Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I don't think this is such a good idea," Cameron Mitchell, a mechanic in the workshop across the street from where Buffy was temporarily working as a barista, said. "I'm not good with lying."

As she was pretty certain he was lying through his teeth about his background, and something about the way he held his body reminded her of Riley and the other Initiative soldiers, she was certain he either was or had been a member of one of the military branches. "We're just going from your car and into your house. We'll stay for a little while and then leave. You've picked me up many times before at my place and people have thought we were a couple, the only difference this time is that we'll stop by your place, and the touches will be deliberate, and in plain view of your neighbor so she'll get the wrong idea and leave you alone."

She smiled at his dubious look. "Come on or we'll be late for the movie."

Cam sighed at her, more for show than anything else, and got into his non-descript car. She followed.

Buffy was dressed in a nice pair of black slacks, a blue blouse, ankle-high boots with a small heel. It wasn't an all-out date night outfit, but a casual one. Which would hopefully indicate that they had been going out for a while and were past the dressed to the nines for every occasion part of the courtship.

It would've been a lot funnier, but Cam had told her he'd been living in this particular city for nearly a year, and Heather's consistent attempts to flirt with him was beginning to grate on his nerves. Despite never having met the woman, Buffy had decided to 'save' her friend by pretending to be his girlfriend. It hadn't sounded like his neighbor was a threat or really overstepping any boundaries, just not getting the 'not interested' signs Cam was trying to broadcast.

So, they were going on a fake date. First a movie and then dinner afterward. They had done it before, mainly because one or both wanted to see a particular movie but didn't want to go alone. They had established early on that there was nothing romantic, just a friendship between two people who were (semi-) new in town.

It didn't take long to get to his house, and when they arrived a boy Buffy assumed to be Heather's son was playing with a football in the yard next to Cam's house. It was much bigger than she had expected, and it had a double garage to boot. A single, never-been-married man of his age didn't need a house and he didn't really seem like the type to want to deal with all the extra upkeep. Yup, something definitely wasn't adding up, but she could be patient.

In her peripheral view, Buffy saw the curtains move in one of the houses next door, and she got out of the car. As she walked towards the front door, just half a step behind him, she made sure to invade his personal space just a little while looking up at him with an approximation of the looks she had used on Angel many, many years before. Cam's blue eyes were somewhere between amused, resigned, and annoyed. She gave him a sweet smile while her eyes laughed at the entire thing.

As soon as the door closed behind them he rounded on her, "You're enjoying this way too much."

Buffy laughed out loud. "Maybe I am." She looked around. There were sparse furnishes, but it looked lived in, and much more comfortable than she had expected. "Why don't you give me the tour?"

Half an hour later they were back outside. She had gotten her tour and Cam had gotten a shower and changed. They appeared to be a good-looking couple, even if she could easily be mistaken for being half his age. Slayer healing had somehow put the breaks on her aging process, but they got along reasonably well.

This time they were holding hands while hurrying towards the car. The pretty lady who lived next door had gone outside ostensibly to look after her son. She was attractive and much closer to Cam's age than Buffy had expected.

Cam called out a greeting to both, but they really were running late so they didn't have to fake it anymore. As they got into the car, Buffy smiled a greeting of her own even if she refrained from saying anything. The return smile wasn't quite as genuine as it had been when it was directed at Cam.

As he sped out of the living area, she asked. "Do you think she bought it?"

"I think so." He looked thoughtful and a little uncomfortable. "I hate lying."

"It'll be okay." If you're so uncomfortable, you can always tell her we broke up."

He gave her a look and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

Chapter Text

They were five days into the Great Road Trip, capital letters, when Buffy finally broached the subject she had wanted so badly to ask about since the first time she had met Cameron Mitchell. He had appeared kinda out of nowhere, looking lost and angry with the world in general and someone or something in particular. He kinda expected certain people to be there with him or just a phone call away. For the first few months he had occasionally called her Sam, and a couple of times he had called her Daniel. Which, huh?

His house, when she was finally invited there for the big pretend date to get the divorcee next door off his back, turned out to be generic. It had all the furniture one usually saw in a home, it looked lived in, and it had the expected electronics one usually saw in the home of a bachelor. It still managed to somehow look like it was temporary, like Cam was interchangeable, and someone else would take over when he was whisked away to somewhere else.

Every now and then he would start a story and then abruptly stop, mid-sentence, like he had said something he wasn't supposed to say. Despite it being something innocuous about his large and sprawling family. It was weird and the more time she spent with him the more obvious it became.

When Cam out of the blue decided to invite her along for a random road trip to Auburn, Kansas of all random places, she decided to humor him. Buffy quit her job, which had been temporary anyway, and packed the few things she had brought to that particular city, and hopped into the mustard yellow classic muscle car he had so meticulously restored for the past year. If nothing else, she was finally getting to see the old US of A from the dusty roads, and there was bound to be something for her to slay along the way.

After graduating from Hemery High she had decided to travel, first the world and then the US. The Watcher's Council had made sure everything was nice and legal, and they even made sure she had an allowance to live off of. It wasn't much, hence working as a barista, but it was enough to live on if she was careful.

A few words here, an indication there, and the Watcher's believed that the Powers That Be wanted her to be a traveling Slayer, rather than stay put somewhere. Merrick had made noises about moving to Sunnydale, a small town between L.A. and San Diego, but there had been a genuine Slayer Dream which had sent her to a dusty town in Mexico right across the border. After that, she had just kind of pretended she was supposed to travel.

Merrick had gone with her for the first couple of years, but then he had decided to return to England, and she was given a phone to specifically call him with if she needed help and to regularly check-in. It had abruptly given her a kind of freedom she had never experienced before. It had been amazing, and a little terrifying at times.

Moving to the same city as Cam had seemed like a coincidence at first, but now she wasn't so sure. Everything since the move seemed to come back to him, except there didn't appear to be anything supernatural about him, he didn't have any powers, he didn't attract the undead, and he wasn't in possession of old dusty books or cursed artifacts. Which meant he had at least one interesting secret which was the cause of her getting stuck on him for this long.

"Are you in Witness Protection?" Buffy asked, after a long stretch of comfortable silence. They were taking the long scenic route, more for her sake than his, but driving was relaxing for him. So who knew.

He turned startled blue eyes on her for a few seconds before he returned his attention to the road ahead of them. Cam had forgotten to put his sunglasses back on after their last stop, she noted absently.

"What?" He sounded taken aback more than defensive, but his body had tensed.

"Your background story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. One moment you have a large family and the next you don't. You move like you're trained, most likely some kind of military, but you claim you've always worked as a mechanic. You've called me Sam and Daniel, but plead ignorance when I ask who they are. You know some high-level physics, and random bits of Latin and other dead languages. And Hieroglyphs. You have a strange hatred for Egyptian mythology, while still mocking Pharaohs."

Buffy wriggled a little to get more comfortable in her seat while still remaining in a position that would not get them in trouble with the police. "It's the only thing I can think of that might fit. Except it doesn't, not really."

She watched as a range of emotions slid across his face, and she knew the exact moment when he decided not to tell her the truth. He reached for the forgotten sunglasses in the mid console thing between them and put them on. "No, I'm not in Witness Protection. Let it go."

A minor victory, but it didn't actually tell her anything. Except that for some reason he had been uprooted from wherever he had been originally, it hadn't been his idea, and then he had been unceremoniously dumped in suburbia. Somehow she didn't think it had been even a remotely fair exchange.

"Come on, Cam. Give me a little hint? Tell me about Sam or Daniel?"

A few moments passed and then he relented slightly. "They are, were, friends of mine. Geeks. Sam's an astrophysicist, she's the smartest person I've ever met. Daniel's a linguist and an archeologist." He grew silent, lost in his own memories. So she waited. "Things happened and we got separated." He gave her a quick look before focussing on the road again. "Don't ask how or why."

Buffy really, really wanted to ask, but instead, she gave an amicable, "Okay." Hoping he would continue.

"Now, we're just waiting for the inevitable."

She waited for him to continue, but a couple of minutes passed. Then five, ten, and she gave up. Patience wasn't a virtue of hers. "The inevitable being?"

"Something I really hope won't happen, but probably will anyway, because that's just the way things are," Cam replied cryptically. And Buffy had a flashback to having told people similar things in the past. It wasn't nearly as fun from this side of the conversation.

"Fine, keep your secret, but if it really is inevitable then telling me soonish is probably the better course of action. That way I can prepare myself because you're spoiling for a fight of some kind."

As she was looking at him from the side, rather than the front where the sunglasses covered his eyes, she could see him giving the clear blue sky above them a wary look. It was something else he had a habit of doing, and it didn't reassure her in the slightest.

Cam remained silent.

Chapter Text

Things had been a little tense in the car after Buffy attempted to get Cam to tell her his big secret, but after she let it go he slowly relaxed as the hours went by. She was still curious and her Slayer instincts told her to stay with this man that had randomly become a fixture in her life for no apparent reason.

When it became late, they began looking for somewhere to spend the night. Somewhere cheap, but not some kind of fleabag motel. And with an easily accessible place to get a meal before they turned in. Preferably something that hadn't been deep-fried first.

Half an hour later they had parked, checked in, and left on foot to find a place that had been recommended by the bored teenager at the desk. The small town they had arrived in was rundown, sparsely populated, and they were also the proud owners of four cemeteries with a lot of fresh graves. Which either meant a major accident had occurred lately, or there was her kind of trouble in town. She smiled.

Meanwhile, Cam had located a diner that appeared to have fallen right out of the 80s. Buffy grinned, small-town America really was as predictable as she had been told by the media.

Cam ordered for both of them while she found a place to sit and people watch. About half of the diner was populated, thankfully by actual people with modern clothing, or close enough, and more importantly, a pulse. Her senses didn't pick up anything interesting in the immediate area, so she relaxed and focussed on her food when it arrived.

The noise level had dropped the moment the locals had realized the people who came inside were not in fact two of their own, but strangers. A few had gawked without shame, but most people went back to their meal and/or conversation partners. The two of them became the most popular topic, mostly wondering if they were a couple, and whether or not Cam had money to attract her. Which, ouch. The age difference wasn't THAT high, even if she did look younger than she was, and okay, he was almost twice her age, but Cam had nothing on Angel. Buffy pushed the thought away and ignored the gossips.

"Do you get the feeling they're all talking about us?" Cam asked in a low voice in between one bite and the next.

Buffy raised a delicate eyebrow, "Of course. I bet nothing ever happens around here, so anytime someone stops by it's a big event. We'll be the talk of the town for weeks." She hid her grin in her drink, just slowly enough so he'd see it.

"That's right, city girl," he joked. "That's how all country bumpkins act when unfamiliar people come along to disturb the peace."

The rest of the meal was spent over a comfortable conversation at a normal level so the curious people at the nearby tables could spread the word about their road trip as soon as they left. It felt a little like high school, and they were the new kids who all the others were trying to get a measure of so they would know how to act towards them.

Buffy was sure they looked odd; Cam was wearing old worn jeans, a second-hand t-shirt, and a flannel shirt over it. She was wearing leather pants and a white tank top, with a medium-sized cross necklace very visible.

Normally she wouldn't have traveled in that kind of clothing, but since nearly all of her worldly possessions lived in two bags and they hadn't stopped to visit a laundromat yet she was all out of something more appropriate to wear. If her pre-Slayer self could see her now, she would've been horrified. Back then she wouldn't have left the house for a sleepover with less than a huge suitcase. But after years on the move, she had learned the hard way to pack light.

After the meal, they took a leisurely stroll back towards the inn. "I think I'm going to go for a longer walk around town. I need to stretch my legs." She looked at him under a streetlight. "Do you mind?"

"No, go ahead. I'll turn in early, I'm beat. Try not to wake me when you get back." He nodded to her and kept walking towards the building they had both been heading for moments earlier.

Buffy did walk around town to stretch her legs, and after days in a car, it felt wonderful. But more importantly, she was walking around and stretching out her supernatural senses. Something had brushed it while they were eating, and it definitely wasn't friendly.

It took her a good twenty minutes before she located it in a particularly run-down shack at the other end of the town. A trio of vampires, maybe dead for about three decades, so not new to the game, but still stupidly careless. Dropping this many bodies in a small area was stupid in the extreme.

Rather than use the element of surprise, she chose to take the direct route and walked in the front door. "Honey! I'm home!" she called out cheerfully.

Two of the vamps came around the corner from a hallway, while the third stared stupidly at her from a door on the right. Buffy brandished a stake she'd had hidden in one of her boots and grinned invitingly at them.

Ten minutes later the room was a lot dustier than it had been previously. Fighting had felt awesome after being cooped up for so long, and she might have allowed it to go on much longer than she normally would've, but there was no one around to call her out on it.

Brushing the dust off of her clothes, the last one had decided to try and get up close and personal before she staked him, she casually walked back out of the house. The best way to go unnoticed was to pretend you had a reason to be wherever you were, doing whatever it was you were doing. So she continued her walk and then returned to the inn.

Trying to be quiet, she carefully opened and closed the door to the single room they were sharing. It had separate beds despite what the rumor mill in the diner had indicated. Like she had expected, Cam was awake but pretending to be asleep. She let him and just quickly changed into her nightclothes and got into bed.

If it wouldn't have been so obvious then she was certain he would've followed her, just to make sure she was okay. Instead, he'd had to settle for worrying about her inside a weirdly brown-colored room.

Buffy burrowed deeper into the bed and got comfortable. The fight had helped with her restlessness, but something was coming, and she needed to be ready for whatever it was. Especially if Cam kept refusing to spill his secrets.

Chapter Text

They reached Auburn, Texas nine days into the Great Road Trip, and given Cam's odd nervousness the farm they had visited there had been the entire point of the journey. It did align with parts of his Swiss cheese background history, at least when he was relaxed and comfortable and not censoring himself.

If he was relaxed and carefree he had a large, sprawling family in Kansas. A brother who had several children, many aunts and uncles, and quite a few cousins of various ages. His momma cooked awesome meals, sent care packages regularly, and there were huge family gatherings at the Mitchell Farm during all holidays. Except when he caught himself, he had no family at all. The lies were painfully obvious and they both knew it.

On the few occasions he had been drinking a little too much he would go on and on about someone named "John", who had ridiculous non-regulation hear, elf ears, and was the love of his life. The mysterious John, unlike Cam, was Air Force. Which made her believe that was most likely what Cam had been as well, even if she didn't say it aloud. There were no explanations as to why the boyfriend wasn't the boyfriend anymore either.

Then, while they were still looking around inside the not-Mitchell farm, all the news channels suddenly reported a huge amount of UFOs in orbit around Earth. After that everything happened incredibly fast. She and Cam were brought to Washington, D.C. where Buffy finally got to meet the elusive Sam and Daniel, and she bore witness to a short not-so-friendly meeting between the three and the American President while trying to make herself invisible so her presence wouldn't be questioned. After all, there were no good explanations or even excuses for her to be there.

After spending time in a seat behind Colonel Carter in an F-15, Buffy and everyone ended up in Russia, after the original destination, McMurdo Air Force base in Antarctica, was bombed from orbit. Several conversations followed with some young Russian person who had no idea what was going on either, then another conversation with an alien that apparently Cam knew and who had landed his spaceship on the roof of the building and extended some kind of shield to protect them. The 'conversation' involved them pointing weapons at each other.

Everything revolved around a huge metal ring that somehow echoed mutely on her senses. Above them, someone was dropping bombs or shooting at the building, which somehow hadn't gone up in a ball of flames thanks to Cam's alien frenemy.

When the argument was resolved, at least temporarily so they wouldn't all die, Teal'c placed what looked like an oddly shaped phone with a larger than normal keypad on it on the Stargate, then quickly punched in a series of numbers. Soon after an energy vortex exploded outwards, looking a lot like a sideways puddle of water. He then detached it and put it back in a pocket.

She stared at the strange structure as she walked towards it, was it demonic or magical? Could she sense technology? Was that why she could sense it? Why did it become more 'visible' on her senses when it was activated? It felt cool when she went into it, but not wet as she had halfway been expecting.

As soon as they were through the odd sideways puddle, which from what she understood had brought them to an entirely different planet. Braxton? Praxyon? Paxton? Cam and the alien, Teal'c, were back to pointing weapons at each other again.

Walking past them she bumped into the alien, who also had some kind of echo and strangely a second, tiny heartbeat that was definitely not a baby but did originate from his midsection. She apologized, but he was too busy with Cam to really pay attention to her. Being a petite female once again meant she was not a threat, it made her think less of him. Despite the temptation, she didn't do anything to remove him from her friend or take his weapon as it was unlikely to help the situation.

Instead, she took a good look around. The big circle thing was placed right next to a wall with a wide area in front matching the lower part of the Stargate, most likely to ensure no one fell into the abyss on either side. A more narrow walkway lead to a central area with a huge column in the middle.

There were another two walkways leading out from the center as well. Both of them ended in an octagonal area. One had what looked like some kind of computer console setup and the other just had a wide circle on it. Everyone else looked warily at the last one for some reason she didn't understand, but since they were the ones with the knowledge here she followed their example and kept an eye on it. Although why they considered it a threat was a mystery to her.

As they walked forward lights on the floor and overhead came on, clearly using some kind of sensory thing to activate them. Daniel kept trying to convince the huge alien that they should work together, mentioning people Buffy had never heard of, and something about a ball? Sam chimed in as well, and eventually, he relented causing Sam to quickly move to the console thing where she began trying to figure out how it worked. Soon after it caused a light show above them which turned out to be constellations.

The following technobabble made even less sense than the short history lesson Daniel had given Teal'c in an attempt to convince him to help. Not that any of them were paying much attention to Buffy, or the two other aliens that had arrived with Teal'c, but one thing was for certain: Cam owed her a very, very long explanation when all the excitement was over. And this time she was not going to take no for an answer.

Halfway through Sam's explanation of how the ball's time machine worked, something, something, solar flares? Whatever that was. More rings descended on the other octagonal, there was a different light show, which left behind more aliens with long staff-like weapons that shot some kind of lethal energy. Cam gave Daniel his handgun while he raised his other weapon and began shooting. Teal'c had one of those long energy weapons, so she snuck over and swiped the smaller one he had threatened to use on Cam earlier.

On closer inspection, it kind of looked like a penis that was bent in three, or maybe something serpentine. Something she was certain would not be advisable to attempt with the real appendage or animal. The Slayer's collective memory instinctively told her how to use it, which meant that there were Slayers before her who had used these in the past. Once to stun, twice to kill, and three times to make them disappear.

A firefight had begun while she was inspecting the weapon and she joined in, except as soon as the six aliens who had arrived were killed, the rings descended again leaving more aliens. In the middle of it all, Sam found a solar flare they could use, except...

"I found one, but you're not gonna like it," Sam yelled towards Cam while ducking a shot from one of the aliens.

"Why not?"

"It's going to send us back to 1929."

"That's 10 years too soon!"

Daniel interjected with some bad news of his own. "Well, it'll just have to do because I'm just about out of bullets." As he said the last word he was hit by an energy blast and toppled over the edge from the pressure and who knew how far down. Cam and Sam stared at the place he had been a moment before for several long seconds before they refocused on what they were doing.

Visibly suppressing the need to react to the loss of her friend and to keep herself and her remaining friend alive, Sam soldiered on. "Once I have activated the Stargate we'll have less than 20 seconds to get through."

"Dial it up and get your ass down here."

Buffy knew she was just along for the ride here, but her instincts still told her to keep close to Cam so that was what she did. Maybe there was a good reason why she was on another planet and also a good reason why she was only seconds away from travelling to the past, which would do who knew what to the Slayer line, and who knew which planet they were going to end up on. Hopefully, they would end up on Earth, but at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if they came out on the moon.

The third wave of aliens arrived and began shooting at them. Right after Sam pushed the last of the buttons needed to set up their time travel, one of the aliens hit her in the back with an energy blast. Cam wasted precious time yelling her name before he and Buffy ran for the blue puddle and entered into it just before it closed down.

Chapter Text

Buffy exited the Stargate maybe five seconds before Cam came diving through it and landed on the concrete floor in an ungraceful heap. It gave her just enough time to glance around and realize they were in some kind of warehouse. She had been in too many of those over the years as it was a favorite place for vampires to squat in.

It had the standard concrete floor, wooden crates, pallets, and so on. Other than a more old-fashioned packaging it appeared to be ordinary. Aside from the giant ring they had just come through, of course.

Cam had remained stationary after he had given the room a cursory overview from his prone position and probably deemed it reasonably safe for the time being. She poked him with her military-issued boot.

A little concerned, she asked, "Cam? Are you okay?"

"I've been separated from two of my best friends for a year only to see both of them be killed. Another friend is loyal or was loyal to the bastard who got us into this mess to begin with because someone else who is probably dead wasn't there to convince him to join us. He is also most likely dead now, along with another friend who is or was an unwilling host to a parasite. AND I'm 80 years in the past. No. I'm not okay."

When he put it that way... Buffy smiled a little ruefully at his back, it had been a stupid question. She did however add quite a few more questions to the mental list she was preparing to ask Cam about later. Because that ramble? Not with the sense making.

"Not to make a bad situation worse, but I'm sure we need to skedaddle. Someone probably heard the kawoosh and will be here to investigate soon." She looked around at the non-descript room again. "Where are we?" It didn't look like a military facility as she had expected. Clearly, she was missing more than a few pieces to this particular puzzle.

Cam got himself off of the concrete floor, dusted himself off, and began walking around. "Egypt. Somewhere around Giza, I think."

Buffy stared at the back of his head. That had not been mentioned at any point during the last however many hours had passed since they left Auburn, Kansas. "So," Buffy said a little annoyed. "To summarize; Your big secret is that you fight aliens for a living, you find these aliens by going through a giant circle that somehow connects to other planets, except when an alien bad guy makes it into a time machine and one of your friends decides to send us to the past. More specifically, she sent us to Egypt in 1929 so we have to stay here for an unspecified event we need to attend in 1939."

Buffy looked him straight in the eye. "That about sums it up?"

Cam place a hand over his face and rubbed it. "I really owe you an explanation, don't I?"

"Yes," Buffy replied instantly. "Yes, you really, really do. A long, detailed one. Because this isn't like forgetting to buy sugar or forgetting to buy coffee, which is so much worse, but you have somehow brought me along to the past AND another continent! So, yes. Explanation, please."

"Right," he said on a heavy exhale, "but first we need to get out of here." He took a good look at the green BDU's and brown leather jackets they were both wearing due to recently having been in fighter jets. "And we need time and location-specific clothing."

*****

Three months later they were still in Giza. They had faked being attacked by unspecified robbers after they having stolen clothes that wouldn't make them look too much out of place, and some of the locals had been kind enough to help them get a place to stay and even get Cam a job. As Buffy was a woman she had been expected to stay home and care for the 'house'. The 'house' in question being a tiny apartment, if it could even be considered that. Much to her irritation Cam had had a good laugh at her part when they were finally alone. No, she would never be a domestic goddess, but he didn't have to poke fun at her.

Adjusting to not only sharing a living space with someone but also sharing a bed with that same someone she wasn't actually in a relationship with took some time. Anytime someone commented, they excused it by claiming to be newlyweds. Given the time period and where they were currently living, it was easily accepted. Usually with some manly time-specific sexism thrown in.

Buffy had finally gotten her explanation, and wow had it been a doozy! Body snatching aliens, their nicer but still body-snatching cousins, space pirates, Atlantis was a real city and it was located in the Pegasus Galaxy (and Cam's boyfriend was the military commander!), an earlier evolution of humans had built the Stargates, Atlantis, and a lot of technology that would randomly be extremely helpful or just kill them in awful ways, and so much more.

Cam had spent a lot of those months telling her about the early days of the Stargate Program, his own stint as leader of the Blue Squadron, and the dogfight over Antarctica where he was shot down. Then he told her about getting SG-1 back together (Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c apparently being original members), and their missions over the last few years.

After she had gotten a chance to digest and accept this new part of her reality, and how she came from an alternate timeline that was never meant to exist, she decided to reciprocate by explaining some of her own secrets.

Buffy told Cam about Merrick, her Watcher, how she had realized she was suddenly stronger, faster, could hear things people were saying from much further away, and how Merrick had explained her destiny to her. How she had manipulated the situation to give herself more freedom and the ability to see the world.

His reaction had been a semi-predictable, "You're supergirl!" Accompanied by that little boy grin that a comic book heroine was real. His mood dropped a little when she informed him she couldn't fly. Buffy did refrain from mentioning that she could do a kind of guided high jump short-distance sort-of flying thing. It wasn't something she did much and it wasn't actually flying, so...

Explaining about her abilities had inevitably lead to her admitting to patrolling and dusting vampires. Something she confessed to having done during their road trip and later on after they arrived in Giza. There was much less enthusiasm for that.

Part of their cover story was that they were newlyweds on a honeymoon in Egypt. As everything they owned had been 'stolen' they needed work to get money so they could return to the States. They also couldn't stay where they were for much longer as people would be expecting her to get pregnant. Being in the 1920s meant no birth control, and not having children would in all likelihood get them looked down upon.

The question was, where would they go? The US? Europe? Somewhere else? They had a decade before their big appointment, so they had time.

Chapter Text

"You want to do what?!" Cameron Mitchell stared wide-eyed at Buffy Summers, or, as they were known in the US, Charlie Connely and his orphaned niece, Naomi. They had decided early on that using their real names would get confusing fast, and spent a few days brainstorming new ones and a believable backstory. Besides, it was 1929, no one was going to believe Buffy was her real name and not a diminutive or some kind of endearment.

After discussing their backstory they had begun trying to figure out where they were going to live and what they were going to do in order to get by. In the end, they had chosen New York City where Charlie had once again gotten a job as a mechanic, while Naomi worked as a telephone operator. It was... It proved that women's rights and society, in general, had come a long way.

She was absolutely certain he had heard her, but she decided to repeat it nonetheless, "I want us to go back to Egypt, go through the Stargate, and explore the galaxy. We know the Gate will remain where it is until about 1938, and even then, we know which ship it will be on in 1939. So as long as we're back on Earth by late 1938 we'll be fine."

Cam rubbed his eyes. "It's 1931, it will be 1932 in less than a week, and you want to spend the next five-to-seven years planet-hopping? Risking who-knows-what by our presence out there, because...?"

"Because I'm curious. Other than the short trip to Plaxa or whatever Ba'al's time-traveling planet was called, I've never been off-world. Once the Stargate reaches Boston it will become military property and hidden somewhere until the Stargate Program gets up and running and then it will be in Cheyenne Mountain. Inaccessible."

"Praxyon."

Buffy blinked, "What?"

"Ba'al's time-traveling planet, it was called Praxyon."

"Whatever." He was clearly trying to buy himself time to think. Neither of them had anything here they genuinely needed. Their lives were okay, but not great. They had friends, but no one they would consider close. Staying on Earth was just as likely to change something as them leaving it to travel the galaxy. They had to be on the Achilles in 1939, but other than that little date they were free.

Buffy was in the wrong timeline, which meant if they managed what they were here for, it would be a different future than the one she left. No to mention that they would need to take the long way home, which meant they were unlikely to make it back to 2008, and even if they did they would be really, really old.

"Come on, Cam. You know you want to. I'm sure there are planets you know of that wouldn't mind a couple of strangers showing up. You probably know more than one." She smiled encouragingly. "I know you've missed the action of going off-world, the adrenaline flowing through your body in anticipation of what might be on the other side of the puddle..."

She could see him fighting with his inner adrenaline junkie, the one who wanted to fly and throw himself into dangerous situations only to get himself out by the skin of his teeth. He had spoken about his missions, both before he joined the Program and after. Living the nine-to-five life he did now had not been part of the plan any more than the year he had spent living as a mechanic in suburbia while waiting for aliens to attack Earth from orbit.

"I'm going to regret this, but yes. We're going back to Giza and off this marble." Buffy's face split into a huge smile.

*****

Six weeks later they were standing in front of the giant metal circle again. Buffy had instinctively used the five-finger discount to get Teal'c's mini-gate dialer thingy after they had gated to Praxyon. The large alien hadn't noticed, too busy studying Cam who he saw as the real threat.

This time she was a lot more prepared to visit another planet. Both of them were wearing what amounted to hiking gear in the 1930s, including backpacks with various camping equipment, a few books on survival in the wild, and an assortment of other things Cam thought might become useful due to previous experiences. Both of them also had notebooks with a wriggly timeline of events in the galaxy prior to SG-1 going through the Stargate for the first time. They each had a separate notebook with gate addresses and anything Cam could remember of each planet and its inhabitants.

It meant that in the event they got separated she would have somewhere to go, and an approximate idea of what to expect. It might or might not help, but it would in all likelihood become useful at some point. The smelly stuff tended to hit the rotating blades on a regular basis after all.

Placing the device on the side of the Stargate, she pushed a series of buttons, and soon after she was rewarded with the gate activating. Shortly after the kawoosh of the not-water splashed out and then returned to the gate's inner circle where it rippled gently. Just like last time, it gave her a sense of anticipation, of a big change coming her way soon. With any luck, it wouldn't be another time travel or switching timelines or anything of that nature.

Buffy removed the device from the gate and placed it in an inner pocket before they walked through.

Chapter Text

A year of not living on Earth had strangely not been that odd. Yes, the complete lack of cars, phones, and other things she was used to from her homeworld was weird to say the least, but it had been easy enough to get used to life without it. Two years in the late 1920s/early 1930s had helped to wean her off trying to use her cellphone for half the things she wanted to do or find whatever information she needed.

The random alien technology kind of made up for it, sort of. Early on she had traded for a kind of bracer that would light up when she touched it, when she had shown it to Cam he had looked vaguely jealous and a lot sad. What had followed was an explanation of Alterran technology, and the Ancients themselves. On earlier occasions, he had focused on his own adventures in the Milky Way and what had been going on there before he joined the SGC. Cam had only touched lightly on Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy, speaking more about his boyfriend than what had happened there.

Basically, she descended from aliens and could use their highly advanced technology, just like Cam's boyfriend, John. The Alterrran tech was somehow telepathic, or that's how she understood it as you needed to think at it to make it work. Basic thoughts like 'on' and 'off' were easy enough, but from the sounds of it, various other things could do a lot more.

The bracer had proven itself to be able to connect to the Stargate and dial without the use of a DHD, which they had only realized once they were running for their lives from angry natives and the Gate had simply dialed without anyone touching the large dialing device in front of the Stargate. As the native populace didn't have advanced enough technology it obviously hadn't been them.

Obviously, they had spent a few hours testing that once they were certain they were safe. It had been used as a backup every since. Buffy had then given Teal'c's mini-DHD to Cam, in case they were separated so they both had a fallback in case of emergencies.

Two months into their galactic adventure, they had settled on a planet called Vojens. SG-1 had visited the planet a number of times over the years, mainly because it had quite a few ruins Dr. Daniel Jackson found to be extremely fascinating. The planet's population only consisted of a couple of hundred people or so, their level of technology was about the turn of the century on Earth, so the Goa'uld had let them be. Especially as they minded their own business and didn't use their Stargate much, nor did they have many visitors.

Buffy and Cam had essentially become traders for their new homeworld and would buy any number of things from other planets and then bring it back to Vojens. Upon returning, they would either give whoever what they had ordered since they had already been paid for it, or they would trade it for something else. It was profitable enough that they didn't need to help out with farming or other manual labor. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but they had left their world to travel not to become farmers.

Of course, they would leave Vojens for weeks at a time to explore the unknown. The villagers had given them gate addresses and they usually asked the people on whichever planet they were visiting for new ones and what was on them. Some had given the gate addresses for planets to avoid, like Goa'uld strongholds or controlled planets, places with unfriendly people, planets that were prone to natural disasters, had dangerous animals and/or creatures, and so on and so forth.

"I can't believe the SGC or even the original SG-1 never thought of doing this, it's genius. It could've been very useful. Asking Teal'c or Jonas or Vala if they recognize an address or a planet once we were already on it really doesn't count."

Buffy gave Cam an amused smile, "They could've, but how many people and species did SG-1 and the other teams manage to get on the bad side of? How many of them would've been likely to lie and send you somewhere horrible or give you an address where they knew you wouldn't survive long after exiting?"

"You're too negative," Cam replied, complaining. "We've made friends and allies, we could've asked some of them. Get the gate address for a few places with big markets and such. Someone, somewhere in this galaxy must've invented coffee or a similar drink, and we're going to find it." He gave a genuine smile that reached all they way up to his eyes.

Raising her glass of something vaguely alcoholic, Buffy's eyes twinkled, "To finding alien coffee!"

Cam raised his own, "To finding alien coffee!"

Chapter Text

Buffy woke dizzily and experimentally moved her head from side to side to check how bad the head injury really was and winced. Bad idea. Looking around, she appeared to have somehow managed to crash into a basement of some kind. One with paintings and some kind of Goa'uld writings on the walls. Trying not to move too much until her Slayer healing kicked it and took the edge off more than it already had, she took a closer look at the writings and surprised herself by being able to read them.

She frowned. Cam had taught her some of the hieroglyphs, mostly the various symbols representing the System Lords and other important Goa'ulds, but it didn't explain why she could read it the same way she could read the Latin alphabet. Something was off.

*Be calm, Buffy.* A voice inside of her head suddenly said. Buffy sat up abruptly and her head protested by making her sway, that was not her. *No, I am not you, my child. I am Egeria, the founder of the Tok'ra movement. Do not panic, I do not intend to harm you.*

Buffy looked around more carefully; there were no other people present and no other symbiotes or other creatures. Although, there were people some distance away who had clearly either seen or heard her small spaceship crash into whatever this building was. Within a few feet of her was a shattered canopic jar and she flashed back to Cam explaining those to her in passing while telling her about a Goa'uld named Osiris who had taken an ex-girlfriend of Daniel Jackson as his host.

*I deeply apologize for taking you as my host without asking your permission first. That is not the way of the Tok'ra and I am ashamed of my action.*

"Then why did you?" Buffy asked aloud.

*There is no reason to speak, merely think toward my presence and I will hear your 'voice'.*

*The question stands, stop avoiding it.*

*My apologies,* Egeria conceded. *I have been imprisoned for many, many years, and when I felt a potential host so close I reacted instinctively and entered you.*

The running footsteps were coming closer and she needed to act fast. Either she could trust that the snake in her head was really the queen mother of the Tok'ra or she was in a lot more trouble than she had anticipated.

*They will not know I am here. Your memories have shown me you are from the future and these people would have found me and performed medical experiments on me in an attempt to create a serum to prevent disease. Tell them you came from another part of this planet and were merely testing a new aircraft. Hopefully, they will not keep us against our will.*

*Ignoring you rifling through my memories for the moment,* Buffy 'spoke' through the mind link thingy, *But stop it, it's private.*

Rather than argue with the parasite in her head, Egeria was offended and so clearly could 'hear' her thoughts, she decided to ignore Egeria for the time being while trying to find a way out of this mess. The head injury had lessened enough that the world wasn't tilting when she moved at regular speed, so she called that a win and got up off of the floor.

Shortly after a small group of men in some kind of uniform entered the room she had crashed into, while she could see another group through the opening, looking at the little spaceship in surprise. "Why are you?" the man in the front asked in an official I'm-in-charge-here voice. "And where did you come from?"

"I'm Artemis of the Olympus," Buffy replied off the top of her head, then sighed silently a little. She got the distinct sensation that Egeria was laughing at her. Buffy and Cam had been discussing Greek mythology before she left on a solo expedition. So of course, that's the first thing out of her mouth.

"My ship malfunctioned and it unfortunately crashed, and I was thrown down here."

The following conversation assured the Pangarans that she meant no harm, and she was subsequently taken to a doctor who agreed that she would be fine. It didn't stop them from putting her into a hospital bed though, where she had to remain for another two days before the local doctor declared her to be as healthy as expected.

She was put up in some kind of motel while they tried to figure out what to do with her, and where exactly 'Olympus' was located. It appeared that they believed themselves to be the only inhabitants of Pangar. As soon as people went to sleep, however, Buffy snuck out to check on the state of her ship. *It appears to have sustained minimal damage. If the engines are operational we should be able to leave this planet.*

*Do you need to be somewhere?* Buffy asked a little dryly. *A date you're two millennia late for, perhaps?* It had turned out that the memory thing went both ways. Egeria was able to go through her memories and Buffy was able to go through Egeria's. It was also how she had been able to read the inscriptions down in Egeria's prison room.

She entered the ship and looked around. It didn't look too bad, but then she wasn't an engineer so there was a good chance she missed something (or a lot). *No. However, I do wish to get back to my people, and the revolution I started back then.*

Pushing the various buttons to see if it would come on, she was rewarded with blinking lights and the engine starting up. She smiled before returning part of her attention to her tenant. *You can't. It's very important to preserve the timeline as much as possible. The Pangerans was supposed to find you in 3-4 decades, and SG-1 was supposed to discover you at the end of your life in about 70 years. You highjacking my body was not part of the plan. We need to leave and figure this out somewhere else, somewhere no one knows about you or realize I'm a host.*

She 'felt' the symbiote rifle through her memories searching for her source for that information, and just let her. The Butterfly Effect was a common enough concept on Earth, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that people on other planets had discovered it as well.

*The Butterfly Effect,* Egeria mused a short while later, *the light fluttering of butterfly wings may cause unpredictable consequences or, more graphically, can lead to large-scale phenomena like tsunamis. Or, in the case of time travel, unexpected changes to the future that was before.*

Buffy nodded her head as she got the small ship to hover and then fly a little further away so she could turn it towards the Stargate. She sent a mental command to her bracer and it dialed a planet she knew had been abandoned several years before but had several small houses that were still habitable.

*You arrived here from another timeline where your homeworld was unaware of intelligent life on other planets, you were brought over by a Cameron Mitchell from a third timeline. Such disruption has already caused permanent changes.*

They went into the blue puddle and came out into a spectacular view of a beautiful sunset. Buffy quickly turned the ship around so it was pointed toward the Stargate, and landed the spaceship before exiting. There was something magnificent about the sunset and sunrises on this particular planet. The colors were magnified in a way that was simply breathtaking, so much so that she and Cam had simply named it Planet Sunset.

*Tracking down your children and reuniting with them, making more Tok'ra, and expanding your forces against the Goa'uld will be like throwing a tsunami into the timestream. It will completely change the dynamics of the Goa'uld and the politics of everything. You will also need a lot of humans willing to sacrifice their lives for your cause. Also, Cam is going to be very upset when I tell him about you.*

*A compromise, perhaps?* Egeria suggested. *We could locate an uninhabited or abandoned planet and repopulate it with humans rescued from other worlds. By restricting access to the Chappa'ai we could teach them that becoming hosts are not such a bad thing. It would mean by the year 2008 on your homeworld, we could have many, many more operatives.*

*You don't convince anyone that you're good by stopping them from leaving.*

*I did not mean they would not be allowed to leave, merely that there would be rules and regulations so as not to compromise our operation.*

The discussion went on for hours, but by the time Buffy needed a few hours of rest before returning to Vojens they still hadn't agreed to anything. Well, Buffy had effectively decided to remain Egeria's host, but aside from that, they disagreed.

The next morning, as Buffy was powering up the ship again, they continued their discussion from the night before.

*We don't have to decide right now, Egeria. Even if we wait two decades before doing anything about it, we'll still have plenty of time.*

*You and Cameron Mitchell intend to return to the Tau'ri homeworld in a few short years, if you do so I will be going with you. And I do not believe you would allow people from your homeworld to become hosts to my children, nor do I believe the governments of your world would approve of such a thing.*

Buffy froze for a moment, she hadn't considered that. *Crap,* she said eloquently. There had to be a way around that little problem. She needed options. Cam could go back alone, he was fully capable of shooting an unaware Goa'uld and a few Jaffa. She could return with him and stay on Earth. She could return with him and then gate offworld again quickly.

Buffy sighed, that was a problem she hadn't foreseen, but she had a few years to come up with a solution to that as well. A little brainstorming between the three of them and they would come up with something.

Chapter Text

They came to a compromise, they found a planet that had a reputation for having quite a few dangerous creatures roaming around it. Several reconnaissance trips prove it to be true, however, that was the continent the Stargate had been placed on. The planet, which according to Egeria, was called Lykke had another two continents. Both of which were habitable and free of anything too dangerous.

Over the next few years, they saved about 500 people from various worlds they came across and moved them to Lykke. They also relocated about 50 female members of the Hak'tyl there with the promise that Egeria would provide symbiotes for them so they wouldn't have to raid Goa'uld strongholds to get them from Goa'uld queens or during transport.

They built large aquatic tanks for the larval symbiotes to mature enough to be placed within the pouch of a Jaffa. Which generally took between one and three years, which was then followed by five to eight years in a Jaffa's pouch before they were capable of taking a human host.

It meant that by the time 1939 rolled around they were barely able to greet the first batch of new Tok'ra before they had to prepare for their return to Earth. 53 female Jaffa had successfully carried the new Tok'ra and the same number of rescued humans from multiple planets had agreed to become hosts.

Cam had refused on principle, saying, "If I were meant to live for 2-300 years God would've blessed me with longevity without me needing a snake to accomplish it. I'll take my mortality, thanks." And that had been that.

Buffy had already been fast, strong, healed fast, and possessed enhanced senses, but becoming a host had augmented her even more. Which had for the most part been a good thing, but loud noises had become a bit of a problem as it would occasionally seem like people were yelling when they weren't. They were working on it.

Neither of them was certain what their combined healing abilities would do to Buffy's lifespan, but they had agreed, through many, many discussions, that it would in all likelihood extend her life by quite a few years. Which could mean centuries or even millennia or more, or nothing much. Egeria had never heard of Slayers despite having lived on Earth in the far past, but that didn't have to mean anything other than they had nothing to compare their situation to.

Cam and Buffy gated back to Earth in early July 1939, only about five days before the Achilles was set to leave Giza, Egypt and head for Boston, Massachusetts. They had very carefully packed anything they would need, like warm clothes for the journey and enough food so that they wouldn't need to steal from the crew.

The day before the ship was set to leave they snuck on board and found a room that looked like it hadn't been in use for quite some time and placed their things there. There were no beds in there as expected but they had both brought bedrolls and something akin to sleeping pads so the cold floor and the chill of the ocean wouldn't make them sick.

Buffy gave their new temporary home a thorough look, "Well, it isn't the worst place I've ever slept, but I can already tell that this will the kind of fun that's not."

"It's two weeks and then we'll be in America, Ba'al will be dead, the time-traveling version of him at least, and we have a lot of coffee to enjoy. We'll be fine." Cam tried to sound convincing, but by the look on his face, he wasn't even convincing himself.

"It's a 14 or 15-day journey that should've taken ten days at the most if your grandfather hadn't decided to zig-zag his way across the Atlantic instead of going from Point A to Point B in the quickest way possible."

"Yeah, yeah, everyone's a critic," Cam replied to the long-standing argument. "Go to bed, the never-ending journey begins tomorrow, bright and early."

Twelve days later the two (three) of them were hiding out in the cargo hold, just waiting for the large metal circle to activate from who knew where, and for their targets to come through. After nearly two weeks of nothing but waiting and no chance to fight or even stretch her legs much, waiting for the now-familiar red lights to light up and the inner circle thingy to start spinning seemed like forever and then some.

Then finally, finally the first light activated and the spinning began, soon after the blue vortex of the Stargate wooshed out and then returned to ripple gently inside the gate. They both adjusted their stance and she tried to ignore the crewman who had wandered down to them for some unknown reason.

A catwalk descended from the other side of the wormhole and soon after a Jaffa carrying a staff weapon came through. Cam used a rifle to spray him with bullets. A few moments later a second Jaffa came through, this one was carrying two staff weapons. He was killed by the crewman. Then a Goa'uld strolled through casually who HAD to be Ba'al. The stories of how flashy he was made it obvious. He had his arms behind his back in a relaxed pose and looked much too satisfied with himself. The look on his face when he saw Cam was priceless. A single bullet to the head from Cam ended him permanently. The third and final Jaffa was carrying a huge round thing Buffy just assumed was a bomb. He was also killed by the unknown crewman.

Buffy rose from her hidden position and activated her Zat gun, and after kicking away the staff weapons she shot them three times each so they disappeared. She then repeated the process with the bomb and the last Jaffa. Meanwhile, Cam rifled through Ba'al's clothing and found a second mini-DHD.

He nodded to her, "All yours." She pulled the trigger another three times and the final Ba'al, whether it was the real one or another one of his many clones was unknown, but all future versions of him were dead now. Only the present-time one was out there somewhere.

Buffy turned Cam's conversation with his grandfather out and picked up the alien weapons. They would no doubt come in useful at some point. *We could use them in our war against the Goa'uld,* Egeria suggested. *Or as a way to safeguard ourselves on Earth if we choose to stay here until time catches up with you.*

*I still haven't made up my mind. Everyone on Lykke will be good for at least the next eight years, maybe longer, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to deliberately strand ourselves on this particular planet. Too many things can and will go wrong.*

*I know,* Egeria soothed her, *But there are failsafes you know of that'll get us off Earth if we need to or want to leave.*

*I have one more day to decide.*

That's when Captain Mitchell finally realized she was there and, yeah, explaining this was going to be interesting.