The Incursion Chapter 2 (BTVS/DW)
Title: The Incursion
Author: rat_hospital
Characters: Ace, Faith, Willow, Giles, Xander, and the 7th Doctor
Rating: PG-13 for language and mild content
Summary: The time has come at last. They have waited for so long. The new Watchers Council will need all the help it can get. Luckily a young woman called Ace seems to know what’s happening but can she be trusted? And who exactly is Dr. McCrimmon? Buffy xOver
Chapter One
Chapter Two: The Professor of Chronology
Giles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. It had been a long week, a very long week. Faith should have reached the crypt by now. Hopefully she had been sensible and waited for Willow, but somehow Giles doubted it. He checked his watch. It was late. Most of the watchers had long since gone to bed. A few of the more dedicated ones were still hard at work in their rooms, but for the most part it was quiet now. Giles supposed he should be glad of the quiet and enjoy it while it lasted. With most of the Slayer force mobilized, headquarters was a little bare. Only a handful of slayers remained.
Giles suppressed a shiver. For all the advantages the new headquarters possessed, central heating wasn’t one of them. The old castle had been painstakingly restored, with most modern amenities, but he doubted that any amount of tinkering would improve the heating situation. He shivered again. Maybe a spell…no Willow had already done enough magic here, any more and the castle would light up like a bloody Christmas tree. The castle, hidden behind a glamour, appeared to most observers to be just another ruin. Occasionally they had to chase off the odd tourist.
A young woman ran past him. “Hey Giles,” she called over her shoulder, sounding entirely too hyper.
Some one had let the slayers have mochas. Giles could feel a headache coming on. He paused and pushing open the great oak doors, entered the Library, though calling it such, hardly did it justice. This was a cathedral, a shrine to books, and there were many books. From floor to high vaulted ceiling. Shelves upon shelves of crafted bindings and pages filled with the sum of watcher knowledge. Giles stopped for a moment. It smelled like a library, it felt like a library in a way that the technological monstrosity never could. The slayers had insisted on their own library with access to the digital catalogue, all ones and zeroes and sterile blinking screens. Giles shivered again, but not from the cold.
He wasn’t alone. In a far corner a diminutive figure sat pouring over massive tomes. It was their mysterious visitor, Dr. Robert McCrimmon, though Giles noticed that most people simply called him Doctor. He’d been here only a few short weeks, but in that time he’d made an impression. Most of the slayers seemed to like him, and some of the younger watchers-in-training practically worshipped him. Indeed, it was telling that in a castle filled with numerous doctorates, if you referred to ‘the Doctor’ people immediately knew who you were talking about.
Dressed in his dark brown jacket and russet waistcoat he almost looked like a watcher, Giles decided. The checked trousers and golfing shoes ruined the effect, as did his seemingly ever-present umbrella, a not unwise precaution here in England. Giles smiled. Strangely he’d missed rain, when he’d been in California. Still the enigmatic Scotsman had proved something of a puzzle. His references had been outstanding, his request clear and to the point. He wanted to use the Watcher’s library to further his own research. Quite how he’d learned of them, Giles still wasn’t sure. Still Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had vouched for him, and Giles trusted the old man’s judgment.
“Burning the midnight oil, Doctor McCrimmon ” Giles said.
“Just Doctor,” he said glancing up. With a casual wave of the hand he urged Giles to sit. Giles sank gratefully into the upholstery, and glanced at the Doctor’s notes. They were written in some form of cuneiform, but he didn’t recognize it.
The Doctor followed Giles’ gaze. “Old High Gallifreyan,” he said answering the unspoken question.
“Never heard of it,” Giles frowned.
“No,” The Doctor smiled, as if at a private joke. “I must congratulate you, Mr. Giles,” he continued.
“Just call me Giles, I’ve become accustomed to it.” Giles wondered if the other man recognized the gesture.
The Doctor smiled softly and nodded. “Your library is truly impressive. I could spend a lifetime or two and barely scratch the surface.”
“Yes, it took quite some doing to reassemble. Unfortunately some works were irrevocably destroyed.”
“An unfortunate human predilection, the Library of St. John the Beheaded has an extensive section on bibliographic destruction, from the sacking of Alexandria, to a first hand account of the Bonfire of the Vanities, interesting but depressing.”
“Did you say the Library of St. John the Beheaded? You’ve been to the Library?”
“I started my research there. It is one of the few collections on this earth that could rival your own.”
“Good lord, I had no idea you were quite so well connected. I’ve known many watchers who would have given anything to visit St. John’s.”
The Doctor shrugged. “If you knew how well connected I was, I wouldn’t be that well connected. In any case St. John’s was surprisingly unhelpful. I’m in search of an exceedingly rare manuscript.”
“Perhaps I could help.”
“No, no you’re a busy man, saving the world etc…I’m just a wandering professor.”
“Perhaps, but it would be good to do some old fashioned research. These days I mostly chair meetings, and try to be patient while explaining why ice cream can’t be on the bloody budget.”
The Doctor smiled sympathetically. “I’m hoping to track down the Sa’ran Codex.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”
“Few have,” the Doctor said, but for a moment Giles thought he saw relief in the other man’s eyes. Then the moment passed.
“I admit Doctor that I’m curious why a professor of chronology would be interested in demonology.”
“I commit the cardinal sin-I dabble.”
“Still, the connection is rather tenuous, although I admit I’m not quite sure what the Chair of Chronology actually entails. Your predecessor was never very clear on that point.”
“You met him?”
“Briefly, my father knew him as a child. He was…an interesting character.”
“Yes,” the Doctor smiled sadly his mind elsewhere.
“Well,” Giles rose to his feet. “I’ll let you get on with it. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you, so do I. After you the only collection extensive enough is the Wolfram & Hart Archives, and they don’t exactly represent the better angels of our nature.” The Doctor turned back to his work.
Giles flinched slightly. Angel’s seeming defection had taken them all by surprise, and coupled with Spike’s recent death had driven Buffy into semiretirement. Giles felt his anger begin to grow. It seemed so out of character for Angel, Angelus too, for that matter. And try as he might he couldn’t imagine Wesley turning dark. The man he had known had been a stuffy and arrogant, but never evil, although according to Willow he had taken to chaining up slave girls in his closet which…no. Giles quenched that line of thought.
Something else was bothering him, though. As he headed back for his office, he wondered about the Doctor. Had the Scot’s voice been a little too casual, his face a little too innocent when he had mentioned angels? Giles would have dismissed it as mere paranoia, except this wasn’t the first time this had happened. It wasn’t the first time their visitor had made a seemingly innocent remark that touched a nerve. Just how much did this Doctor know? Giles frowned as he reached his office. Perhaps he would give Alistair another call in the morning. He was probably jumping at shadows; the man was the Regius Professor of Chronology, how dangerous could he be? Sill it never hurt to be too careful.
The telephone rang, shrilly interrupting his thoughts. “Yes,” he said.
“Yo, G,” came the voice on the other end.
Giles rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Faith,” he said evenly. What ever had happened, Giles knew it couldn’t be good.
***
The Doctor sat alone in the library. The books abandoned about him. He fiddled with a small piece of machinery. The Gallifreyan com-link was twitchy. He banged it defiantly against the table and it sputtered back to life. He held it up to his ear. It resembled a cell phone closely enough to fool any one watching.
“Can you hear me now,” he asked.
“Loud and clear Professor,” came the response
“Well?”
“Well…what,” there was a hint of teasing in her voice.
“Ace,” he practically growled.
“Keep your shirt on Professor,” she said. Then suddenly professional, her voice was serious. “We were right about Beech. He just became the vessel. That means they’re about done cooking.”
“Mmmm...”
“And more importantly he knew me, or they knew me.”
“Ah,” the Doctor said. “Not unexpected, given the lack of temporal cohesion.”
“Not unexpected? Well thanks for telling me. You know one day we’re going to have a nice long talk about sharing information.”
“Of course, right after we talk about safety standards?”
“ Oi, low blow Professor,” she whined but the Doctor could hear her smile. “I met Faith tonight.”
“New friend?”
“Vampire slayer,” Ace answered. “Beech beat her pretty badly.”
“And you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Ace…” Silence for a long moment. The Doctor leaned back and waited. Still silence. She was stubborn, but patience had never been one of her virtues.
“Fine, my head feels like it’s going to implode, but he didn’t get anything. Whatever you did to my head worked. He couldn’t get in. Still hurt though.”
“I’m sorry Ace.”
“Yea, listen tomorrow I’m going to be over run. Witches and Watchers and Slayers, oh my! They’re all going to be asking some interesting questions.”
“I imagine they would.”
“No instructions Professor?”
“What do I always tell you to do in situations like this?”
“Use my native intelligence guided by experience,” she said. The words had been drilled into her; she had certainly heard them enough.
“Why don’t you try that then," the Doctor suggested brightly.
“Gee, thanks Professor.”
“You’re welcome,” he ignored her sarcasm. “Good night Ace.”
“Night Professor, don’t let the Daleks bite.”
The Doctor sat in silence, staring down at his notes. His mind was racing. Things were going to get very nasty before they got better. He hoped his faith in the watcher wasn’t misplaced.
***
Giles sighed, as he hung up the phone. He needed to know what had happened in that crypt. What was in the coffin? Who was this Mr. Beech? Beating Faith was no easy task, but she’d been rattled. Images of the First came into his mind unbidden, and for a moment he considered. But no, this wasn’t the First. Faith knew what Caleb’s power had felt like and this was something other. Then of course there was Faith’s mystery woman-Ms. McShane, or Ace, as she seemed to prefer. She obviously knew a great deal about what was happening, but would she cooperate? More importantly, who’s side was she on? There was a span of time when Faith had been unconscious, what had happened then? Had Beech and this Ace person fought? Hard to believe she could survive when a Slayer couldn’t. Perhaps it was all an elaborate ruse, to get Ace on the inside. Giles yawned. It was late and he wasn’t going to get any answers tonight, but where had he heard the name McShane before?
Author: rat_hospital
Characters: Ace, Faith, Willow, Giles, Xander, and the 7th Doctor
Rating: PG-13 for language and mild content
Summary: The time has come at last. They have waited for so long. The new Watchers Council will need all the help it can get. Luckily a young woman called Ace seems to know what’s happening but can she be trusted? And who exactly is Dr. McCrimmon? Buffy xOver
Chapter One
Chapter Two: The Professor of Chronology
Giles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. It had been a long week, a very long week. Faith should have reached the crypt by now. Hopefully she had been sensible and waited for Willow, but somehow Giles doubted it. He checked his watch. It was late. Most of the watchers had long since gone to bed. A few of the more dedicated ones were still hard at work in their rooms, but for the most part it was quiet now. Giles supposed he should be glad of the quiet and enjoy it while it lasted. With most of the Slayer force mobilized, headquarters was a little bare. Only a handful of slayers remained.
Giles suppressed a shiver. For all the advantages the new headquarters possessed, central heating wasn’t one of them. The old castle had been painstakingly restored, with most modern amenities, but he doubted that any amount of tinkering would improve the heating situation. He shivered again. Maybe a spell…no Willow had already done enough magic here, any more and the castle would light up like a bloody Christmas tree. The castle, hidden behind a glamour, appeared to most observers to be just another ruin. Occasionally they had to chase off the odd tourist.
A young woman ran past him. “Hey Giles,” she called over her shoulder, sounding entirely too hyper.
Some one had let the slayers have mochas. Giles could feel a headache coming on. He paused and pushing open the great oak doors, entered the Library, though calling it such, hardly did it justice. This was a cathedral, a shrine to books, and there were many books. From floor to high vaulted ceiling. Shelves upon shelves of crafted bindings and pages filled with the sum of watcher knowledge. Giles stopped for a moment. It smelled like a library, it felt like a library in a way that the technological monstrosity never could. The slayers had insisted on their own library with access to the digital catalogue, all ones and zeroes and sterile blinking screens. Giles shivered again, but not from the cold.
He wasn’t alone. In a far corner a diminutive figure sat pouring over massive tomes. It was their mysterious visitor, Dr. Robert McCrimmon, though Giles noticed that most people simply called him Doctor. He’d been here only a few short weeks, but in that time he’d made an impression. Most of the slayers seemed to like him, and some of the younger watchers-in-training practically worshipped him. Indeed, it was telling that in a castle filled with numerous doctorates, if you referred to ‘the Doctor’ people immediately knew who you were talking about.
Dressed in his dark brown jacket and russet waistcoat he almost looked like a watcher, Giles decided. The checked trousers and golfing shoes ruined the effect, as did his seemingly ever-present umbrella, a not unwise precaution here in England. Giles smiled. Strangely he’d missed rain, when he’d been in California. Still the enigmatic Scotsman had proved something of a puzzle. His references had been outstanding, his request clear and to the point. He wanted to use the Watcher’s library to further his own research. Quite how he’d learned of them, Giles still wasn’t sure. Still Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had vouched for him, and Giles trusted the old man’s judgment.
“Burning the midnight oil, Doctor McCrimmon ” Giles said.
“Just Doctor,” he said glancing up. With a casual wave of the hand he urged Giles to sit. Giles sank gratefully into the upholstery, and glanced at the Doctor’s notes. They were written in some form of cuneiform, but he didn’t recognize it.
The Doctor followed Giles’ gaze. “Old High Gallifreyan,” he said answering the unspoken question.
“Never heard of it,” Giles frowned.
“No,” The Doctor smiled, as if at a private joke. “I must congratulate you, Mr. Giles,” he continued.
“Just call me Giles, I’ve become accustomed to it.” Giles wondered if the other man recognized the gesture.
The Doctor smiled softly and nodded. “Your library is truly impressive. I could spend a lifetime or two and barely scratch the surface.”
“Yes, it took quite some doing to reassemble. Unfortunately some works were irrevocably destroyed.”
“An unfortunate human predilection, the Library of St. John the Beheaded has an extensive section on bibliographic destruction, from the sacking of Alexandria, to a first hand account of the Bonfire of the Vanities, interesting but depressing.”
“Did you say the Library of St. John the Beheaded? You’ve been to the Library?”
“I started my research there. It is one of the few collections on this earth that could rival your own.”
“Good lord, I had no idea you were quite so well connected. I’ve known many watchers who would have given anything to visit St. John’s.”
The Doctor shrugged. “If you knew how well connected I was, I wouldn’t be that well connected. In any case St. John’s was surprisingly unhelpful. I’m in search of an exceedingly rare manuscript.”
“Perhaps I could help.”
“No, no you’re a busy man, saving the world etc…I’m just a wandering professor.”
“Perhaps, but it would be good to do some old fashioned research. These days I mostly chair meetings, and try to be patient while explaining why ice cream can’t be on the bloody budget.”
The Doctor smiled sympathetically. “I’m hoping to track down the Sa’ran Codex.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”
“Few have,” the Doctor said, but for a moment Giles thought he saw relief in the other man’s eyes. Then the moment passed.
“I admit Doctor that I’m curious why a professor of chronology would be interested in demonology.”
“I commit the cardinal sin-I dabble.”
“Still, the connection is rather tenuous, although I admit I’m not quite sure what the Chair of Chronology actually entails. Your predecessor was never very clear on that point.”
“You met him?”
“Briefly, my father knew him as a child. He was…an interesting character.”
“Yes,” the Doctor smiled sadly his mind elsewhere.
“Well,” Giles rose to his feet. “I’ll let you get on with it. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you, so do I. After you the only collection extensive enough is the Wolfram & Hart Archives, and they don’t exactly represent the better angels of our nature.” The Doctor turned back to his work.
Giles flinched slightly. Angel’s seeming defection had taken them all by surprise, and coupled with Spike’s recent death had driven Buffy into semiretirement. Giles felt his anger begin to grow. It seemed so out of character for Angel, Angelus too, for that matter. And try as he might he couldn’t imagine Wesley turning dark. The man he had known had been a stuffy and arrogant, but never evil, although according to Willow he had taken to chaining up slave girls in his closet which…no. Giles quenched that line of thought.
Something else was bothering him, though. As he headed back for his office, he wondered about the Doctor. Had the Scot’s voice been a little too casual, his face a little too innocent when he had mentioned angels? Giles would have dismissed it as mere paranoia, except this wasn’t the first time this had happened. It wasn’t the first time their visitor had made a seemingly innocent remark that touched a nerve. Just how much did this Doctor know? Giles frowned as he reached his office. Perhaps he would give Alistair another call in the morning. He was probably jumping at shadows; the man was the Regius Professor of Chronology, how dangerous could he be? Sill it never hurt to be too careful.
The telephone rang, shrilly interrupting his thoughts. “Yes,” he said.
“Yo, G,” came the voice on the other end.
Giles rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Faith,” he said evenly. What ever had happened, Giles knew it couldn’t be good.
***
The Doctor sat alone in the library. The books abandoned about him. He fiddled with a small piece of machinery. The Gallifreyan com-link was twitchy. He banged it defiantly against the table and it sputtered back to life. He held it up to his ear. It resembled a cell phone closely enough to fool any one watching.
“Can you hear me now,” he asked.
“Loud and clear Professor,” came the response
“Well?”
“Well…what,” there was a hint of teasing in her voice.
“Ace,” he practically growled.
“Keep your shirt on Professor,” she said. Then suddenly professional, her voice was serious. “We were right about Beech. He just became the vessel. That means they’re about done cooking.”
“Mmmm...”
“And more importantly he knew me, or they knew me.”
“Ah,” the Doctor said. “Not unexpected, given the lack of temporal cohesion.”
“Not unexpected? Well thanks for telling me. You know one day we’re going to have a nice long talk about sharing information.”
“Of course, right after we talk about safety standards?”
“ Oi, low blow Professor,” she whined but the Doctor could hear her smile. “I met Faith tonight.”
“New friend?”
“Vampire slayer,” Ace answered. “Beech beat her pretty badly.”
“And you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Ace…” Silence for a long moment. The Doctor leaned back and waited. Still silence. She was stubborn, but patience had never been one of her virtues.
“Fine, my head feels like it’s going to implode, but he didn’t get anything. Whatever you did to my head worked. He couldn’t get in. Still hurt though.”
“I’m sorry Ace.”
“Yea, listen tomorrow I’m going to be over run. Witches and Watchers and Slayers, oh my! They’re all going to be asking some interesting questions.”
“I imagine they would.”
“No instructions Professor?”
“What do I always tell you to do in situations like this?”
“Use my native intelligence guided by experience,” she said. The words had been drilled into her; she had certainly heard them enough.
“Why don’t you try that then," the Doctor suggested brightly.
“Gee, thanks Professor.”
“You’re welcome,” he ignored her sarcasm. “Good night Ace.”
“Night Professor, don’t let the Daleks bite.”
The Doctor sat in silence, staring down at his notes. His mind was racing. Things were going to get very nasty before they got better. He hoped his faith in the watcher wasn’t misplaced.
***
Giles sighed, as he hung up the phone. He needed to know what had happened in that crypt. What was in the coffin? Who was this Mr. Beech? Beating Faith was no easy task, but she’d been rattled. Images of the First came into his mind unbidden, and for a moment he considered. But no, this wasn’t the First. Faith knew what Caleb’s power had felt like and this was something other. Then of course there was Faith’s mystery woman-Ms. McShane, or Ace, as she seemed to prefer. She obviously knew a great deal about what was happening, but would she cooperate? More importantly, who’s side was she on? There was a span of time when Faith had been unconscious, what had happened then? Had Beech and this Ace person fought? Hard to believe she could survive when a Slayer couldn’t. Perhaps it was all an elaborate ruse, to get Ace on the inside. Giles yawned. It was late and he wasn’t going to get any answers tonight, but where had he heard the name McShane before?