really believe he'd have in the long term. Finally allowed to put his arms around the other man, he wanted to hold onto this moment forever.
"Just tell me that you're doing everything possible to keep Jo safe. That's all I want. Promise me." Bones' hands were warm on his back, one skimming up to the back of Jim's neck and used his thumb to prod his chin up to look at him.
Jim nodded, then squirmed out of the hold Bones had on him reluctantly. "Let me get my PADD."
Picking the PADD up off the desk, he paged quickly through to the picture he wanted. "Jo’s already spotted one of our allies." He held up the PADD so Bones could see a picture of Lorne.
Bones gave out a surprised grunt. "That guy looks like what Jo described in her last couple of letters. Who, what, who...does it have a name? "
"It's a he. Lorne is from Pylea, a demon dimension adjacent to ours. After we got Jo's letter where she started describing her dreams I was sure she'd been Chosen, but Pike wouldn't send out a Watcher until we had confirmation of a slayer down. Until then she's only listed as a Potential. She should still have a Watcher, but we needed to step lightly around Jocelyn."
Bones gave a start of surprise. "What's Joce got to do with this?"
"Possibly nothing. However, you were the one who told me that Jocelyn hired Wolfram and Hart to handle your divorce." Jim shook his head. "We couldn't risk it being a set up."
Bones looked at him, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. "I'll be the first to admit that Joce's lawyers took me to the cleaners, but any lawyer worth his salt probably would have gotten the same result. I was a mess and I didn't put up much of a fight. But I don't see what that has to do with Jo being a Potential."
Jim shook his head. "You don't have the background, yet, but I'll fill you in. By now, you do have the need to know, so it's going to have to be a crash course."
Jim pulled the two chairs facing his desk together and sat down in one, urging Bones into the other. He looked at Bones while he clasped two of their hands together and got a squeeze of confirmation in return. "Wolfram and Hart is the earthly presence and representatives of a trio of ancient demons who want to literally bring hell to Earth. They are the physical embodiment of evil in our dimension. The Council tends to play things very close to the vest around Wolfram and Hart. It's been centuries since their physical representatives, the Circle of the Black Thorn, were destroyed, but the firm, and its evil, is slowly making inroads into our dimension again."
Bones nodded along with this recitation, taking it all in. "So, this Council was afraid that Jo might be a puppet for this group, due to Jocelyn having a connection?"
Jim nodded. "Exactly. I have no doubt that she isn't; Jo has too strong a personality to be easily controlled by anyone. But the Council didn't want to take the chance that they were trying to plant a sleeper in the Slayer ranks."
"And this Lorne is there to protect her?" Bones looked relieved at the thought.
Jim picked at one of his cuticles with his free hand. "Not exactly."
Bones' eyebrows did a complicated dance from surprise, to suspicion, to ire and stayed beetled over his eyes, while his eyes started to heat up again. "Do not tell me he's an assassin." He didn't let go of Jim's hand, though, which showed his level of trust in Jim outmatched his mouth.
"No, no! That was only the one time! Lorne is an anagogic demon, he reads auras. He can tell if you're good or evil just from listening to you speak or sing." Jim pressed Bones' hand between both of his. "He was sent to check out the people around Jo, to make sure their motives were pure."
Bones grunted. "Wouldn't call Joce pure, but she's not evil."
"No, Joce is just a frazzled mother trying to navigate her daughter's passage through adolescence. Not knowing her daughter is a Slayer isn't helping things any. The sooner we get confirmation that Jo has been Chosen, the sooner we can send a bona fide representative of the Watcher's Council to convince Joce that Jo would do better at the Academy where she can get the proper training amongst her peers." Jim felt Bones relax next to him, his body molding closer to his seat as he digested the efforts that Jim and the Council were making to protect his daughter.
"That's not going to make Joce very happy; her life is in Atlanta. Isn't there any way Jo could get her training at home?" Bones picked up the PADD sitting in Jim's lap, paging through to the picture of the castle. "Where is this, anyway?"
Jim looked at the picture. "Scotland, but that place doesn't exist any more. The Slayer Academy was absorbed into Starfleet close to two centuries ago. Then, once the UFP was created, it was placed under the aegis of Section 31. The current Slayer Academy is in the Presidio, part of the UFP complex there."
"So there's going to be two thousand slayers there for Jo to go to school with?" Bones looked up at Jim, gesturing to the girls in the picture.
Jim chuckled. "No, only about forty or fifty at any given time. That picture was of the first class of slayers that Buffy activated. Before that, there was only one at a time. Then Buffy and Willow Rosenberg came along and activated every single Potential simultaneously."
"That sounds like a hell of a lot better odds than just one at a time. Smart girl." Bones had started paging through the photos in the file, when his head popped up in surprise. "Wait. Rosenberg? As in Ensign Rosenberg of the rash?"
Jim smirked at Bones and pushed his hand away from the scroll bar on the PADD, flipping quickly to a picture of a sweet-faced redhead with brilliant green eyes. "And yes, you would be right that Ensign Rosenberg is related to her. He's actually a fairly decent magic practitioner; he's our contact with the coven back at headquarters. If he was harvesting contraband from the botany lab it was for a spell of some kind, not to smoke."
"Is everyone on this ship in on the secret mumbo-jumbo handshake?" Bones frowned at Jim. "I thought you said only three people had the need to know."
Jim nodded. "Yes, and he's one of them. The other two are Uhura and Spock. It's not just alien languages that Uhura knows, but every demon dialect out there."
"How can she know all of them?" Bones sounded skeptical. Jim looked at him, at the way he was now completely relaxed in his chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his body language saying he was likely open to more new experiences. Leaning over to his comm panel he hit a button.
"Lt. Uhura, could you meet me in my ready room? I'd like you to show something to Doctor McCoy." Jim settled back into his chair to await the next act of what was rapidly becoming a three-ring circus.
A moment later the door slid open and Uhura entered the ready room. Coming to a stop, she looked at the two men, her head cocked to one side like a bird evaluating a bug to be consumed.
"Lt. Uhura, thank you for--" Jim didn't get any of the niceties out before he was interrupted.
"Has the doctor's offspring finally been confirmed as one of those puny Slayers that you must call me in here to play show and tell?"
Jim saw Bones start at the tone of voice. He straightened up in his chair at the words, sputtering defensively. "Puny? What's a string bean like you calling someone puny?"
"Uhura, play nice. Doctor McCoy has had some tremendous shocks today; I would like you to--." Again, Uhura interrupted Jim.
"I care nothing for the likes and dislikes of someone who is but a worm beneath my frailest tentacle. But, in getting this humiliation over with quickly so I may return to my duties I will comply with your wishes." Jim felt Bones' hand jolt in his as his communications officer allowed the svelte form of Nyota Uhura in her Stafleet red uniform to fade away into the blues, reds and browns of the shell the Old One known as Illyria inhabited since she'd been resurrected in the body of Winifred Burkle. It still looked as if a stiff breeze would send the willowy brunette spinning away like a leaf before the storm, but Jim knew how deceptive that fragility was; he'd watched her and Spike spar more than once.
Illyria turned to face Bones completely. "I am much diminished from my original form. For millenia, I ruled over vast territories of the Primordium, crushing my enemies and feasting on their entrails. Now, I assist these measly humans in their quest to spread their pestilence throughout the galaxy."
Bones looked a little shocked, then turned to Jim with a pungent observation. "I always wondered what Nyota saw in Spock, now I understand completely. They've both got an overweening belief in their own superiority."
"I am superior; it would be illogical to attempt to refute it." Her form once more flowed between aspects until she was again Nyota Uhura in her red uniform. "I will go now. There is a strange disturbance in the frequencies in the subhertz range, yet we are not close enough to any stellar body that would be giving out those kinds of signals. I must observe this phenomenon more before I can decide if it is something of value to us."
"Thank you, Uhura." Jim smiled at her before she turned abruptly and marched out the door.
Bones turned in his chair to look at Jim. "So, this Illyria, what is she exactly?"
Jim ran his free hand through his hair and huffed out a breath while figuring out the best way to explain Illyria. "Well, what you see is only a shell. Illyria was an Old One, one of the original true demons that ruled over the Earth before mankind arose. Her form was shaped more in the nature of a giant cephalopod. Think something large enough to stomp a twenty story office building into dust. The shell you see now was Winifred Burkle, a scientist that worked for Wolfram and Hart's headquarters in Los Angeles back at the turn of the twenty-first century."
Bones' eyebrows shot up. "Wolfram and Hart, again. So why's this evil demon working for the good guys?"
"One--not all demons are inherently evil, although Illyria certainly was. Two--Wolfram and Hart took away most of her powers, and made her feel vulnerable. She swore vengeance and agreed to help take them down. It didn't hurt that the residual emotions of Fred that were left in the shell caused Illyria to feel pain, fear, love, attachment. She decided to live as a human since she couldn't escape them."
"Christ, Jim. This is all so unbelievable. Just answer me this: is Spock some kind of devil? Isn't him being Vulcan bad enough?" Bones tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He had dark rings under them, telling Jim he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Probably poring over the book Jim had pushed at him.
"No, Spock is exactly what he is: a human/Vulcan hybrid." Jim reassured him.
"Then why is he a member of the cool kids club?" Bones rolled his head sideways and leaned on Jim's shoulder. It was obvious there wasn't much more to be talked about tonight. Bones might have more questions, but it looked like he was going into information overload and there would be time for more revelations in the coming days.
"Well, he is a touch telepath; Illyria couldn't exactly hide what she was from him. So, we recruited him." Jim brushed his mouth against the rumpled brown hair presented to him by the top of Bones' head. He was tempted to let Bones fall asleep against his shoulder, but knew it would only result in more restless repose which the man obviously did not need. The fact Bones felt comfortable enough with him to let his guard down so far told him that he hadn't lost his trust and that there was still hope that they could find something together out of this quagmire of misunderstanding and secrets. Jim smiled to himself, happier than he'd been in a long, long time.
"Bones, I think you've had enough for today. Why don't you go get some sleep and I can answer more of your questions later." Jim raised one hand to stroke it through the bangs that had flopped over Bones' forehead, smoothing them back into place so he could see the droopy hazel eyes blink up at him.
Bones struggled to sit upright. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm about useless right now. Can I take that book back to my quarters, again? There's still a lot of stuff I want to read about."
"Sure. Keep it for a while, just don't leave it where anyone can see it. I usually keep it locked up." Jim stood up and offered Bones a hand, giving a slight tug to help him out of his chair. Bones let himself be pulled up into Jim's space, the two of them standing chest to chest. Jim looked into Bones' eyes, searching for the remnants of his earlier anger.
"Are we good?" Jim raised one hand to clasp Bones' elbow, but it wasn't necessary. Bones stayed exactly where he was, his hands reaching for Jim's waist.
With a tug, he pulled Jim in tight. "Yeah, we're good. I'm sorry I went off half-cocked earlier. I guess you really understand where I was coming from, though, don't you?" Bones reached a hand up and skimmed it over Jim's mouth. "I just want Jo to be safe, to live a long life and be able to chase her dreams. Being a Slayer doesn't seem to bring anyone a lot of peace and joy, only an early death."
"The peace and joy are there, just interspersed with hard work and dedication. Not a lot different than any job that's worth doing." Jim smiled under Bones' touch. "Now, old man, why don't you go to bed before you start making promises your body can't keep."
Bones snorted. "Old man? I'll show you old man. But, yeah, not tonight." Pressing a brief kiss to Jim's mouth, he stepped back and straightened his shirt out from where it had crept up under Jim's hands while they'd been talking. "Give me that damn book and I'll get out of your hair."
Jim laughed. "I'll take that as a promise." He turned back to his desk, picked up the book that Bones had practically thrown at him earlier and handed it back to him.
"No more reading this tonight. We'll talk more about it later." Placing one hand on his shoulder, Jim walked Bones to the door.
"Sleep well, Bones. It's all going to turn out for the better, you'll see." Bones gave him one last tired smile before the door swished open, releasing him into the corridor to return to his quarters with much to think about. Jim watched him go from the open door, until he finally stepped back far enough for the door to automatically close. He reached up and touched his lips. Such a brief kiss, but he'd waited so many years for Bones, a few more days wouldn't matter until they could take time to really explore what had been building between them for so long. Jo came first, the mission, as always, came first.
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2264.44
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I've quit trying to tell Mom about my dreams; she's starting to look a little crazy-eyed at me any time I mention them. She's got me scheduled to go see Doctor Schneider in two weeks. I'm not looking forward to it. I don't think I need it. Dreams are just dreams, right?
But I don't know! My dreams feel so real, sometimes. I'm dreaming of all these girls, that I am these girls. Most of the time, I'm running through cemeteries. Sometimes, I'm crawling through sewers. Stinky, by the way. Sucks having stinky dreams. And the weird creatures I keep killing. Yeah. Every dream, I'm a teenage girl and I'm doing my best to kill or not be killed.
Last night, I was in a fight in a train with this guy all dressed in black and denim, covered in safety pins. I smashed his head through the window, but all he did was laugh and come back at me. We fought up and down the car and I thought I had him when the lights went out. But when they came back on, I was on the ground with him kneeling over me and then his hands reached for my face and that's the last thing I remember. I think that girl died. It's a good thing a person can't really die in their dreams, but I think it would almost be better that way than to die from a real monster killing me. I think it would hurt. Those poor girls must get so tired. Heck, I'm tired and they're only dreams!
I just wish these dreams would go away, Dad. They creep me out and I'm only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night because I wake up terrified. Could you prescribe me something? Maybe then I can tell this Doctor Schneider that it was all just a big mistake. I ate the wrong thing at lunch and it gave me nightmares.
Love,
Jo
P.S. I've included a drawing I made of the man in my dream. He's kinda dreamy looking, isn't he? Ha, I crack myself up! Hey, don't you think he looks a little like that guy you like who sings that song "Rebel Yell," Uncle Jim?
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A few night later, Jim tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as he waited for the comm panel on the desk in his quarters to signal that his connection was ready. When it finally activated, he was facing the agent from Section 31 that he'd sent out to investigate the whereabouts of the last three unaccounted-for Slayers. As soon as the picture was stable, he got right down to business.
"Listen, Spike, have you had any luck following up on McGivers, Lester or Madison?" Jim watched as the platinum-haired agent leaned back in his chair and threw booted feet up on the console in front of him. His left hand moved out of range of the video feed, only to come back into view a moment later with a pack of contraband cigarettes. Jim watched as Spike tapped one out of the pack, stuck it between his lips at the corner of his mouth and pulled out a silver lighter. A quick flick and he'd sucked the tip into a glowing ember, taking a drag before finally answering Jim's question. Jim shook his head; what a drama queen.
Spike wiggled a little, getting comfortable before he finally blew out a cloud of smoke. He had a distinct leer on his face as he reported the first of his findings. "Lester and Madison took a little detour together to Risa. Tracked them down to a cozy little seaside resort where they were sunning their bits side-by-side on a very isolated beach. Coulda made some serious dosh off the holovid rights to the action those two were getting. Sent them a private communiqué on Section 31 channels and told them to get their sunburned little arses back on their scheduled outing. Don't think they'll be taking any more unsanctioned vacations. Described in living color how I'd vivisect them for breakfast and fry up their organs for elevenses if they tried something like that again."
Jim smiled at the gory image he painted. "You old blowhard, you'd never--"
Spike cut him off with a pointed finger, his cigarette dangling precariously from the vee of his pointer and middle finger. "Oi! Don't even think it, Cornfed... I may have a soul, but I didn't get my teeth pulled the way the Poofter did." He sniffed and stuck the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth. "Couldn't even gum someone to death by the time he finally kicked it. That's what you get for Shanshuing: dentures and those nappies they had retired movie stars advertise on the telly back in the 21st. I'll go down fighting the good fight."
Jim rolled his eyes at the litany. "Yeah, yeah, Angel was lame and he had funny hair. You're a fine one to speak, Captain Peroxide. Your look hasn't changed in over two centuries."
Spike shook his head. "You know, if the overgrown hall monitor could have seen what his bloody progeny would come to, he'd bleedin' weep. You're a fine one to talk, Cadet Clairol." Stubbing his cigarette out on the bottom of his boot, Spike tossed the butt over his shoulder.
Jim tsked. "That's Captain Clairol to you. And look at you! Littering, is that the worst you can come up with these days?"
Spike tipped his head back, looking down his nose at Jim. "Nothing has been the same since World War III. Used to be a man could get a bit of crash and bash on when he'd had a hankering for a pint or two, count on the bobbies to come around for a nice dust up to top off the evening. These days, you get a ticket in your comm stack and your credit chip gets docked. What's the fun in that? Takes the piss out of a man." Spike's feet thudded to the floor and he leaned forward in his chair, his face suddenly serious.
"No whitewashing it, and if you tell anyone I said this, I'll bite that helmet-haired Ken-doll you're so stuck on: once the Scooby Gang passed on, there wasn't as much to keep me fighting the good fight. I thought of moving on to a new planet once reliable warp engines were developed. Somewhere I could stand under a sun that wouldn't burn me right to ashes. 'Snot anything you need to know, but it's about the mood a lot of folk were in, human or demon. We were all floundering in the wake of the Eugenics War. Around that time, started hearing some rumbling that some wanker had stuffed a ship full with desiccated Old Ones and taken off for Alpha Centauri. Planned to set up a new age of true demons. Thought for a while that's what we were going to find on Tarsus and all we'd have to do was smash up some sarcophagi, didn't plan on a whole host of the Scourge." Spike threw Jim a commiserating look.
"Yeah, I know." Jim looked down for a minute; that had been a major clusterfuck. Bad intel had led to inadequate personnel assigned to the mission and a supply chain fuck-up that had left the few people involved scrambling to live off the land while waiting for supplies that came three months too late. Reinforcements that should have been part of the original mission. Too little, too late.
"Your mum was a real trooper, Sprout. She had some moves on her. Reminded me at times of Buffy, the way she thought at ninety degrees to everyone else, catch you totally by surprise. It would have been an honor to be done for by her; take my word for it." Spike's finger stabbed out at him again.
Jim nodded, a lump in his throat keeping him from saying anything in agreement, or disagreement. He knew how Spike felt about Slayers. After a moment, he regained his composure to ask after the final Slayer.
"What about McGivers?"
Spike nodded. "Getting to that. She was last seen leaving here about two weeks ago. I don't know if you knew the bint, but she was obsessed with the history of the Old Ones. Read up everything she could on them, took a sight-seeing tour of the Deeper Well, even found her trying to tap the Blue Meanie's comm records whenever she was in range of the Enterprise."
Jim startled at that. "That's not good. Those are supposed to be secure transmissions between members of Section 31 on a need-to-know basis. Why--?"
Spike leaned back in his chair, a frown on his face. "Think maybe she suspected Blue was in touch with other Old Ones, maybe had found the Botany Bay."
Jim shook his head at the thought. "Uhura would have told me if she made contact with them. She hasn't heard anything--" He sat up straight in his chair as a thought occurred to him.
"Something you forgetting to share with the class, Flyboy?" Spike cocked his head at Jim's sudden silence.
"Uhura did hear something she couldn't identify a couple of days ago. Considering she communes with plants, there 's not much out there that stumps her. I'll have her pinpoint the location on the star charts and we'll go back and check it out." Jim felt a sense of exhilaration that he had a lead toward finding something that had confounded section 31 for well over a century.
"Keep an eye out for that McGivers bint along the way. If she was playing peeping tom to Blue's frequencies, she may have gotten a jump on you. Her interest in Old Ones was unhealthy-like. Fair worshipped them, she did." Spike spun his chair sideways to the desk, throwing his feet up on the corner and one elbow on the console, apparently satisfied that their conclusions were correct and that Jim would follow up with action to resolve the issue. As Jim watched him tap another cigarette out of the pack in front of him, the door chime announced a visitor. He wasn't expecting anyone, so he hoped whoever it was could be fobbed off with a lick and a promise. Well, maybe not the lick, unless it was Bones.
"Don't go yet, Spike; I've got a couple of questions to ask you still. I'll get rid of whoever it is." Jim got up from his desk and went to the control panel on the wall, hitting the button that opened the door.
It was a pleasant surprise to find the visitor was Bones, but a little awkward, too, as he hadn't finished his conversation with Spike. Making a snap decision of the kind he was famous for, Jim went ahead and invited him in. It was time Bones was given a more in-depth tour of some of Section 31's inner workings.
"Hey, great timing, Bones. I have someone I want you to meet." Jim urged Bones forward into the office area of his quarters, one hand on the small of his back. He'd get that lick later when Spike wasn't around to mock him for it. As they came around the privacy screen, he saw Spike sit up in interest.
"Is this the heartthrob, then?" Jim felt his ears heat up at the words and a slight blush rose up in his cheeks at Spike's words. Considering he and Bones hadn't really had time to define the change in their relationship, it was a little embarrassing to hear Spike throwing out such laden buzzwords.
"Could you make me sound any more like a 15-year-old with his first crush, Spike? Thanks for nothing." Jim scowled at the agent. He turned to look at Bones, even though it was hard to meet his eyes after Spike's needling.
Jim started to introduce the two men to each other. "Bones, I'd like you to meet--"
"Jim, that man's a killer. What are you doing communicating with him?" Bones looked at Jim, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"You've heard of me, then?" Spike looked at Bones with interest, leaning forward slightly in his chair, the cigarette again being used as a pointer. "Has Buck Rogers over there been telling tales out of school to impress you?"
Bones scowled at Spike. "Jim hasn't told me anything. But you're the spittin' image of a picture Jo drew of a killer."
Jim scrubbed one hand through his hair. "Yeah. That's what I was going to talk to Spike about next. And since you're here, you can sit in. There's stuff you need to know and this will kill two birds with one stone."
"It better explain why you're talking to a murderer who's not in prison right now."
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Bones, it will. Would you sit down, please? We need to talk about Jo's dreams." Jim pointed Bones to a chair and watched as he settled into it, his back straight and his shoulders stiff.
One of Spike's eyebrows peaked in interest. "'At's right; he's got a snack size back home, doesn't he?"
"Don't tell him anything, Jim. He might go after Jo next." Bones crossed his arms over his chest, reluctance in his entire posture.
"Spike is not a danger to Jo, okay? He's got a soul. For all he plays the evil undead, he's a pussycat." Jim quelled Spike's outraged squawk with a pointed glare. "Let me show him the letters and the picture she drew and we can talk about what it is and what it means." Jim laid a hand on Bones' knee in an attempt to soothe him. Bones' leg twitched, but he let Jim's hand stay where it was. Jim couldn't blame him for being wary, even if on the surface he seemed to be overreacting to what was ostensibly a very vivid dream not based in reality. Except...it was Jo's dream.
Bones nodded his head. "This better be good."
"Only the best, mate." Spike relaxed his interested hunch so he was sprawled back in his chair, one leg up on the console, the other one draped off to one side, bringing the thrust of his hips into prominence.
Jim shook his head at the display. "Knock it off, Spike. Bones isn't even your type. Tall, dark and forehead, right? Should be anathema to you."
"Spoil sport." Spike took another drag of his cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the viewscreen. He waved his hand at Jim in a 'go ahead' gesture, beckoning towards himself. "Right, then. What did you need the good sawbones here for?"
Jim keyed in a command at his console, pulling up Jo's letters tiled along the left side of the viewscreen for all of them to read. "Jo's been having dreams for a while now that smack of Slayer Prophecies."
"Prophecies, Jim? More occult claptrap?" Bones scoffed, one eyebrow flying high on his forehead.
"Bones, did you or did you not recognize Spike as soon as you saw him?" Bones conceded the point with a reluctant nod.
"Slayer dreams can be pretty damn accurate; we've learned that over the years. We need to know if Jo's are prophecy or just a result of the greater Slayer gestalt." He looked at Bones to expand on his comment. "Slayers have a form of inherited memory or consciousness; what one Slayer has felt or seen can be passed on through dreams, a timeline of past Slayers and their history, but not necessarily prophecy." Jim pulled up the picture she'd drawn and heard Spike curse at the likeness.
"Shit, must be me from back around the end of the twentieth century. Before I got the coat off Nicki Wood." Spike leaned towards the viewscreen, cataloging the piercings, the spiked hair, the eyeliner. "Might even be the last night I danced with her. Sister had a death wish."
Bones glared at him. "You killed her."
Spike shrugged, then looked straight at Bones from the viewscreen. His face rippled and the next thing they saw was the ridged brow, golden eyes and jagged teeth of his true visage. Bones shrank back in his chair at the change for only a moment before he straightened up again, attempting to remain uncowed by all the new information being thrown at him. Seeing pictures in a book was one thing, being confronted with the reality required a complete rearranging of his known world. "Vampire, mate. Kill or be killed when there's a Slayer in play." Jim watched as Spike's face smoothed back out and he ground his cigarette out in an ashtray off to one side.
Jim interrupted before it could turn into a verbal slinging match. "So the description of the fight in the subway car, that's accurate?"
Spike scanned the letter intently, fiddled with his lighter, looked to one side and then gave a short nod. "Yeah, that was Nicki Wood. My second Slayer."
Bones shot up out of his chair. "Listen to him, Jim! He admits killing her. Why are we having anything to do with him? I don't care what he knows, he's evil."
"Sit down! Now." Jim jumped up and pointed to the chair Bones had flown out of. "We need to know how accurate Jo's dreams are; they could be very important. To us and to her. To keeping her alive. And it's not just that we need Spike to help evaluate that, but he's earned his place."
Bones threw his hands up and sat down in his chair. "Fine. Fine, we need him."
"If it's any consolation to you, ya big girl's blouse, I won't be passing go and collecting two hundred dollars when I finally kick this immortal coil; I'll be going straight to bloody Hell. Think being punished for eternity will be enough retribution for you?" Spike shivered a little in his chair, his hands tucked into his armpits. A haunted look passed across his face. "Almost went there once already; not looking forward to that final journey."
Bones looked at him curiously. "How do you know you'll go there?"
"Evil dead, here; spent nearly one hundred an' thirty years doing evil, loving every minute of it until the bloody Initiative shoved a behavior modification chip in my noggin. You can thank the Sprout's great-whatever-grandad Finn for that. Then, well, then I went batshit insane and got a soul for love. Beside the point, though. The good, like Buffy, go to Heaven; us demons, the right evil ones, go to Hell. If you're lucky, your friends save you before that happens." Spike lit up another cigarette, attempting to look nonchalant, but Jim could see that he was still a little rattled by the way his hand shook.
"So the only reason you do good is because you're programmed to, like a robot or a computer?" Bones had a sour look on his face.
"Bleedin' hell, you tosser! How many times do we have to tell you; I have a soul. Now I see why it's taken Cadet Clairol so long to get through to you; you're bloody thick!" Spike kicked one of the legs of the console in frustration and Jim heard it give out a slight groan at the abuse. "Let me ask you this, Doctor--what keeps you from killing someone?"
Bones looked taken aback at the question. "My oath. I'm a doctor."
"Besides your oath. What, as the oh-so-special bloody human you are, keeps you doing the right thing time after time? When there's no one there to tell you what the right thing to do is, how do you know?" Spike stared at Bones, waiting for his answer.
It came immediately. "My conscience. I listen to my conscience." Bones peered sideways at Spike. "So, are you saying a soul is the conscience? And you've got a soul."
"Give the man a cigar. Bloody right I do. Had to fight for the bugger, too, and it wasn't a cake walk. Wasn't exactly what I asked for, either, but you know how that goes. Wishes and horses and all that rot." Spike looked at Jim through the viewscreen. "Can we get back to business, now? I've got places to be, people to do."
Jim shook his head with a wry grin. "Yeah, let's see if we can wrap this up. My last question for you, Spike: How accurate are Slayer dreams, in general?"
Spike looked surprised. "Didn't your mum ever talk to you about them? They could be fair cryptic at times, until you shook the pieces out on the table and put them together proper. But it was usually all there, just a mishmash until you made sense of it."
Jim swallowed past a lump in his throat. "She quit dreaming, she said. After I was born. Mom said the dreams were useless if they couldn't save my father. But I think if she'd still had them, she wouldn't have failed at Tarsus." He rubbed his hands against his thighs in agitation, only stilling when Bones reached over and took one of them to hold. Jim wouldn't look at him, though; didn't want to see the pity in his eyes. His mom was the only thing that could make him feel weak.
"That's a right shame, Sprout. No one on the Council ever realized that, I reckon. Dreams wouldn't have helped during the Kelvin Incident, though. Weren't no supernatural baddie that got your Da, just that tosser Nero. Slayer dreams don't work that way." Spike leaned forward, planting both elbows on the console and crowding in close to the viewscreen to speak directly to Jim. "Your mum didn't fail, though; I won't have you saying that. She saved four thousand colonists from the Scourge. Not many Slayers out there with that kind of moxie in her. Buffy, maybe one or two other and that's it."
Jim sat mute in the face of Spike's vehemence. He'd had to live with his mother, and without her, both during his childhood and after her death. Winona may have been a Slayer and heroic for all that was worth, but she never let him forget that the mission came first. All he had wanted to do was help and she wouldn't allow him to. He supposed he should be grateful she didn't let him go to Tarsus with her, but maybe she'd be alive today if he had. He'd never know and they might have, if she hadn't given up her dreams. Jim finally looked at Spike. "I know--it's the mission that matters."
"That's a crock of shite! And your mother knew it, as like any parent knows." Spike sat up straight and jammed a finger at the viewscreen. "Ask your Doctor McDreamy there why he does what he does out here in the black void."
Bones lifted a hand to Jim's face and turned it toward him. "For our children, Jim. To keep them safe, to protect them from harm. We may join from a sense of adventure, and if it serves a larger purpose in the long run, that's all to the better, but at the heart of it we want our children to be able to grow up without being afraid of the things that scare us. Sometimes that takes us far away from them, but it doesn't make it any less worthwhile. Do you think I'm a bad parent for being out here?"
"No, never! It's not that I didn't want Mom to go, I was proud of her. She was the best. I could see it with every mission; she got better and better. And I was helping her, but she--" he broke off, his mouth moving soundlessly in distress.
"She what, Jim? How were you helping?" Jim's hand pulled out of Bones' grip as he jumped out of his chair and he stalked from one side of the office space to the other. One hand on the back of his neck and the other clenched in front his mouth, Jim bit back words that would damn him. He was forced to stop his pacing when Bones stood up and blocked his restless movement, one hand reaching out to steady Jim under his elbow. "C'mon, tell me. Tell me what you did. It couldn't be that bad. You said you were helping."
Jim shook his hand off with a jerk and, turning abruptly, slammed his fist into the bulkhead. Keeping his back to Bones, he leaned his forehead against the cold metal, both hands resting on the wall next to his head. Strength...he could feel the strength of the ship; he let it flow into him, bolster him as he drew what he could from the inert metal. "She shouldn't have gone to Tarsus! I told her. I told her about my dreams and she wouldn't listen. She quit having dreams because I stole them. I don't know how, or why, but I started having them. If I'd never been born, she would never have gone to Tarsus or she would have been better prepared. I should have made her listen, really listen. It's all my fault." Jim's words were coming in gasps as he confessed to the blank wall how he had killed his mother. The cold comfort of the bulkhead was all Jim could hope for at the moment; there was no way that Bones would still want him when he found out his mother's death was his fault.
"Oh, Jim." Bones came up behind him and placed his arms around his waist, pulling him back into his chest. Jim remained stiff in his arms for a minute, before relaxing into the embrace, a shudder rippling through him as he took in a deep breath.
"I killed her, Bones," Jim whispered. He wrapped his arms around the ones holding him close, held on tight as if he'd never let Bones go. If this was all he ever got, he didn't want to forget it, ever.
Part 3