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jedibuttercupPG-13; SG-1/B:tVS. 2500 words; 5th in the Buffy Carter ficlet series.
The SGC had Sam's phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver.
Title: Hold On To Me As We Go
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13, gen
Spoilers: Set early Season 2 for SG-1, and post-Becoming AU for Buffy.
Notes: Continues my ancient Buffy Carter ficlet series. Titled from the Phillip Phillips song, "Home".
Summary: The SGC had Sam's phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver. 2500 words.
Captain Samantha Carter took a deep breath, then let it out again, trying to let all her worries about SG-1's new mission out with it. The mission she wasn't there for, because she'd withdrawn from the field for all but critical emergencies to be a bigger presence in the labs-- and in her daughter's life.
Colonel O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c had taken Dr. Lee with them today instead, intending to eventually rotate through half the program's astrophysicists to test for best fit since none of them had really stood out above the others on paper. Bill was intelligent enough, if a bit unsuited to regular active trips through the gate; hopefully, everything would go well. According to Daniel, it was supposed to be a simple mission to a garden world with signs of advanced inhabitants; no Goa'uld influence, either, to judge by the architectural images the MALP had sent back. They would be fine.
Unless, of course, like so many other simple missions in the past, something were to go disastrously wrong within her field of expertise....
Sam shook her head, dismissing the pessimistic thought. If she were out there and that did happen, she'd be delayed in coming home to her daughter again, something she'd promised not to do any more if it was at all avoidable. And it was a mistake of ego to think herself that irreplaceable, anyway; if she really was the only hard scientist the SGC could depend on in the field, it would be a serious weakness for the program.
Either way she looked at it, if she wasn't doing the one universal right thing, she was at least doing a right thing; the right thing for her and for Buffy, and maybe even for the SGC by making her skills more available to the program as a whole. Being out of the field didn't necessarily mean their universe would fall to pieces like the one they'd seen through the quantum mirror, with its civilian Dr. Carter; there were too many other points of difference between them for her to fall for that logical fallacy. Right?
Sam laughed ruefully at herself, then checked her watch again and began packing up for the day. The SGC had her phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she had another project of equal importance to work on. She was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver. They'd had to postpone their original intended expedition a couple of times-- once for a surprise call from a friend of Buffy's who'd apparently spent half the summer hacking transportation systems around the country until she found her, and another for SGC business that was fortunately easily resolved from the base-- but tonight would hopefully be the night Buffy would finally show her proof of the wilder parts of her story. Sam was looking forward to having that tension over with.
It wasn't that she doubted Buffy, really. The wounds her daughter's adoptive mother had left when she'd rejected Buffy's story not once, but twice, would not have struck nearly so deep if the teenager hadn't really and truly believed in it herself. Joyce may have meant her actions to be helpful rather than harmful, but even if Buffy was in any position right now to understand that, it made them no less hurtful. Her desire to run away and start over wasn't petulance; it was real heartache that a vital part of her perceived identity had been written off as insanity or lies not once, but twice, by the person she felt should have believed in her, no matter what. Sam wasn't going to be the next person to add to that pain.
She did think it likely, though, that whatever Buffy had encountered and interpreted as 'magic' and 'vampires' and the like was actually the effects of alien technology and creatures transported to Earth from other planets for who knew what reason. If the mentor who'd trained her was part of a tradition that had seen sufficiently advanced technology centuries ago and calcified their means of combating it in the only way they'd found that worked, that might explain some of the more horrifying parts of what they'd done to Buffy, throwing her into their war at the tender age of fourteen. The Goa'uld had mostly stayed away during the five thousand years the Stargate was buried, but they weren't the only race out there. Who knew what strange things had yet to be discovered about their own planet's history, never mind the worlds they explored out among the stars?
To that end, Sam picked up a box full of sensors, recording equipment, and other items she'd decided to take with her on the trip, and left the office for the night. The only people she'd discussed Buffy's story with so far were Janet and General Hammond; Janet mostly for the listening ear, but Hammond for permission to take the equipment. Contrary to expectation, he hadn't asked too many questions, only that she not discuss her findings with anyone other than her daughter before running them by him.
Apparently, her earlier speculation had been fairly close to the truth; there was a classified military project assigned to deal with the 'supernatural', though the general didn't know much more about it than its name and vague purpose. The risk of her investigation being shut down before she came to any conclusions, or of bringing Buffy to the attention of some shadowy government group with unknown motives, was more than reason enough for her to agree to keep it quiet.
Buffy was already ready to go when she got to the house, clothed like she was going out clubbing, but paler than usual with an extra dose of plastic in her often-brittle smile. She also had a suspiciously heavy duffel of her own waiting at the front door. Sam slid the zipper down enough to raise her eyebrows at the collection of swords, pointy pieces of wood, and other recognizable weapons inside, and wonder how often Buffy actually used any of them; she hated to think of her daughter as a killer of dangerous animals at best, or more likely a vigilante, depending on the true nature of the things she fought.
Not a murderer, though; not after all the injuries she'd suffered, and the people she'd lost along the way. She rarely spoke of them, but the grief ran visibly close under the surface at times, tainted with anger turned back against herself. One thing Sam was going to have to arrange, if Buffy did attend school in Colorado rather than Sunnydale this year, was counseling for her; but it would be tricky to find someone she would talk to.
"You sure you're up for this?" she asked, looking up to catch Buffy watching her with the determined, stern expression that had only rarely made an appearance since her arrival in Colorado Springs: the one Buffy called her Resolve Face. "I know you came here partially to get away from this kind of thing, and you don't really need to prove anything to me." She could always take Teal'c and follow the clues Buffy had let drop already to do her own investigation, if it would save her daughter more stress.
Buffy's expression turned distinctly skeptical at that. "Most people who say things like that already think I'm crazy, you realize. Though it's a nice twist, being asked if I want to go do my so-called destiny, rather than being asked if I've tried not being the Slayer."
On the one hand, it was nice to see some of the assertive spirit Joyce's annual letters had always spoken of returning to her daughter; on the other, no girl her age should need to be that cynical and self-defensive. That was one thing Sam had always hoped not to pass on; one of the reasons Buffy hadn't been raised as Elizabeth Anne Carter.
"You realize I was younger than you when I thought my life was completely over," she parried, speaking baldly of it with her daughter for the first time. "And of all the people in my life who had an opinion about how I should deal with it-- the only ones who were happy with my decision were your parents. I know things haven't been as rosy for you as I hoped they would be back then; and not just because of the Slayer issue. But I bring it up now because I know what it's like to feel that alone in your decisions, and that convinced you're doing the right thing anyway. It's been kind of a theme for me, actually; I know we haven't spoken much about my career, but I'd be surprised if you didn't know plenty already about it before you came here."
Buffy's frown faded into something a lot more thoughtful-- and dare she think it, even a little hopeful? Well, if embarrassing herself for Buffy's sake was what it took to get through to her daughter on more than a surface level, Sam would do it, and be glad to.
"Don't repeat this-- especially not to Colonel O'Neill, because I'd prefer not to remind him of it, ever-- but I was still carrying a pretty big chip on my shoulder about that when I was transferred here. So... for the better part of my adult life, more or less. When we met, I was trying to justify my inclusion in-- well, it's classified, but he took one look at me and basically said, 'Another scientist. Please.' And I said to him...."
She trailed off, well aware of how warm her cheeks were getting, then tipped her chin up as Buffy's expression sharpened with intrigued curiosity; it gave her the strength to continue. "I told him, 'I'm an Air Force officer just like you are, Colonel, and just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside, doesn't mean I can't handle whatever you can handle.'"
Buffy clapped a hand over her mouth as a surprised giggle slipped out; it faded quickly, but her eyes were still dancing when she lowered the hand a moment later. "Wow. Okay. Maybe I do get the fierce thing from more than just Mom. Joyce, I mean. Did I tell you, she clobbered a vampire over the head once with a fire axe to defend me? Not that she believed he was a vampire at the time, or anything."
Sam smiled back. "It really is okay if you call us both Mom, you know. Or neither. Whatever you're comfortable with; it won't hurt my feelings."
The line of Buffy's shoulders relaxed a little more, and she gave Sam a wry smile. "So since he's still like your boss and all, I'm guessing the power of snark was strong with him, too?"
Sam's grin widened. "Yeah. Turns out it's scientists he has an issue with, not women; and even that wasn't a problem once I proved I wasn't just a token soldier. So-- whatever my hang-ups with the issue of science versus magic, they're my issues, not yours; but I don't doubt that the things you've seen and experienced exist. I want to see them for myself, and make my own observations, so I can understand and deal with them in my own terms, because I am a scientist; but I wouldn't presume to tell you not to be who you clearly are, regardless of anyone else's approval."
She might not like how young Buffy was when she'd got sucked into that secret world of hers, either; but she also knew better than to try to stuff that genie back in the bottle. Some things, once broken, couldn't be fixed, not even with gold seaming. Innocence was one of them.
Tears welled up in Buffy's eyes, rather abruptly; and then five foot and change of blonde teenager flung herself into Sam's arms, nearly knocking her down before she caught her balance. It was-- awkward. And kind of nice? Sam didn't know quite how she should react; but she made her best attempt at hugging back, feeling a little bewildered and uncertain but also sort of pleased, relieved, and maybe a little bit proud, too.
+
Those feelings returned even more strongly a few hours later, as she stood over the torn-open grave of a recently deceased 'animal attack' victim, coughing through a lung-full of dust at her daughter.
The teeth, the yellow eyes, the ridged forehead; okay, regardless of its origin, that was definitely the being that had spawned the legend of vampires. Startlingly like the Goa'uld in some ways, including possession of a host body to grant greater reach and intelligence... but in others, very definitively not.
"Holy Hannah. You just folded and spindled the laws of physics right in front of me!" she said incredulously, wondering where the hell the sensor she'd slapped it with just before Buffy punctured it through the heart with a wooden stake had gone... and how on earth the stake itself had survived. "And you've done that how many times?"
"Uh... lots?" Buffy shrugged, sheepishly. "I used to patrol almost every night, and in Sunnydale, there was almost always something to take care of or investigate. You wouldn't believe some of the out-of-towners we got."
Sam suppressed a snort at that; if she only knew. "But the only explanation you have for why it works is magic? I mean, regardless of what kind of wood that is, it's just one set of dead cells piercing another, which does nothing to explain how the stake itself remains intact but the vampire's clothes disintegrate, no matter how new they are... does anybody study that kind of stuff?"
"That's... a good question, actually," Buffy replied, looking pained. "I sorta knew one woman who used both computers and magic-- but she wasn't one of the tweedy types who're supposed to be in charge of The One Girl in All the World, so." She shrugged.
"Well, I know what I'm doing with my free time, then," Sam said, and spontaneously reached out to hug Buffy again.
Buffy came to her even more easily this time. "I didn't want to just assume," she said, sounding a little watery, "'cause, you know. Vampires, dust everywhere, tracking blood in the house, suspicious bruises all the time. And I do want to go back, to visit. But. If you still wanna keep me... can I still stay?"
"Of course you can," Sam said, hugging her back. It would be complicated, on a legal level; and this whole vampire thing promised a level of intrigue Sam wasn't sure yet how they'd manage to navigate. What if creatures like this existed off world, and an SG-team ran into them, all unsuspecting? But on its most basic level, the answer was easy; and Sam gave it without a qualm.
"You'll always have a home with me, no matter what."
(x-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts & AO3)
The SGC had Sam's phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver.
Title: Hold On To Me As We Go
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13, gen
Spoilers: Set early Season 2 for SG-1, and post-Becoming AU for Buffy.
Notes: Continues my ancient Buffy Carter ficlet series. Titled from the Phillip Phillips song, "Home".
Summary: The SGC had Sam's phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver. 2500 words.
Captain Samantha Carter took a deep breath, then let it out again, trying to let all her worries about SG-1's new mission out with it. The mission she wasn't there for, because she'd withdrawn from the field for all but critical emergencies to be a bigger presence in the labs-- and in her daughter's life.
Colonel O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c had taken Dr. Lee with them today instead, intending to eventually rotate through half the program's astrophysicists to test for best fit since none of them had really stood out above the others on paper. Bill was intelligent enough, if a bit unsuited to regular active trips through the gate; hopefully, everything would go well. According to Daniel, it was supposed to be a simple mission to a garden world with signs of advanced inhabitants; no Goa'uld influence, either, to judge by the architectural images the MALP had sent back. They would be fine.
Unless, of course, like so many other simple missions in the past, something were to go disastrously wrong within her field of expertise....
Sam shook her head, dismissing the pessimistic thought. If she were out there and that did happen, she'd be delayed in coming home to her daughter again, something she'd promised not to do any more if it was at all avoidable. And it was a mistake of ego to think herself that irreplaceable, anyway; if she really was the only hard scientist the SGC could depend on in the field, it would be a serious weakness for the program.
Either way she looked at it, if she wasn't doing the one universal right thing, she was at least doing a right thing; the right thing for her and for Buffy, and maybe even for the SGC by making her skills more available to the program as a whole. Being out of the field didn't necessarily mean their universe would fall to pieces like the one they'd seen through the quantum mirror, with its civilian Dr. Carter; there were too many other points of difference between them for her to fall for that logical fallacy. Right?
Sam laughed ruefully at herself, then checked her watch again and began packing up for the day. The SGC had her phone number, if worse came to worst, and in the meanwhile, she had another project of equal importance to work on. She was supposed to meet her daughter for dinner and a stroll through the nightlife of Denver. They'd had to postpone their original intended expedition a couple of times-- once for a surprise call from a friend of Buffy's who'd apparently spent half the summer hacking transportation systems around the country until she found her, and another for SGC business that was fortunately easily resolved from the base-- but tonight would hopefully be the night Buffy would finally show her proof of the wilder parts of her story. Sam was looking forward to having that tension over with.
It wasn't that she doubted Buffy, really. The wounds her daughter's adoptive mother had left when she'd rejected Buffy's story not once, but twice, would not have struck nearly so deep if the teenager hadn't really and truly believed in it herself. Joyce may have meant her actions to be helpful rather than harmful, but even if Buffy was in any position right now to understand that, it made them no less hurtful. Her desire to run away and start over wasn't petulance; it was real heartache that a vital part of her perceived identity had been written off as insanity or lies not once, but twice, by the person she felt should have believed in her, no matter what. Sam wasn't going to be the next person to add to that pain.
She did think it likely, though, that whatever Buffy had encountered and interpreted as 'magic' and 'vampires' and the like was actually the effects of alien technology and creatures transported to Earth from other planets for who knew what reason. If the mentor who'd trained her was part of a tradition that had seen sufficiently advanced technology centuries ago and calcified their means of combating it in the only way they'd found that worked, that might explain some of the more horrifying parts of what they'd done to Buffy, throwing her into their war at the tender age of fourteen. The Goa'uld had mostly stayed away during the five thousand years the Stargate was buried, but they weren't the only race out there. Who knew what strange things had yet to be discovered about their own planet's history, never mind the worlds they explored out among the stars?
To that end, Sam picked up a box full of sensors, recording equipment, and other items she'd decided to take with her on the trip, and left the office for the night. The only people she'd discussed Buffy's story with so far were Janet and General Hammond; Janet mostly for the listening ear, but Hammond for permission to take the equipment. Contrary to expectation, he hadn't asked too many questions, only that she not discuss her findings with anyone other than her daughter before running them by him.
Apparently, her earlier speculation had been fairly close to the truth; there was a classified military project assigned to deal with the 'supernatural', though the general didn't know much more about it than its name and vague purpose. The risk of her investigation being shut down before she came to any conclusions, or of bringing Buffy to the attention of some shadowy government group with unknown motives, was more than reason enough for her to agree to keep it quiet.
Buffy was already ready to go when she got to the house, clothed like she was going out clubbing, but paler than usual with an extra dose of plastic in her often-brittle smile. She also had a suspiciously heavy duffel of her own waiting at the front door. Sam slid the zipper down enough to raise her eyebrows at the collection of swords, pointy pieces of wood, and other recognizable weapons inside, and wonder how often Buffy actually used any of them; she hated to think of her daughter as a killer of dangerous animals at best, or more likely a vigilante, depending on the true nature of the things she fought.
Not a murderer, though; not after all the injuries she'd suffered, and the people she'd lost along the way. She rarely spoke of them, but the grief ran visibly close under the surface at times, tainted with anger turned back against herself. One thing Sam was going to have to arrange, if Buffy did attend school in Colorado rather than Sunnydale this year, was counseling for her; but it would be tricky to find someone she would talk to.
"You sure you're up for this?" she asked, looking up to catch Buffy watching her with the determined, stern expression that had only rarely made an appearance since her arrival in Colorado Springs: the one Buffy called her Resolve Face. "I know you came here partially to get away from this kind of thing, and you don't really need to prove anything to me." She could always take Teal'c and follow the clues Buffy had let drop already to do her own investigation, if it would save her daughter more stress.
Buffy's expression turned distinctly skeptical at that. "Most people who say things like that already think I'm crazy, you realize. Though it's a nice twist, being asked if I want to go do my so-called destiny, rather than being asked if I've tried not being the Slayer."
On the one hand, it was nice to see some of the assertive spirit Joyce's annual letters had always spoken of returning to her daughter; on the other, no girl her age should need to be that cynical and self-defensive. That was one thing Sam had always hoped not to pass on; one of the reasons Buffy hadn't been raised as Elizabeth Anne Carter.
"You realize I was younger than you when I thought my life was completely over," she parried, speaking baldly of it with her daughter for the first time. "And of all the people in my life who had an opinion about how I should deal with it-- the only ones who were happy with my decision were your parents. I know things haven't been as rosy for you as I hoped they would be back then; and not just because of the Slayer issue. But I bring it up now because I know what it's like to feel that alone in your decisions, and that convinced you're doing the right thing anyway. It's been kind of a theme for me, actually; I know we haven't spoken much about my career, but I'd be surprised if you didn't know plenty already about it before you came here."
Buffy's frown faded into something a lot more thoughtful-- and dare she think it, even a little hopeful? Well, if embarrassing herself for Buffy's sake was what it took to get through to her daughter on more than a surface level, Sam would do it, and be glad to.
"Don't repeat this-- especially not to Colonel O'Neill, because I'd prefer not to remind him of it, ever-- but I was still carrying a pretty big chip on my shoulder about that when I was transferred here. So... for the better part of my adult life, more or less. When we met, I was trying to justify my inclusion in-- well, it's classified, but he took one look at me and basically said, 'Another scientist. Please.' And I said to him...."
She trailed off, well aware of how warm her cheeks were getting, then tipped her chin up as Buffy's expression sharpened with intrigued curiosity; it gave her the strength to continue. "I told him, 'I'm an Air Force officer just like you are, Colonel, and just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside, doesn't mean I can't handle whatever you can handle.'"
Buffy clapped a hand over her mouth as a surprised giggle slipped out; it faded quickly, but her eyes were still dancing when she lowered the hand a moment later. "Wow. Okay. Maybe I do get the fierce thing from more than just Mom. Joyce, I mean. Did I tell you, she clobbered a vampire over the head once with a fire axe to defend me? Not that she believed he was a vampire at the time, or anything."
Sam smiled back. "It really is okay if you call us both Mom, you know. Or neither. Whatever you're comfortable with; it won't hurt my feelings."
The line of Buffy's shoulders relaxed a little more, and she gave Sam a wry smile. "So since he's still like your boss and all, I'm guessing the power of snark was strong with him, too?"
Sam's grin widened. "Yeah. Turns out it's scientists he has an issue with, not women; and even that wasn't a problem once I proved I wasn't just a token soldier. So-- whatever my hang-ups with the issue of science versus magic, they're my issues, not yours; but I don't doubt that the things you've seen and experienced exist. I want to see them for myself, and make my own observations, so I can understand and deal with them in my own terms, because I am a scientist; but I wouldn't presume to tell you not to be who you clearly are, regardless of anyone else's approval."
She might not like how young Buffy was when she'd got sucked into that secret world of hers, either; but she also knew better than to try to stuff that genie back in the bottle. Some things, once broken, couldn't be fixed, not even with gold seaming. Innocence was one of them.
Tears welled up in Buffy's eyes, rather abruptly; and then five foot and change of blonde teenager flung herself into Sam's arms, nearly knocking her down before she caught her balance. It was-- awkward. And kind of nice? Sam didn't know quite how she should react; but she made her best attempt at hugging back, feeling a little bewildered and uncertain but also sort of pleased, relieved, and maybe a little bit proud, too.
+
Those feelings returned even more strongly a few hours later, as she stood over the torn-open grave of a recently deceased 'animal attack' victim, coughing through a lung-full of dust at her daughter.
The teeth, the yellow eyes, the ridged forehead; okay, regardless of its origin, that was definitely the being that had spawned the legend of vampires. Startlingly like the Goa'uld in some ways, including possession of a host body to grant greater reach and intelligence... but in others, very definitively not.
"Holy Hannah. You just folded and spindled the laws of physics right in front of me!" she said incredulously, wondering where the hell the sensor she'd slapped it with just before Buffy punctured it through the heart with a wooden stake had gone... and how on earth the stake itself had survived. "And you've done that how many times?"
"Uh... lots?" Buffy shrugged, sheepishly. "I used to patrol almost every night, and in Sunnydale, there was almost always something to take care of or investigate. You wouldn't believe some of the out-of-towners we got."
Sam suppressed a snort at that; if she only knew. "But the only explanation you have for why it works is magic? I mean, regardless of what kind of wood that is, it's just one set of dead cells piercing another, which does nothing to explain how the stake itself remains intact but the vampire's clothes disintegrate, no matter how new they are... does anybody study that kind of stuff?"
"That's... a good question, actually," Buffy replied, looking pained. "I sorta knew one woman who used both computers and magic-- but she wasn't one of the tweedy types who're supposed to be in charge of The One Girl in All the World, so." She shrugged.
"Well, I know what I'm doing with my free time, then," Sam said, and spontaneously reached out to hug Buffy again.
Buffy came to her even more easily this time. "I didn't want to just assume," she said, sounding a little watery, "'cause, you know. Vampires, dust everywhere, tracking blood in the house, suspicious bruises all the time. And I do want to go back, to visit. But. If you still wanna keep me... can I still stay?"
"Of course you can," Sam said, hugging her back. It would be complicated, on a legal level; and this whole vampire thing promised a level of intrigue Sam wasn't sure yet how they'd manage to navigate. What if creatures like this existed off world, and an SG-team ran into them, all unsuspecting? But on its most basic level, the answer was easy; and Sam gave it without a qualm.
"You'll always have a home with me, no matter what."
(x-posted to
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