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An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 1

It had been over a year since Sunnydale sank when everyone pretty much had to gather together again to help save Angel and his group with their apocalypse. It ended up being pretty anti-climatic. The slayers came, those available anyway, they slew, most gruesomely, and they won, as expected, with no casualties even, though there were some rather messy wounds, easily healed with a mixture of modern medicine and magic.

Willow was quite proud of herself because of that. She’d used the past year in South America with Kennedy to improve her skills to the point that she could use magic to heal non-fatal wounds almost immediately and turn mortal wounds into week long hospital visits. Case in point: Wesley. Kennedy was very proud of Willow too. Each discovery or improvement Willow made would turn into all night celebrations of a certain nature. This actually did inspire Willow a great deal.

Buffy was impressed. She had no idea Willow had been researching this at all. Buffy had been forced to slay the Immortal not that long ago because of plans she’d found to sell Dawn’s blood. It turns out that ‘immortal’ was not an accurate name for him. Further looks into his paperwork revealed him to be an agent of the Circle of the Black Thorn. His mission had been to distract Buffy and kill her if need be. His desire to add to his already considerable wealth had caused Buffy to discover these plans. This is how the white hats at the Watcher’s Council had won the battle in L.A. Buffy had seen the plans, contacted her friends and had them all magically transported to L.A. just in time to save the day. The only people absent were Faith and Robin who were holding the fort in Cleveland and Giles in London.

Xander stood with the Scoobies, surrounded by over a dozen slayers that he’d found in Africa and that had joined him in this crazy plan to save Deadboy and the world. He’s been doing good this past year. He’d helped stop a couple of apocalypses in Africa, been locating slayers, and encouraging people in the good fight, among other things.

Dawn smiled as she watched her sister’s reunion with her friends. Dawn had been worried about how into the Immortal her sister had been. Dawn smirked as Buffy tore into Spike, verbally not physically, before claiming second for herself. Spike’s cry of ‘Oy, Bit!’ only made her smirk harder. He deserved it for not telling anyone he was alive. And Angel not telling anyone meant she was going to be calling him Deadboy for awhile.

Spike was on an emotional rollercoaster. As annoyed as he was that Buffy was reacting to him being alive as she was, he was also happy that she was so emotional about it. With a quick ‘Hell with it!’ thought to himself he reached forward, grabbed Buffy’s head, pulled her in for a quick kiss that ended up not being so quick as Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and returned his kiss passionately. Dawn’s soft cry of ‘Ew, no seconds!’ just seemed to drive them to more passion.

Angel watched on annoyed. He may have given up on Buffy romantically but that didn’t mean seeing her with another man didn’t frustrate him. It being Spike just made it worse. Sure it was a good thing they’d won the day but why did Spike get to be the one who got the girl? Angel’s eyes narrowed as he saw Connor going over to talk to Dawn. He didn’t like the way they were smiling at each other. He was too young to be a grandfather! Err…

Gunn watched on to the various reunions around him with a smile. Willow had managed to heal the damage he’d received that day. He watched her for a moment thinking back to the first time he’d met her, right after Buffy had died. Between then and now she was night and day. It was hard to believe that the mourning girl he’d met only a few years ago was now a woman, a very open happy lesbian. Not even his supernatural abilities as a lawyer could stop his thoughts from going into the gutter as Kennedy took Buffy and Spike’s kiss as a challenge and was kissing Willow just as passionately.

Illyria watched on as her pet enjoyed his reunion with his mate. Illyria had watched the battle and decided that although his mate was mortal her gifts as a slayer made her worthy of her pet. She frowned as she again caught a scent that was familiar and unnatural. She wasn’t sure what was bothering her, but she’d figure it out. Her abilities as a warrior were not the only reason she’d been God-King. Her abilities as a general combined with Fred’s scientific mind made her a force to be reckoned with.

“Guys, guys! We’ve got impressionable children here,” Xander called out as he jokingly covered Dawn’s eyes. “Not that I’m not enjoying the show, Willow.”

Willow blushed as she separated from Kennedy, Buffy and Spike doing the same. Both couples did keep an arm around the other. Dawn ducked out away from Xander, giving him an affectionate swat before accidentally falling into Connor’s arms. Dawn blushed as he helped her stand back up.

“You!” Illyria declared pointing a finger at Xander. “You are what is bothering me with your unnatural scent!”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 2

Xander’s one eye widened at the sight of a blue finger pointed at him. So it wasn’t much of a shock, considering the circumstances, when all he managed to stutter out was, “What?”

Buffy managed a little better, she was light headed from the kissing, those had been some long kisses. She muffled a couple of giggles against Spike’s shoulder before tilting her head back and saying, “The demon magnet strikes again.”

That snapped Xander out of his funk. He turned towards Buffy to let out an annoyed, “Oi!”

“What’s wrong, Blue?” Spike asked. “He smells the same to me, maybe a little dustier, but he’s been in a desert for the last week tracking some demon.”

“He’s unnatural. He came into being without the aid of nature or magic,” Illyria said simply as she began to circle around Xander, smelling him ever so slightly for details.

“Are you sure?” Spike asked.

Xander turned his head slightly and then his body too, making a point to keep his eye on Illyria.

“Of course. My senses are far superior to those of half breeds or … slayers,” Illyria said, stopping her movements for only a moment to glare at Spike for doubting her. “I can tell the difference between half-breeds, slayers, witches, ‘normal’ humans and even magical constructs.” Illyria designated to gesture with one hand ever so slightly each category those gathered fell under. Only sneering ever so slightly when she said each one.

The Scoobies exchanged looks as Illyria labeled Dawn a magical construct. Those who didn’t know about her status as the Key thought Illyria was referring to Connor. Though how he fell into the category either wasn’t known for all he was born. Xander straightened up and glared at Illyria, which prompted her to stand still and enter a staring competition with Xander.

Willow narrowed her own gaze, her eyes taking on a full dark appearance as Illyria threatened both Xander and Dawn as if it were nothing. Willow shook off Kennedy’s hand on her arm as she walked forward to face Illyria, “I’ve known Xander since I was a child. I don’t take people hurting my friends lightly.”

“I am not hurting him,” Illyria said, turning to look at Willow. Illyria tilted her head to the side as she took in Willows rapidly darkening aura.

Xander, seeing what was happening, reached out and took Willow into his arms. “I’m fine Wills. She’s just curious. I think. Maybe whatever Illyria is smelling is the side effect of something that happened in Sunnyhell or even Africa.”

Willow relaxed in his arms and allowed a lot of the magic she’d taken in to disperse back into the earth.

Illyria took in a deep breath, and blinked as Fred’s knowledge came into focus. “You are from the same place?”

Willow looked back at Xander for a moment before they both nodded.

“You are the same age?”

“Yeah,” Xander confirmed.

“Just about,” Willow said confused, “he’s a little older than me.”

“No,” Illyria said, once again being straight forward. “You both had similar experienced all your lives, even some minor differences would not account for how different you are. He is far younger than you.”

“What?” Willow and Xander asked in unison.

“I believe he is younger than anyone here,” Illyria said turning to take in the scents of all those in the room.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “We’ve already established that Willow’s known him forever. He’s not younger than me or any of the slayers.”

“He is,” Illyria insisted, sneering at the magical construct.

“Look, there is an easy way to solve this,” Willow said to end this conversation.

“There is?” Xander said as Willow removed herself from his embrace.

“Of course,” Willow said smiling. “It’s a spell to date ingredients for potions, but it can also be used to find things like birthdays. We do the spell, and Illyria agrees to back off. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Illyria stated. “As long as he remains away from me, his stench is awful.”

“Hey!” Xander called out, offended.

“Quam vetus est is!” Willow called out with a wave of her hand in Xander’s direction.

There were several gasps as they took in the light flashing a date in front of Xander.

“Did you do it right Willow?” Xander asked looking at it oddly. It didn’t look like any date he’d ever seen before.

“It’s using a lunar calendar, right Willow?” Dawn said as she looked at it.

“Yeah, I’m working on making it give it into the calendar we use,” Willow said as she looked at the date and did mental conversions in her head. She frowned and did it again.

“Wills?” Xander asked concerned.

“That’s wrong. That’s the day after you lost your eye.”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 3

“What?” Xander gasped out.

“Could it be telling the date of when his eye healed over or something?” Buffy asked. The seriousness of the situation caused her to focus on solving the problem, if only she knew for sure what the problem was.

“No,” Willow said softly. “I know this spell well. It’s one of a few that I use often. It’ll take the generalized area of what it’s aimed towards. This is Xander’s age.”

“Are you sure it’s not like my clothes or eye patch or something?” Xander asked.

“I’m sure,” Willow stared at Xander unsure of what to do. He seemed to be her Xander in every way but somehow he wasn’t.

“He’ll have to stay here for now,” Gunn said speaking up for the first time. “We need to know what is up with him. Until we know we can’t just let him do whatever he wants.”

Some of the slayers were not taking these events well. Most the slayers who were at the apocalypse in L.A. had come from England and Africa. England meaning they’d come with Buffy via the Devon coven and Africa meaning they’d been trained by Xander and brought over by a group of shaman he’d met. The ones from England’s branch didn’t know what to think. The ones from Africa though… This man the others were claiming wasn’t really Xander had been the only Xander they’d known. He’d risked his life for some of them and they didn’t like this at all.

“We know not what going on,” one of the African slayers pointed out in shattered English. “He is good man. We need know more before anything happen. He is our friend. Is not he yours too?”

“We just need to verify he doesn’t mean any of us harm, if he isn’t our Xander he might have ulterior motives,” Willow explained, upset. If he wasn’t her Xander, where was he?

“Can’t you just use a spell?” Buffy asked impatient. She needed to slay something, preferably a something that had done something to Xander.

“I don’t know any truth spells,” Willow said quickly. “They didn’t seem to have much use since they aren’t reliable and don’t all work on different species the same way and-”

“What about Andrew’s truth potion?” Dawn asked quietly, interrupting Willow’s babble.

“What?” Buffy and Willow asked in unison.

“You guys didn’t hear about the fiasco in Cleveland a couple of months ago?” Dawn asked. She sighed as she saw the confused faces around her, none of them apparently kept up with the comings and goings of other branches. “Andrew was trying to make some sort of healing potion from scratch. He was out of a couple of ingredients so he substituted similar items, fish eyes for newt eyes, that kind of thing. It didn’t turn out right, so he went to get something to dispose of it with. A slayer team returned to base after a hunt. They saw the pot and thought it was a midnight snack. Andrew tends to leave out food for when slayers are going to get in late. They ate it. The next 48 hours nothing but the truth said, they even had to answer anything asked of them. There were a lot of fights. Some people refuse to work with certain other people now.”

“Is this why Vi transferred to South America?” Kennedy asked.

“Yeah… She and Diana still aren’t talking. They brought in some witches to look it over, it’s harmless in and of itself. Andrew’s got his own potion lab now with the agreement that the kitchen is for food only and Cleveland has a stock of truth potions they’re testing out on the occasional demon they hunt and don’t kill right away, testing it on other species. So far it works the same on everything as long as none of the ingredients are dangerous to them.”

“Wills?” Buffy asked turning to her friend.

“On it!” Willow called out before teleporting herself to Cleveland. She was just so happy to have an option.

“Are you serious?” asked Xander. His eye widened as he took in the suspicious or concerned eyes of those around him, seeing the suspicious eyes narrow in even more suspicion he explained, “You want me to drink something Andrew made? With fish eyes?”

“That was just an example,” Dawn said as Willow returned.

“Here!” Willow called out cheerfully with a vial of red liquid in hand. It looked a lot like tomato soup, which might explain why several slayers mistook it for food.

“HEY!” Xander called out backing away from Willow. “You really expect me to drink that?”

“Yes,” Illyria chimed in. Xander turned to stare at Illyria who had remained quiet throughout the birthday dilemma while subtly steering him into a corner. She quickly moved, took the potion, opened it and poured it down Xander’s throat before anyone else could move.

“How does it taste?” Dawn asked.

“Like pizza sauce, I can see why no one stopped anyone else from eating it.” Xander answered.

“OK! Question time,” Buffy announced. “What’s your name?”

“Alexander Lavelle Harris. But everyone calls me Xander.”

There were some looks exchanged as they took in the positive ID.

“How old are you?” Dawn asked.

“About a year.”

“Did you know you were a year old before the spell?”

“Yes.” Xander said with a soft snort.

Some more looks were exchanged.

“How can you be Xander if you’re only a year old?” Dawn finally asked seeing Willow and Buffy didn’t know what to say.

“I’m a clone.” Xander’s attitude started to take a change as he realized he had to answer the truth. He sighed and sat down on the couch the Illyria had slowly stalked him towards earlier.

“Illyria said you weren’t made by magic, but we don’t have the technology to clone people yet,” Willow said trying to figure out how this happened.

“You’re right. WE don’t. But a certain group of aliens do.”

“What?”

“I was cloned by an alien who then replaced the original Xander with me, the far superior Xander 2.0.”

“Why?”

“Because the First told him Xander 1.0 held the key to solving the cloning problem his people had.”

“Huh?”

“Surely you didn’t believe the First’s sphere of influence was limited to Earth?”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 4

“The First got an alien to clone and replace the real Xander,” Buffy stated confused. “Why?”

“Because he’s your heart,” Clone Xander answered.

“I don’t understand,” Buffy continued as she sat down in a nearby chair. Spike hovered over her and placed his hand on her shoulder, and she placed her hand on his and grasped it and pulled it close to her heart.

“The First needed to separate the Scoobies. Divide and conquer, right?” Xander turned his head to the side for a moment and stared and nothing before turning back and resting his forehead in his hand and rubbing. “The First knew we were stronger together.”

“We?” Willow asked as she came closer and stood behind Buffy, next to Spike.

“Fine. The Scoobies,” Xander said looking up and staring into Willow’s eyes. “I do have Xander’s memories, OK? I remember being him even though I know I’m not.”

“Aliens?” Dawn asked coming over and actually sitting next to Xander, somehow feeling safe regardless of what exactly this Xander was. Connor followed her and stayed nearby, just in case.

“They’re called the Asgard. They’re from another galaxy, they’ve been cloning themselves for a long time and now they have problems. It’s like that episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation, where they cloned themselves so many time that the original copy data got corrupt and they couldn’t copy anymore. The First appeared before their only mad scientist, who apparently is known for kidnapping humans in the attempt to fix the mistake. Don’t know how he thought humans would be the miracle answer though. He’d kidnap them and replace them with a clone that would only live a week.”

“But you’ve been around for over a year,” Angel said, stating the obvious. He’d just been watching the actions going on around him. His lack of plans for the future leaving him feeling a bit lost.

“The First went to a great deal of trouble to make me. I honestly didn’t even know I was a clone until Willow went to get the truth potion,” Xander shook his head. “I… I’m like a computer program, I’ve been programmed to believe I am Xander 1.0, unless circumstances come about where I have to be Xander 2.0 to deal with it.”

“And what, exactly, are you programmed to do?” Willow asked surprised that Xander, in any form, would use a computer analogy, no matter how simple it was.

“Keep the Scoobies apart and do as much good as possible in the hopes of throwing the balance out of whack so the First can get a new foothold. I haven’t hurt anyone.”

“I’m not following that thing about computers,” Buffy said. She really wasn’t one for computer analogies.

Dawn frowned as she tried her own analogy, “It’s like two TV shows being on at the same time. They’re almost the same, but you like one and not the other. The one show is great, good acting and stuff like that, while the other one is a knock off, it’s got okay acting but the main character sometimes acts differently than the main character on the first show. The truth potion was like a remote, using it caused the channel to change to the other show.”

“OK, I get that,” Buffy said with a frown before turning to Xander. “What did you do to keep us apart?”

Xander rolled his eyes and gave a put upon sigh, “Really Buffy, did you think loosing his eye was enough of a cause for Xander 1.0 to turn on you? He stuck by you through everything, sure this was the first permanent thing to happen to him, but after that speech he gave the potentials does that really sound like him?”

Spike grimaced as Buffy’s grasp on is hand tightened, a lot.

“When exactly did you replace Xander?” Willow asked before Buffy could act on how upset she was getting. Willow was feeling guilty because she turned on Buffy without any outside interference.

“That night in the hospital, when you had to take a bathroom break. Creating me only took a few minutes with all the settings ready.”

“Where is the real Xander?” asked Angel as he decided that was what was important right now. Yeah the other information was important but it was all information that could wait after verifying he hadn’t hurt anyone, but with finding the real Xander, even after a year, every second counted.

“I don’t know,” Xander 2.0 answered with a shrug. At the glares sent his way by Willow and Buffy he sat back against the couch and used one of his hands to massage the back of his neck. “I really don’t. If I had to guess, he’s probably somewhere in outer space. On either Loki’s ship or in one of his labs, but I don’t know where they are. The First only really told me what I needed to know. I doubt he’s dead. Loki is insane, not evil.”

“Is he really the key to solving their problems?” Dawn asked curious.

“I don’t know. He must be something if he hasn’t been returned. If the problem had been solved the other Asgard would have found out about him and returned Xander 1.0.”

“Is there anything you know of that could help us locate the real Xander?” Willow asked quietly. The faint hope in her voice speaking volumes to those gathered.

“If you could contact the Asgard they’d probably help look for him. I can’t think of any other way to find him.”

“We’ll work on that then,” Angel said softly. At the confused looks cast his way he explained, “We don’t have anything much to do here in L.A., for awhile anyway, we can start the search for locating Xander and the Asgard. Dawn told me you all were considering building a branch of the Council here in L.A. and I’m offering this hotel. I think it’s safe to assume that Connor can stay with you all, if he likes.”

Connor nodded with a glance at Dawn who blushed when she noticed. Angel smiled sadly, thinking about how it hadn’t been that long ago that Connor had been a baby, he hadn’t really gotten any chance to prepare himself for the man Connor was already becoming.

Buffy and Willow exchanged looks before coming to a decision. Buffy turned to Angel, “We accept. Thank you Angel.” Buffy turned to look up at Spike who smiled down at her. “I think I’ll stay here for now, I’m not really affiliated with any of the branches so I’m free and I think Dawn knows enough to get us started turning this into a branch. If she’s willing that is,” Buffy said with a smirk as Dawn turned away from Connor.

Dawn smiled as she realized her sister was finally accepting the fact that she was growing up and nodded.

“Then there is only one problem,” Kennedy said speaking up as she moved closer to Willow. “And that’s what we’re going to do with him,” Kennedy said pointing towards Xander 2.0.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 5

“What do you mean ‘do with him’?” asked Willow.

“Well we can’t just let him wander about. He is still an agent of the First. He might also have some hidden programming he doesn’t even know about,” Kennedy said explaining her concerns.

“But he’s still like Xander!” Willow called out upset, she wasn’t sure she could hurt someone that looked and acted like her Xander.

“Can’t we just delete any programming and just make him a not-evil Xander?” Buffy said softly. At the odd looks she was receiving she glared back, “I’m not an idiot, I figured out the computer metaphor.”

“But this is something that’s programmed into his DNA, I have no idea how to mess with that. Scientifically or magically,” Willow stammered.

“Fred,” Illyria said suddenly.

“What?” asked Spike turning to look at Illyria who had moved silently to his side at some point.

“She was looking forward to attending a seminar that is this weekend. It is about genetics. Perhaps the lecturer will either know how to ‘delete’ this program or know who might know.”

“I thought Fred was into physics?” Buffy asked quietly.

“She was. She was interested in how the lecturers’ research might assist in identifying demons.”

“Oh.”

“Then I guess we’ll keep Xander ‘2.0’ locked up until we can talk to this lecturer guy, just to be on the safe side,” Buffy decided standing up. The others nodding in agreement, well those who would nod, some just watched on not disagreeing. Buffy was happy to have a plan to deal with both Xanders even if it was just a starting plan. As she turned around to look up at Spike she saw the other slayers who had been, for the most part, just watching the events as they occurred. Buffy sighed as she saw how upset the African slayers were about this. He was still the only Xander they knew, and they trusted him.

“I promise you,” Buffy said to the slayers before her, “I will do everything in my power to make sure it’s safe for your Xander to return to you. We just have to be sure that he won’t harm any of you someday because of what happened to him.”

“That brings us to another problem,” Kennedy said swiftly. “Who is going to be their watcher if we’re keeping their Xander for awhile?”

“Sam Zabuto.”

“What?” Buffy and Kennedy both asked as they turned to Xander who had unexpectedly spoken.

“He’d be a good person to replace me.”

“But he’s dead, the Council records say he died only a month after Kendra,” Dawn said speaking up. She’d helped Giles go through the archive looking for watchers to help rebuild.

“He faked his death. Kendra dying affected him deeply. I ran into him two months ago in Africa. He told me that she was a perfect slayer by Council standards and that her dying a year in by being hypnotized meant there were faults in the Council methods. He’s been in Africa trying to figure out a better way to train potentials away from the eyes of the Council. He’s been trying to find a medium between the Council and how Buffy trained by finding out more about the first slayer. He hopes to make slayers live longer. He’s the best person to replace me. Some of the girls already know and trust him.”

“Oh.”

“Then I guess we have plans for all our current problems,” Buffy said trying to be cheerful. Spike wrapped his arms around her, knowing that later, away from the others, she was going to break down. She reached up and held his arms closer to her.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 6

Willow and Kennedy sat together in the audience at the genetics seminar. They listened at Dr. Erin Walker spoke, she was a surprising good speaker. Kennedy didn’t understand much of what she was talking about but Willow enjoyed it until it became too advanced for her. Willow might have studied a bit of just about everything but this was way outside her area of knowledge.

The previous day it had been decided that Willow was the best person to approach Dr. Walker as she and Illyria would probably be the only ones who could approach her as scientists… and really, Illyria trying to ask for help? ...

Willow and Kennedy stood up as the seminar came to a close. They waited several minutes while a man spoke animatedly with Dr. Walker before she nodded and he walked away with a smile. The women exchanged glances as they moved to intercept the doctor.

Erin Walker was walking towards the exit with the various papers she’d brought for quick reference in her hands. She had plans for that night to celebrate her new job as a professor at CalSci and if all the faculty was as nice as Charlie and Millie she’d enjoy it. It was nice to get the chance to lecture at a university before working there. She stopped as two women blocked her path. She looked them both over, they were too nicely dressed to be students and too young to be faculty.

“Look, I already told the military I’m not interested in joining any project. And if you’re with the people who tried to kidnap me last week, I assure you any further attempts to get me will have even worse consequences,” Erin smirked as she thought about the men who would be singing soprano for the rest of their lives. The original recruiter had been called and the foolish men who’d attacked her had been taken away. Not that it had stopped the recruiter from trying again saying that she’d have more protection by joining the program.

Willow and Kennedy exchanged looks again, though these were confused looks. Willow spoke up, “No, I’m with a private international organization that was hoping you could help with a side project. I’m Willow Rosenberg and this is-“

“Willow? You mean Oz’s ex-girlfriend?” Erin said interrupting.

“Oz?” Willow and Kennedy said together.

“What?” came a voice behind them.

They whirled around, almost in unison.

“Oz!” Willow and Erin said together.

“What?” Oz repeated. There was Oz in the flesh.

“Oz, you didn’t have to come in to get me,” Erin said as she came forward, going around Kennedy to get to Oz. She wrapped her arm around his waist.

“What are you doing here Oz?” Willow asked, her face devoid of emotions as she adjusted to this unexpected arrival. Kennedy wrapped an arm protectively around Willow’s waist.

“He’s waiting for me,” Erin explained after a quick look at Oz. “He’s my boyfriend,” she said explaining the obvious.

“So she knows that…?” Willow asked, not wanting to betray Oz if he hadn’t told her.

“That he’s a werewolf?” Erin said completing Willow’s sentence. “I’m totally aware of that, since that’s how we met. We were in London and he attended one of my lectures. He approached me afterwards and one thing led to another…”

“What?” Kennedy asked confused. The way she spoke now was so different from her lecture. She was disjointed and skipping information.

“I’m a werewolf too,” Erin replied with a blush. “Oz is the only other werewolf I’ve met. He’s improved his senses to the point he can sniff out other werewolves. He’s helped me learn how to control my inner animal and I’m working on applying it to my research.”

“Erin is trying find a cure to being a werewolf,” Oz explained as he saw the confusion on the faces in front of him.

“Oh?” asked Willow as she narrowed her eyes to study Erin more closely.

“What?” Erin said as she caught sight of Willow’s suspicious look. “It’s not like I’m going all initiative. I only test my own genetics. And the Initiative and being a werewolf are why I’d never work for the military. Can’t trust them.”

“Nope,” agreed Oz.

Kennedy let out a soft snort at that. She’d never have trusted them in the first place. Willow rolled her eyes at Kennedy before turning back to Oz and Erin.

Erin looked Willow and Kennedy over again as she processed in the events of the last several minutes, “Is there a supernatural problem you need my help with?”

Willow ran a nervous hand through her hair as she sighed, “Sort of… You know about Xander?” Erin nodded confused. “He’s been cloned… by aliens…” Erin’s eyes widened, as did Oz’s. “We’ve got the clone, but he’s been programmed to be loyal to the First, the embodiment of evil, we need to fix that, but it wasn’t done with magic, it was done with science.”

“Alien science?” Erin asked just to be sure she heard it right.

“Yes.”

“I need to meet him.”

“Alright, he’s here in L.A.”

“Angels?” asked Oz.

“Yeah,” Willow confirmed as she started to lead the others. “We’re keeping him there as we work on building a new branch of the Council. He’s kept under the influence of a truth potion Andrew made at all times to make sure he doesn’t do anything… wrong.”

Kennedy let out a snort as a thought hit her.

“What?” Willow asked looking towards her in surprise.

“They were two American werewolves in London.”

A slow smile grew on Erin’s face before she giggled.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 7

The group was far from silent as Willow drove them to the hotel. Erin and Kennedy had bonded over old horror movies that they found funny. Willow smiled as she thought back to how she had bonded with Buffy and Xander the same way. Willow blinked her eyes to hold back tears as she thought about Xander. How could she not have noticed it wasn’t him? She needed to save Xander, she just had to.

Oz watched on concerned. He knew Willow well and knew what she was going through must have hurt a lot. That Xander was cloned was a surprise to him, but not a shock. Things just happened to him. At least Xander kept him in the loop about what was going on in Sunnydale, at least he had after Oz’s encounter with the Initiative… and Tara. Oz had been on his way to Sunnydale when it sank, he’d almost lost control of his wolf before he’d received the e-mail from Xander letting him know they were safe in L.A. and… a summary of what had happened.

Erin reached out and took Oz’s hand as she and Kennedy continued their conversation. Erin and Oz smiled at each other. Oz had never told Xander about Erin, beyond that he had met and was seeing a werewolf. So this should be a surprise when they made it the new branch of the Council. Oz, showing his romantic side, reached their joined hands up to kiss her hand.

“We’re here,” Willow called out as she pulled into the hotel parking.

Erin and Kennedy went silent as they all piled out of the car and headed into the building. Willow led the way past various employees who were working on fixing up all the building. Some slayers were nearby helping with the heavy lifting. They were all pretty excited about being in L.A. plus here they’d all get private rooms with bathrooms. Willow finally stopped in front of a room. As they opened the door they could hear Xander talking.

“So if you knock out this wall the pipes can be moved here to deal with…” Xander’s voice trailed off as he caught sight at the people in the doorway. Gunn and the head construction guy looked up from the blueprints to look at what was distracting Xander.

Gunn, seeing the confusion in front of him explained, “Xander here might be a clone but he is an experienced construction worker who knows how to deal with slayers so he’s helping to figure out what to do to make the building a perfect branch.”

“So you’re the clone?” Erin asked coming forward to look at him more closely.

“Yeah… I’m Xander 2.0, far better than the original,” Xander confirmed as the strange woman looked at him very closely, studying him.

“Okay,” Gunn said as he rolled up the blueprints. They hadn’t been expecting Willow back so soon with help, convincing the doctor was supposed to be a hard thing, something that would take awhile. “Well… We’re going to go show what we’ve got figured out to the crew.” Gunn grabbed construction guy and pulled him out of the room.

Erin continued on as if he hadn’t been there at all, “How are you ‘better’?”

Oz looked at Willow with a smile and explained, “Scientist mode, nothing distracts her.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t actually know,” Xander 2.0 said. “I know there are some differences between myself and the original. I think all the demonic influences on him aren’t here.”

“Demonic influences?” Erin asked pulling out a small notebook to take notes on.

“Xander had minor side effects from being possessed and stuff. Like when he was on the swim team. He might not have turned into a fish monster like the others, but he could still stay under water longer than most normal humans, I can’t do that.”

“So basically, physically, you should be Xander if he hadn’t known about the supernatural?”

“I guess so.”

“Well,” Erin said turning towards Willow, “I think I can figure out some of the differences, but if his genetics aren’t identical to the original it’ll take me a longer time to isolate differences on conflicting DNA, unless you have Xander’s DNA from the pre-Buffy days.”

“I doubt anyone would have that,” Willow said softly, glancing at Kennedy, concerned. Kennedy came over and wrapped an arm around Willow’s shoulder and pulled her in close. “But you’ll help?”

“Sounds like fun, and I will be living in L.A. for the next two years. I’ve signed a contract to stay at CalSci for awhile. It’s to give me time to work on some projects, I think I’m close to a breakthrough on my werewolf project.”

“Great!” Willow said smiling. At least one of their problems was going to be dealt with.

“Now, I just need samples from the clone and the original Xander for comparison.”

“Original?”

“Willow,” Oz began as he realized something. “Where is the ORIGINAL Xander?”

“We’re not sure.”

“What?” Erin said, her eyes widening. “How am I supposed to figure out the difference between the Xanders with only ONE Xander?”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 8

“Um…” Willow’s voice trailed off as she tried to answer.

“Do you have to have the real Xander?” asked Kennedy.

“Well no,” Erin began, but continues before anyone could get their hops up, “but I need a sample of the original DNA. With Sunnydale being a sinkhole I doubt there is any that isn’t attached to him.”

“Oh.”

“So unless you produce something from the original I can’t compare the DNA.”

“How do you test your werewolf DNA then?” Kennedy asked confused.

“My parents kept my first lock of hair, that’s from my pre-wolf days. I’m also an identical twin, whose twin isn’t a werewolf.”

“So there really isn’t anything you can do?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Xander said speaking up for the first time on the subject.

“What do you mean?” Erin asked softly.

“Angel might still have it.”

“Have what?” asked Willow.

“My b- the original Xander’s blood.”

“Why would Angel have Xander’s blood?” Willow was very confused by this point.

“After Buffy died the second time Xander came to L.A. because he wanted to do something for ‘his girls’ in case he died. He was too embarrassed to tell you all, but he also wasn’t sure about how to go about it, so he asked Angel for help. He didn’t want to owe Angel any favors so he paid for the help, in his own blood.”

“How would that be repayment? Angel doesn’t drink human blood.”

“He doesn’t normally. Vampires can drink different types of blood, but the quality can matter in some cases. Sure he can survive on pig’s blood, or even rejected blood from the Red Cross. But healthy human blood from the Hellmouth, that’s like an emergency get out of dying card.”

“What?”

“It’s why a lot of vampires still moved to Sunnydale knowing the slayer was there. The blood from a Sunnydale native is like the healthiest blood for vampires. The only better blood is slayer’s blood.”

“Why would Xander know this?”

“Spike. When we- they were roommates, Spike told Xander all about it. Xander thought he was just saying that because he was sick of the pig’s blood Xander was giving him. Since he didn’t really believe it he called Angel who verified it.”

“Blood donations can last about a year at most if frozen,” Erin said interrupting. “What you’re talking about was years ago. Even if he still had the blood I doubt I could still use it.”

“There was also a cooler Xander got Tara to enchant to keep the blood like new.”

“Tara knew about this?” Willow asked.

“No, she thought Xander was using it to store blood for Spike.”

“Oh.”

“So I guess the question is, how much of the blood has Deadboy used? I’m guessing not much because of his ‘morals’.”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 9

Angel frowned as he watched Spike and Buffy planning their trip. They’d decided that the three of them would travel around with Wesley and Illyria searching for the Asgard. Angel wouldn’t have minded their planning so much if they didn’t take the chance to kiss in between decisions and Spike knew how much it was annoying him. Every time Angel tried to leave Spike would speak to him and Angel wouldn’t leave when he knew it would make Buffy realize how uncomfortable he was.

He wasn’t sure how they were going to find the Asgard, but they had hope. Spike and Buffy had sung a duet for Lorne to see if he could help them figure out where they needed to go. Angel found it annoying how well they sang together. Buffy had never heard him sing and if he had his way she never would.

Lorne had been able to help a little. He was able to narrow down their search to the United States and to the east of them, not that that was much help since most of the U.S. was to their east since they were in California after all. Lorne had been a bit surprised that he’d been able to get that much. He had been more than willing to offer to listen to any of the slayers coming to L.A. too. Turns out most slayers could sing well and had interesting things in their future.

Just as Angel was going to make another attempt to escape the couple, the doors to the study they were in burst open and in rushed Willow, Kennedy, Oz, Erin and Xander 2.0. Angel looked back and forth between them as several of them spoke to him at once. He raised up an arm and shouted, “Quiet!” As Erin took a step back in surprise the others, embarrassed about how loud they’d been, fell silent. Well, except Oz, who hadn’t said anything in the first place, he simply put a protective arm around Erin’s shoulders, pulling her close.

“One at a time, Willow, please?” Angel asked Willow directly. For all her babbling habits she was the one he knew best to explain anything.

“Xander, I mean Xander 2.0, he said that you have his blood, the original Xander's I mean. Erin needs it to figure out what’s different with the Xander's.”

“Hey! You were holding out on me! You never said you had the whelps blood!” Spike called out as he walked up next to Angel, his arm around Buffy.

“Why would you have Xander’s blood?” Buffy asked softly, her forehead furrowed.

“Xander gave it to him as payment for help a couple of years ago,” Willow explained to Buffy. “Xander 2.0 told us about it.”

“You did!?” Angel turned an accusing eye onto Xander 2.0. “Xander didn’t want them to know about that unless he died or it actually came up in conversation! And that wasn’t going to come up in conversation. How could you tell them about something like that? Xander was so embarrassed about it he wouldn’t have told anyone if he hadn’t had to.”

“What did he do?” asked Buffy.

“He donated sperm for you all if you wanted children later,” Angel said bluntly.

“He did?” came Buffy and Willow’s voices, shocked.

Xander 2.0 reached his arm out quickly and hit Angel, “I didn’t tell them what he did! He was really embarrassed about it, and then with his later problems with doubt about himself he decided not to tell them unless they asked! I was trying NOT to tell them!”

“Talk NOW,” Buffy said angrily at Xander 2.0. She didn’t like secrets.

“After you died… The second time. Xander came to L.A. to do this… for all of you. If anything happened to him… He was feeling so very mortal then… If you died Buffy, with you being the strongest person he knew, then how long would he have? He got Angel to help him set up an account with a sperm bank,” Xander 2.0 reached his left hand back to scratch the back of his neck nervously. He turned slightly and continued, “If you had asked, Willow, he would have told you, but he never really thought you would.”

“Why would he…?” Willow asked softly, her eyes wide and staring at Xander 2.0.

“He wanted this to be an option for you, for you and Tara if you decided you wanted children. For Anya if he died and she wanted to ‘spawn.’ He added Buffy to the list when she came back, what with her taste in men who don’t normally have kids…” Here Xander 2.0. glanced at Angel and Spike. “He just wanted you to have this choice someday. He even added Kennedy to the list after you two got together, Willow. It was his way of being there for you.”

“Oh…” Willow’s voice trailed off, she didn’t know what to think about this. Kennedy reached over and took Willow’s hand into a gentle hold, their fingers interlacing. Kennedy was still pretty young, she didn’t currently have any plans for kids, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted them, but it was nice that if she ever wanted them she had the choice.

Buffy looked at Xander 2.0 for a moment as she thought about this. She’d never thought about having kids since she was so busy being the slayer, but now that there were more slayers maybe she could. She looked up at Spike who was still looking at Xander 2.0. Buffy reached her arm around Spike and pulled him close against her. He turned slightly to look down at her. Maybe, someday, after they got Xander back, she’d take him up on his offer.

“Um… This is sort of sweet and all,” Erin interrupted gently. “But this doesn’t change the initial question. Angel, do you still have Xander’s blood?”

“Yes. … I’ve only used one bag, so the other bags should still be in the cooler.”

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 10

Xander 2.0 watched as Erin took the cooler from Angels. The chance to study the difference between the DNA of Xander and Xander 2.0 was something Erin was finding exhilarating. Oz just smiled as Erin hugged the small cooler to herself. Erin and Oz would come back the next day with medical supplies to draw blood from Xander 2.0 and ask him some more questions. Erin allowed a feeling of optimism to overtake her for a moment. If she could solve this maybe she could alter her own DNA to purge the werewolf from her system. She may have come to accept what she was, but she didn’t enjoy the feelings it gave her.

Xander 2.0 on the other hand felt a bit lost. He was going to be stuck in L.A. for awhile and he was going to have to take a truth potion the whole time. For one thing he was going to have to learn how to not say what was on his mind. One of the watchers had almost hit him. It wasn’t really his fault! She’d asked him if the outfit made her look fat. Why did she even ask him?

He didn’t want to hurt anyone… He couldn’t control what the First had programmed into him. He was all for removing any programming it had done on him, but still… Couldn’t this be called inhumane? Maybe even cruel and unusual? His gaze traveled over to the door of the hotel where there was a huge pile of luggage building up. “Buffy? Is this all yours?”

“Hm?” Buffy looked over at him as she set down one more piece of luggage. “Actually half of this is Spike’s. Angel’s got a couple of pieces coming.”

“I’m not sure you’ll be able to fit all that and Angel’s hair care products in your car.”

Buffy let her eyes slip into a small glare, “Cute Xander.” She paused for a moment until she couldn’t help but let out a giggle. “We can’t fit any of this into the car, not with all of us going, Willow is gonna shrink it down into some sort of portable thing. We only need to remember which suitcase we stored stuff in for non shrinking purposes, so we won’t end up with all this stuff taking up so much space.”

Xander 2.0 let himself grin. Buffy was taking this best, him being a clone and all, at least when she wasn’t behind closed doors. Xander 2.0 knew the signs as the original Xander had once been the one to comfort her whenever things went wrong, and she wasn’t seeing anyone. But he knew she was trying to accept him and that was enough. He knew that if anyone could find the original him it would be Buffy. He just hoped that the original would be okay with him. He missed his girls in Africa and wanted to get back to them. As much as he loved the Scoobies, it wasn’t his love he was feeling, it was the OTHER Xander’s love.

“You’re going to help re-model the hotel right?” Buffy interrupted Xander 2.0’s thoughts.

“Huh?”

“The hotel? You’re going to help make it a branch of the council, right?” Buffy said, holding back a smirk. He really was like the original Xander.

“Yeah. Gunn said the construction manager was really impressed with my know how, so I’m gonna help with the re-modeling. The crew they’ve hired all know about the supernatural, but I’m the one who knows how to deal with teenage super heroines,” Xander 2.0 grinned at Buffy.

“So you do. So you do,” Buffy smiled back before turning towards the stairs as Spike and Angel came down the stairs, each holding several suitcases.

“Please tell me that’s it?” Xander 2.0’s eyes were opened wide. That was a LOT of luggage, and regardless of what joking he did earlier he didn’t think that even half of it was Buffy’s. It had only been a couple of days since they’d gotten to L.A. and he knew how much stuff Buffy had brought. There was no way Buffy had done that much shopping with all the other stuff she’d had to do.

“This is it for our stuff,” Spike confirmed. “But the others haven’t finished packing. We haven’t figured out what to do with Illyria. Wesley can’t stand the thought of her appearing like Fred, but we can’t think of any other way to conceal her. Blue would really stand out since she’s, you know, blue.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Buffy said as she walked up to Spike, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down into a passionate kiss.

“Too mushy!” Xander 2.0 called out as he caught sight of Angel’s face. He decided to give just a bit of mercy to Deadboy. After all, the poor vamp was gonna be stuck with the two of them for however long it took to find Xander 1.0. He let out a smirk, he bet Spike would make sure that Angel would be in the next room for any places they spent the night.

“When are you leaving?” Xander 2.0 asked.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Wow. Then we should do a movie night. Just like you used to do with everyone. Maybe Oz and Erin would like to join us. It can be a preview of how things can be for you all when you get Xander back.”

“I’d like that,” Buffy released her hold of Spike to hug Xander 2.0 briefly. “It’s something we can all do after we find him. It might be interesting too, to see how you and Xander respond differently to the same movie.”

“Yeah,” Xander 2.0 whispered softly as he followed Buffy as she headed for Willow’s room.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 11

“ARG!” screamed Buffy as she stormed past the others. She entered her hotel room with a slam following her.

The others exchanged looks before Angel spoke up, “I’m glad I’m not the one who has deal with that.” His voice trailed off as he and the other looked at Spike in sympathy.

Spike cocked his head to the side a bit eying Angel, “Speaks the man who dated her when she was a teenager.” He gently let himself into the room he was currently sharing with Buffy, knowing the others were going to go to the club those pretty witches ran.

He looked around the room, catching sight of Buffy blue stained, reeking, clothes that she had tossed into the hotel trash bin. They’d warned her to duck… He quickly went over and tied the bag up to help get rid of the stench before following the obvious signs to Buffy in the shower. He gently opened the door and stripped off his clothes as he walked through the steam and joined Buffy in the shower. He happily noted that she’d already washed off the demon gore and wrapped his arms around her. Buffy sighed softly as she leant back into Spike’s arms.

“What’s wrong, Pet?” he asked softly.

“I… I know I’m acting pretty mean aren’t I?” Buffy sighed and continued before Spike could respond. “I’m just so… So FRUSTRATED! We’ve been looking for Xander for three months, THREE MONTHS!” Buffy reached up and grasped Spikes arms, hugging them close to her chest. “I know three months isn’t really a long time, I know it isn’t, but we haven’t found anything yet. No matter the crisis’s we had in the past we at least found something out within three months.”

Spike hugged her closer, “What did he say to you?”

“Who?”

“The clone. What did he tell you after the impromptu movie night that made you so focused on finding him?”

Buffy let out a little snort as she relaxed back against Spike. It was very comforting to be with someone who understood her so well. “He told me that Xander was the one who sees, that’s why the First needed him out of the way. He doesn’t think it had anything to do with magic, but rather that Xander was a true watcher. The way the council was supposed to be. Xander may not have actually known what to do, but he still did it. He really was our heart,” Buffy pulled Spike forward under the falling water drenching both of them completely. “When I needed him to be there, when I needed someone to listen and even when I needed someone to yell at me and tell me I was doing wrong, he was always there for those things.”

“The whelp was far from perfect. OW,” Spike pulled one of his arms away from Buffy to gently rub his other arm where she’d pinched him.

“I know he wasn’t perfect. Isn’t. Isn’t perfect. If he had been, the clone wouldn’t have been able to pull off acting like him while under the control of the First. But he was there for me when I needed him. And now he needs me. I have to find him and bring him home.”

“I know, we’ll find him, no matter how long it takes. We’ll find him because there is nothing we can’t accomplish when we’re together.”

Buffy leant her head back against Spike’s shoulder, Spike bent his head down and kissed Buffy. Silence filled the bathroom as the shower was turned off and noises of a different sort filled the bedroom.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 12

Wesley was driving the car, he wasn't about to let the others do it. Buffy and Spike both terrified him with how they drove, and he didn't trust Illyria's driving skills enough for her to try. Though he was relieved that Willow's glamour spell made her look human but not like Fred. The time they'd spent in San Francisco had been more successful than they'd realized at first. They'd run into three sister witches while they had been there and helped them get rid of a couple of demons. They had given them the contact information for the new LA branch of the Watcher's Council, they'd been a bit relieved that they could get more back up if they ever needed it.

One of the witches had psychic abilities and when they'd said goodbye had had a vision. She'd shared all the details she could before heading inside her home with her sisters muttering about how she better not have to start fighting aliens too. Her love life was already too much of a roller coaster for her without more distractions and enemies.

Still, it had been useful knowledge for them. They'd been at a loss of where to go next, they'd already traveled to the east coast and back to California during the first 3 months of their search and hadn't found any signs of aliens at all, although they had stopped two apocalypses on the way. Now they knew where to go, Area 51.

"I didn't even think Area 51 was real," Buffy said softly into the silent car. Buffy's head rested on Spike's shoulder. His arm wrapped around her. Buffy ignored the glances from Angel who sat on the other side of her. With the lack of radio music due to Illyria's various snub comments about it, they five people in the car had no choice but to talk.

"I thought it was real," Spike said pulling Buffy closer. "I just didn't think they were really dealing with aliens, thought for sure they were hoaxes."

"I didn't even think to look for that while we were in Roswell," shrugged Buffy before snuggling closer to Spike.

"I called Willow," Wesley said as he changed lanes. "She said she'd see if she could hack into their computer system. She said she'd also call the president if necessary. I'm not sure if that's if she can't hack into it or if she finds something in there that's really good or bad."

Angel and Illyria just kind of huffed grunted, only they did it at the same time causing the rest of the car to laugh. Though they stopped quickly, Illyria's glare was very effective. Angel's not so much.

"Probably if it's about what she finds, I don't think there is anything she can't hack, especially now that she's got more control of her witch self," Buffy was pretty happy about that.

"Did Willow have any updates on anything else?" Angel asked.

"Connor is fine Angel," Wesley rolled his eyes for a moment before quickly returning them to the road. "He and Dawn are officially dating. Willow gave me a lot of details on that which I'm not passing on. I'm trying to forget them. If you want details on your son's relationship with your ex's little sister you'll have to call her yourself. I have enough trouble trying to understand when she babbles as it is. For that matter I'd prefer it if you called her in the future Buffy. We were on the phone for over and hour and all the things we actually needed to discuss took about 5 minutes."

Buffy giggled, "Alright." All this time traveling together had caused them to get over any troubles that still existed between them from his failed time as her watcher. Buffy sighed softly, "How's Xander 2.0?"

"He's fine. Erin's been able to get a lot of work done, she thinks she'll be able to turn off anything in his DNA that's making him do things he might not really want to do soon. She and Oz are engaged, Willow has been asked to be 'Best Woman' when they get married. We're all going to be invited, but they want to wait until the original Xander can attend. Apparently the proposal was very romantic and Willow thinks Kennedy might propose soon too. … Xander 2.0 is doing a lot of work on the building, the renovations are well on their way, the LA branch should open soon."

Buffy held back giggles as Wesley started to go on about the 'office' romances occurring before coming to his senses and returning to the correct topic. Spike smirked as he felt her shaking against him. Spike was very tempted to make Angel make any further calls for official updates with Willow just to see how he'd respond to the Willow babble.

Spike probably knew more about what was going on from his unofficial phone calls with Xander 2.0 than Wesley did. Spike knew Buffy was calling him too, she'd probably only asked about him so she could see how Wesley was taking to him. Willow still seemed very disappointed with herself about not realizing that Xander 2.0 wasn't the original. Just because she knew him the longest, yet none of them had suspected anything was wrong. And the search for Xander had united them all a lot. Spike was pretty sure they were all closer now than they'd ever been before. It was really the first time that Wesley was really one of them. Oz had returned. Angel was working with them again. Gunn was working well with Xander 2.0 and the council. It was like the Scoobies and Angel's group had truly come together.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 13

"Right," Buffy said nodding as she looked back at Area 51 as they drove away.

Everyone but Wesley, who was driving, looked as Buffy expectedly.

"Let's have Willow contact the President. I don't doubt we could totally fight our way in but we'd still have to find what we're looking for. Let's just call in one of the favors the government owes us."

Spike resisted the urge to bang his head on his seat. Sometimes he wondered about Buffy. She'd really sounded like she had a plan plan for a second there.

"Alright," Wesley agreed. He was rather impressed with how much more sensible Buffy had become since high school. He just would have preferred her to have decided that before seeing how well armed the place was. Although he could understand her dislike of guns since he too had been shot in the recent past. He was pretty sure the guards on duty hadn't believed their lost in the dark story either. He was certain that the guy in the security booth had called something to run a check on them while the other guy gave them direction to Roswell. Wesley spared a moment to wonder if the staff at Area 51 slept on base, it was going to be a long drive. If they'd planned ahead they would probably be inside Area 51 right now. As it was they were going to have to suffer through a Buffy/Willow phone call which would mean everyone having to deal with learning all the latest gossip. Illyria would need to go hunting as soon as they arrived in town. She, like Angel and Spike, could hear both sides of the conversation. Wesley once again thanked God he had normal hearing.

Wesley was indeed proved correct as they pulled into the motel parking lot. Buffy finally hanging up with Dawn, who'd stolen the phone from Willow about 10 minutes into the conversation, who'd passed on the message that they had an appointment in the morning towards the end of the very long conversation. Willow was very efficient.

Angel was the first one out of the car, listening to Dawn talk about his son romantically was perhaps one of the most disturbing things that had happened to him, and considering his life, or undeath if you prefer, that's really saying something. Right now he'd be willing to spar with Illyria as long as he got the pictures out of his head.

Spike stretched as he considered his options. First he could go hunting with the others, though he knew from last time that there really wasn't much of a nightlife in Roswell. Second he could sleep and rest up, not something that was really necessary since it had already been decided that he and Angel would remain behind because of the whole lack of body heat, heartbeats, etc. They weren't to tell Area 51 about the supernatural and they didn't want to be mistaken for some weird new alien species. They didn't know what kind of sensors they might have after all. Spike wasn't even sure he liked the idea of Illyria going with them, though she had gotten much better at blending in with humans, as long as she remained with Wesley or Spike who could cover for her errors. Or his third option, being with Buffy, who he had gotten rather attached to, tomorrow would be the first time they'd been parted for more than a few hours since they'd started the journey over three months ago. Yeah he was going to go with option three.

"Oy!" Spike exclaimed as he found himself standing outside with Angel and Illyria. "I picked option three!"

Wesley frowned at him, he didn't want to know. "I need to sleep so I'm ready for tomorrow, so does Buffy. So you get the job of making sure they don't go overboard."

"Hey!" Angel glared at Wesley.

Spike hung his head for a moment wishing it wasn't true. "I hate babysitting duty," he grumbled while making a point of pointing at Angel when he wasn't looking to pacify Illyria.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 14

General 'Jack' O'Neil was not a happy camper. First he'd been working like crazy because of the latest problem with the Ori and as soon as he was caught up with the paperwork he couldn't get out of and gone home he'd received a call from the President. He had to go back to work. Why did he agree to be the head of Homeworld Security again? Jack felt like hitting his head against something as the President explained why he'd been called.

The supernatural was real. He was only being told because the people in charge of dealing with demonic problems needed into Area 51. Why they were interested in the Asgard he didn't know. Hopefully they hadn't decided they were demons to hunt. They were among the best allies Earth had. Jack shook his head as he reviewed what little information had survived the meltdown of the Initiative. Apparently one of the people wanting into Area 51 had been involved in it and he was to 'tread lightly' so as not to cause an incident with them.

In the morning he was to be beamed by the Daedalus, which was currently in orbit, and meet Sam, who had already gone to Area 51 to oversee some test they were conducting, at Area 51. Jack was not to tell Sam or anyone else at all about the supernatural unless he had no choice. It was very frustrating. Jack once again wished he could hit his head against something as he settled with rubbing his fingers against his forehead. Danny and Sam would probably require more evidence than he did too. He'd seen enough weird stuff back in his black ops days to actually find this a valid explanation for some things he'd rather not remember at all. The two of them would probably try to tie it all in with aliens and science. Jack knew that not everything could be explained away like that.

Jack angrily stripped off his clothes again as he re-entered his bedroom for the night. He couldn't even give them crosses, he was pretty sure they had reached a point where they were all atheists or darn close to it. He fell into bed after changing his alarm clock to get him up in time to get ready for the meeting in the morning. He grabbed one of his pillows brought it up over his face, pressed it down tightly and screamed into it. When he finished, he removed the pillow and placed it under his head. He was not looking forward to tomorrow.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 15

Dr. Samantha Carter waited patiently for Jack to be beamed in from the Daedalus. They were going to be giving a tour to some people. … That was all she'd been told. She certainly hoped Jack had more information to give her than that. She didn't like going in blind. Sam smiled as Jack appeared before her. She hadn't seen him in awhile. Sometimes she felt like she was missing a piece of herself, she had gotten so used to seeing him all the time because they'd been on the same team for so long. At least that's what she told herself was why she missed him.

"Sam," Jack said informally before she could salute. "Here. This is the information you're authorized to see about our visitors."

Sam's smiled turned into a frown as she took the 4 sheets of paper from Jack. She looked down at them skimming them quickly, trying to ignore the dark circles she'd noticed under Jack's eyes. He needed a vacation more from his time at a desk job than from when he was running for his life on alien planets.

"You're kidding me," Sam looked up. "Jack, there is hardly any information on these people. Why are we even giving them access? They're from a British historical society!"

"This is just the information you're cleared to know. Hell. I'm hardly authorized to know more than that! I was only told anything last night. I'm not even authorized to tell you much more. Of the three people coming only one of them has any ties to the US military. Buffy Summers spent a brief amount of time as a civilian consultant on a black ops project that went sideways, she was accredited for it not ending with the destruction of California."

"What!" Sam looked back down on the brief summary on the woman. "There's nothing on that here."

"They want no records of any kind on the project. It was that messed up. The NID was involved in the project big time, that's all I'm allowed to tell you. Because believe me, if I could tell you everything I know, which isn't much more than that, I would.

"The other woman coming is Winifred Burkle. At one point she was being considered for recruitment into the project once she finished her degree in physics, but she vanished. It was suspected the NID might have taken her but no one could find evidence of it. She finally reappeared only to join a detective agency of all things before joining Wolfram and Hart."

"The law firm?"

"Yeah."

"Weren't they in the news recently? Their headquarters in LA blew up or something."

"Or something. Apparently the real details of what happened there are beyond my clearance level."

"… I didn't think there was anything beyond your clearance level."

"I thought so too. But if it has anything to do with what I think it does then I don't think I want to know. I think I'll sleep easier just worrying about the hostile aliens who want to destroy Earth."

Sam just stared at Jack. "… And the third peson?"

"British guy by the name of Wesley Wyndam-Price, I bet he was bullied a lot as a kid with a name like that. Overstayed his VISA but Wolfram and Hart took care of that when he started working for them. He also worked for the detective agency before that. His father was killed when the old head office for their 'historical society' got blown up a couple of years ago."

"His employers get blown up a lot."

"Before that was working at a high school that got blown up at graduation, so yeah…"

"So why are we giving them access?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Unofficially first."

"There are several unofficial reasons. That civilian consultant job got 'Buffy' owed a pretty big favor. She called it in. The President might have refused only she somehow already knew about the Asgard. He wants us to find out what they know about them, and how they knew his new phone number. Also, they apparently have several items from old museum tours that Danny tried to get access to a few years ago, before their headquarters got blown up. Apparently 'unimportant' stuff was stored elsewhere. The people in charge now said we can have some of them, and related items that never went on tour if we could give them what they want. There might even be a sarcophagus included in that, of the life-saving variety. The only problem is we don't actually know what they want except it's got something to do with the Asgard."

"Wow. Okay then… Wait, how did they know Daniel was involved in Area 51?"

"I don't think they do. At least I hope they don't know. They should just know that the US government wanted to see some stuff from Ancient Egypt that they have."

"And officially?"

"… It's classified beyond your clearance level."

"They haven't been able to come up with an official reason yet, huh?"

"Nope. Well… Let's go meet them."

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 16

Jack paused as he took in the three people waiting for him and frowned. "Who are you?" he asked looking at Illyria. This was not because he could see her in her more demonic form or something, but rather because the others she was traveling with had gotten used to the glamour she wore to fit in.. i.e. She didn't look like the file photo of Winifred Burkle.

'$#^' was all Wesley could think as he realized almost instantly what had happened. It took a moment longer for Buffy to realize, having spent no time with Fred and little with Illyria prior to the road trip that had EVENTUALLY led them there.

Wesley thought fast, "Fred wasn't feeling well, but," pausing ever so shortly as he mentally struggled with a name for Illyria.

"Lia didn't want just the two of us coming here," Buffy finished, with barely a pause. Hanging with Faith had cause Buffy to develop the habit of shortening names on the fly very quickly.

"She's not authorized for anything beyond this point," Jack explained. He didn't believe for a moment the explanation he'd been given but knowing what he did knew he didn't really want to know. Although Jack was going to talk to someone about letting unauthorized people into the building at all. Sam gave him a weird look before turning a suspicious eye back on the visitors. She knew weird behavior when she saw it, without knowing why Jack was turning a blind eye to it she'd settle for just paying attention to see if they revealed anything. Her scientist curiosity was near unending and she really wanted to know what was going on.

"I'll stay here," Wesley said.

Buffy's eyes flew to him in surprise. However Wesley didn't really have a choice. He couldn't trust Illyria alone or with just Buffy who had shown no ability in calming her down even if they did have some weird sort of mutual respect for each other. Besides Buffy had shown that she had grown up a lot since he'd known her in high school, this was something that he knew was important to her.

"I trust you," he said softly, resting his arm on her shoulder for a moment. "We'll remain here in case you need us."

Buffy nodded swiftly before turning back to the government guys, "Lead the way."

If Sam had known Buffy thought of her and Jack as just government guys she probably would not have been so polite as she quickly led Buffy through the parts of Area 51 that the public wouldn't panic about knowing, in other words nothing of aliens were mentioned, Jack following silently behind them. This continued on for several excruciating hours for Buffy, it was really more like half an hour, but knowing she was so close to finding what she had spent a lot of the last few months looking for and that Dr. Lieutenant whatever Samantha Carter, as she had been introduced, was avoiding any talk of aliens was very frustrating.

Buffy made a snap decision; she knew that they knew she knew about aliens. "I appreciate the tour, sort of, but I'm here for a reason and I think you realize that. I don't care about what you're doing here as long as no one is being harmed, and I have no reason to believe that is happening." Buffy sighed gently. Both Jack and Sam were watching her silently, waiting for her to continue. "The Asgard took something that we want back."

"The Asgard aren't thieves. What did they take?" Jack asked ignoring the look of surprise that Sam sent his way. He spared a moment to appreciate seeing Sam being the one who didn't know what was going on, it was a good expression on her.

"One of them is. He took Xander."

"Loki?"

"Yes."

"He returns the people he kidnapped."

"Normally," Buffy closed her eyes briefly as she allowed herself to lean against the grey wall behind her. Buffy didn't really like revealing so much to the government but although she wished she could handle this without them she knew if Xander was to be brought back anytime soon she'd have to be straightforward. "A… being told Loki that Xander was the key to solving their cloning problem. We don't know if that's true or not, but Xander was never returned to us. His clone has been living his life, although a part of him knew he wasn't the original. Stupid subliminal messaging. Look. We just want to contact the Asgard and get our friend back. We're even willing to trade some old junk we don't need and the government wants for your help. Will you help us?"

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 17

Willow stared at her screen. She was a little rusty at hacking since she had been focusing a lot more on magic than computers. She had found references to an Area 52 but nothing solid on it yet. Area 51 also had very good defenses; she had had to put more effort in making sure no one knew someone was trying to hack in than actually trying to hack in. She moved her head one way then the other, her neck popping as she moved for the first time in a while.

Next to her desk she saw Kennedy sleeping on the sofa. Willow smiled softly drinking in the sight of her girlfriend. She'd never thought she'd feel this way again after losing Tara. Seeing Oz again had also given all sorts of closure that she didn't even know she was missing. She knew that both Kennedy and Oz had been jealous of the science connection she had been developing with Erin. Brilliant was the only thing she could think when Erin explained something to her. There was a reason Erin was one of the top scientists in genetics, Willow was learning so much from her.

"How goes the research?" Dawn asked from the doorway.

"Some of the best firewalls I've ever encountered. I'm betting they were developed by Dr. Carter. She's incredible with computers," Willow shifted around, turning to face Dawn. "Shouldn't you be going to bed soon?"

Dawn's eyes widened, "Willow, it's 12 noon, not 12 midnight."

Willow shot to her feet as she looked around her, taking in the empty bowl on the table beside Kennedy, the cold soggy bowl of cereal next to that, Kennedy couldn't cook. ##!

" Buffy has already gone in to the highly classified military base, Willow!" Dawn all but shouted. Willow was supposed to call them if something came up in her research, the lack of a call implied that she'd given them the green light. They'd never do that again.

"It's ok Dawn," Willow said without her normal confidence. "I haven't found anything bad. I haven't been able to get into their systems but I have looked at the records of the people they're supposed to be meeting. They have a lot of blacked out pages but they've both, mostly General O'Neil, have gotten into trouble for disobeying orders, things I think we would have done ourselves."

Although not fully comforted Dawn was willing to accept what Willow had found out with a little relief.

Willow turned off her computer, there was no point in doing more research right now anyway. If things weren't on the up and up she'd teleport in and save them, with a legion of slayers in tow. How much was a legion anyway? Willow thought funny when deprived of sleep. Willow jumped slightly as Kennedy wrapped an arm around her from behind. Dawn's cry had woken her up instantly.

"How about your research?" Kennedy asked her voice almost husky from sleep.

Dawn smiled as she held up the papers in her arms that Willow hadn't even noticed, once again jealous about slayers being able to manage with less than 4 hours of sleep. "I've found a lot of interest from several governments in ancient Egypt, with some interest later in some other ancient cultures. They'd shown interest for years, but it started to spike with the hiring of one Dr. Daniel Jackson, archeologist and linguist, by the United States to work with the same program as one Dr. Samantha Carter and General O'Neil. Giles remembers hearing about a Dr. Jackson who got laughed out of an archeologist conference for his theory that the pyramids were a lot older than current belief. Considering what we know now I'm willing to bet he was right. I don't know about you guys but I now want to see these Egyptian artifacts we have that they want."

Willow smiled proudly at Dawn. "I've already ordered them sent here. The Devon Coven placed some protective spells on them to ensure they'd be sent safely."

"You mailed them?" asked Kennedy surprised.

"It's not good to rely on magic, besides we're talking about giving them to government, we really should prove that they got here legally you know how governments are with paperwork."

Dawn nodded, "Let's try to avoid telling people in the government about magic as much as possible."

"Well when do these artifacts arrive?" Kennedy was also curious.

"Tomorrow."

There were smiles exchanged as Willow eagerly reached for Dawn's research. Kennedy carefully stole them before Willow could take them. After laying them down on the coffee table, where Dawn removed the remains of Kennedy's attempt to make breakfast for two, she picked up Willow and carried her to the pre-warmed couch. Once she'd taken a nap and eaten the three of them could check out all the print outs. Each of them carefully avoiding thinking about what might be happening with their absent friends and family.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 18

Wesley sat quietly, watching Illyria pace. She might have adapted to the life she had now but she was still a very powerful demon. He hadn't said anything but her power seemed to be growing the longer they were together. Sometimes she seemed to be acting more and more like Fred too. He was starting to feel a little freaked by how Fred-like she could seem. It was only moments like this as she moved like a caged tiger that he had no way of denying she was a predator. It bothered him that he had become so used to her that he had all but forgotten she wasn't what she appeared to be. She was an amazing blend of human and demon.

Illyria on the other hand had very different thoughts in her mind. She smelled a faint scent not the dissimilar from the unnatural one the humans had dubbed 'Xander 2.0' and she paced trying to isolate it's origin. It hadn't taken long for her to realize which direction it was in. The hard part was telling Wesley without telling their guards. Being subtle was not something any of the old ones were known for, mainly because when they were in power they were more likely to just attack each other.

Wesley stared at Illyria, wonder what had gone wrong with her. He knew she was a demon but she was insane too, and suspicious he noted as the guards also stared at her. Illyria growled and quickly moved knocking the guards to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Wesley shouted as he shot to his feet.

"There is an unnatural one here," Illyria announced as she walked calmly to the door. No words were needed for her to explain where she was going.

Wesley glared at her as he followed. He had only decided to stay behind because he was confident that he could control her, he was wrong, and who knew what she would do, alone, in a top secret military base, when they were looking to ask for their help. The chances of this ending well were not good. Wesley was just thankful that she had only moved at the speeds a human was capable of and hadn't killed the guards. He had breathed a breathe of of relief as he saw the movement of their chests showing that they were alive.

Wesley softly spoke to Illyria as she led them down several darkly lit hallways, occasionally knocking out any guards they came across. Nothing he said seemed to reach her as she remained silent. As she took in her surroundings, assuring that her companion would come to no harm she smiled at the direction she was certain the scent was located in. Wesley sighed as Illyria calmly ripped out a panel to what was once a very well designed secret door. He stopped trying to reason with her because a secret door in a secret base was probably a bad thing, it certainly had been from what he knew of the events in Sunnydale after he left. He stepped over the rubble of the door, hoping their were no cameras there, although how we was going to explain the hand groves that now existed on the panel he wasn't sure.

The two of them continue down the new hallway as quietly as they could. Illyria was unhappy with how much time she was wasting waiting for Wesley to keep up, his new devotion to being silent making him move even slower. He was still moving faster than most of the soldiers on base would have, but even if Illyria had known that she wouldn't have been impressed, she expected that from him.

They were about 10 minutes down the tunnel when red lights started flashing everywhere. Illyria grabbed Wesley's hand and started pulling him after her as she ran. Illyria's inhuman hearing let her know that some of the guards had been discovered, she needed to find the source of the scent before they were discovered.

Wesley was panting as he was finally released from the old one's grip. As he knelt on the cold metal floor he looked around him, his breath caught at what he saw.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 19

Buffy had barely had the chance to ask for help when the lights started flashing red all around her. O'Neil and Carter instantly sprang into action calling for updates etc. Buffy waited patiently, listening as the others spoke while eavesdropping on the other side of the conversation. Her hearing acute enough for her to hear even though she was on the other side of the hall from them. Her eyes widened as she heard them being informed that Wesley and Illyria had apparently knocked out their guards and were on the loose somewhere in the building.

Internally Buffy swore while wondering why they couldn't have waited until after they had rejoined them. She straightened up as the now all business military man and woman came back towards her with serious expressions.

"I have no idea what is going on, but I'm sure their explanation will be incredible," Buffy said with her most disarming smile, raising her hands to show she had no weapons.

Sam pointed back towards the front room. Two nearby guards taking protective stances, ready to pull their guns if she tried anything, not that they would have a chance.

Their group hurried through the halls back to the front room. Buffy held in a gasp as she saw the guards having their wounds treated.

"She stays here," ordered Jack, pointing at Buffy.

"But-"

"You want a chance for us to listen to you then you must remain here while we track down your companions."

Buffy nodded, impressed both by his glare and his trust since he wasn't locking her up. She sat down gently and watched as he and Carter left the room. "I don't suppose you would let me help?" The doctors carried on as if she wasn't there. One of the soldiers being carried off in a stretcher as the other guard was allowed to walk himself out of the room. Buffy sat silently as she took in the five guards now assigned to watch over her. It spoke highly to her that they took an injured comrade so seriously. The Initiative hadn't been that strongly tied together. She lent her head back and closed her eyes.

Jack and Sam both rushed while following the directions of the person in the security room guiding them as he went back over the footage.

"God she's fast!" he was saying in awe. "Left there, Sir."

"Less commentary, more observations."

"Sorry sir. She appears to know where she is going. She's only paused a couple of times to see what corridor she's supposed to take."

"She's pausing?"

"Yes Sir. She might have directions to where she is going, but hasn't been here personally. The next corridor she disappears."

"What do you mean disappears?"

"Just that sir. When she goes into that corridor she disappears, the camera there appears to be in a loop."

"So she might have been planning this from the start," Sam said from behind Jack.

"This would be a foolish thing to plan Carter. It would have been easier... Actually that woman wasn't supposed to be here, so it's possible that Summers and Wyndam weren't involved in this at all, were possibly even deceived. Williams?"

"Yes Sir?" Williams asked as he checked all the other cameras.

"The man, what's he doing?"

"Looks like he's trying to reason with her, Sir. They must be in that corridor, I don't see them leaving it."

Jack took the corridor carefully, his gun in his hand, wishing it was his zat. Jack felt his jaw drop as he looked around the opening and there wasn't any person in sight, but rather a giant opening.

"Sam?"

"Yes Sir?"

"Are you also seeing the remains to a door to a secret passage?"

"Yes."

Jack turned as many guards caught up with them, their eyes widening as they caught sight over the same opening. Jack wasn't sure if they were because they knew the passage existed or because they didn't. Still they were ALMOST as good as the SGC at concealing their emotions.

"Does this door look like it was pulled off by hand to you?"

"Yeah... But I don't think a Jaffa would be able to do this. It's a lot of pure steal."

"This Lia is seriously strong," Jack turned to look at the soldiers standing around the opening. "You four are with us," he announced pointing out the ones who looked the most agile. He wasn't to optimistic on their ability to help since none of their fellows could remember their attacks other than the fact the girl was seriously fast. "You..." His voice trailed off as he pointed to the last soldier.

"Airman Kincaid."

"Right. You stay here and shout if anyone unexpected shows up so we'll have warning if we have more company."

"Yes Sir."

Jack was pretty sure Kincaid was actually happy about his assignment since he'd seen many of the people taken down in the hallway on his way there.

"Be careful everyone. We don't know who this Lia is, we also don't know who put this passage here. We don't know what is here. So just be careful, okay?"

"Yes sir." they chorused.

Jack led the way down the passage as he tried not to think about what he had only just learned about what Buffy and her friends did. He was not looking forward to this. He just hoped that this didn't have anything to do with the supernatural. As he took his last step and caught up with his erstwhile guests he felt a deep anger form in his stomach.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 20

General O'Neill glared as he took in the sight before him. His two wayward guests were only a few feet away. 'Lia' ignored the newcomers as she stared at the body strapped to the table in the center of the room. Wesley alternated his gaze between the soldiers, Illyria, and the body. Taking a deep breath Jack came to his conclusion of what had happened.

To Wesley he asked simply, "You didn't know this was here did you?"

Wesley shook his head as he silently prayed that Illyria would allow the soldiers to do their job. Illyria efficiently helped support Wesley, as he tried to rise from the floor exhausted from their journey, without moving her focus from the source of the unnatural scent she had noticed.

Jack was not happy. He was pretty sure that they had nothing to do with what they just found. He quickly to gave Sam orders, "Keep your eyes on them while we examine what's been found here."

Jack took two of his soldiers with him as he moved forward. With quick nods of his head he directed the soldiers to either side of the room to do a quick survey. Jack stepped forward to examine the body. He closed his eyes as he identified the person on the table. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, they widened as he realized that the chest before him was moving slightly. Jack reached forward with his hand, lying two fingers to the pulse point on the neck, he smiled realizing the familiar form in front of him was still alive.

"Sam, he's alive," Jack said turning.

Samantha Carter gave one last look at Wesley and 'Lia' who remained standing calmly with two guns pointed at them. She walked purposefully to Jack's side and gasped as she recognized the young man lying there. She hurried to the computer against the wall sitting down quickly at the conveniently located chair. Sometimes it pays to be brilliant with computers. Not right then though, it didn't take her long to realize that it was gonna take a while to access all the information without worrying about damaging it. She turned back to Jack who continued to stare down at his young clone.

"I didn't even know that he was missing," Jack said softly. He looked up and his eyes caught Sam's. But one last glance was all he gave before turning to Wesley and 'Lia.' Jack walked to them. "How did you find this?"

"We didn't," Wesley began to explain before his voice trailed away, how was he supposed to explain that 'Lia' could smell clones? "Who is he? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"No," Jack said simply. "Let's get back to Ms. Summers and we can discuss this in excruciating detail. Carter, call for medical personnel to check on Jon. Make sure he's going to be alright. And call some people from your team too. I want to know exactly what was going on down here and how they managed to hide this in one of our most secure bases."

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 21

Buffy looked up as Jack walked into the room, followed swiftly by Wesley and Illyria. She rose, ignoring the guards as they pointed their guns at her. Her eyes caught Wesley's and she frowned at the look on his face.

"Out," Jack issued to the guards, who after a moment of hesitation left to join the ones who had escorted them back from the secret room and joined them outside the door. Jack slammed the door shut, "Sit down."

Buffy sat back down and Wesley moved to join her.

"Lia!" Buffy called with a slight glare.

Illyria stared for a moment before sitting to watch the others curiously.

"I am willing to make some concessions since I was briefed about what you all do last night," Jack said glaring at them. "However I don't like being lied to or being deceived. I deal with that enough with politicians. What I want to know is what is she?" Jack pointed at 'Lia.'

"Um," Buffy began before once again locking eyes with Wesley.

"I already had them turn off the cameras in here and they can't hear us through that door. … I am aware of demons, unfortunately, as well as the supernatural, so I'll ask again. What. Is. She?"

"I am God-King Illyria. I am an Old One. My kind once ruled this world."

"Illyria!" Wesley stared at her.

Buffy raised a hand to massage her forehead, "Right. She's an Old One. A true demon, most of the demons we deal with are descended from Old Ones. And what I want to know is why she ran off like that."

"There is an unnatural one here," Illyria said simply.

"Who was being experimented on," Wesley expanded, glaring at Jack.

"I didn't know about it. We're going to find out about what was going on. Why do you call him an unnatural one?" Jack allowed his eyes to go back and forth between Illyria and Wesley.

"It's what she calls clones, since they were created outside nature," Buffy stared at him. "Sit down, I'm getting a crick in my neck staring up at you."

Jack turned to look at her before grabbing a chair and straddling it, staring at them.

"You know the unnatural one," Illyria tilted her head slightly, curious.

"What?"

"You said you didn't even know he was missing. So you must know about unnatural ones."

"General?" Buffy said, her voice clearly saying, 'Explain right now or we don't share anymore.'

"He's my clone. Almost four years someone attempted to clone me, he came out looking like I did when I was 15. He was switched with me, obviously it didn't take long for people to realize I was missing."

"How could someone possibly switch you with a teenage version and not expect people to realize something was wrong?"

"I think we all look the same to the Asgard."

"Why?"

"… Because he couldn't tell me and a 15 year old apart."

Buffy held in a snort, "I meant, 'Why would they even do that?'"

"He thought my genetics would solve their cloning problem."

"Loki?"

"Yes. You said he cloned someone you know," Jack stated simply as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place for him.

"One of my best friends. We are keeping his clone safe while we search for him."

"That's what you want? Our help getting your friend back."

"Yes. How did someone get your clone? We would never allow any harm to come to our clone, yet you didn't even know yours was missing."

"He didn't want to keep in contact. Thought it would be too weird. He got a second chance at High School. We don't know how he ended up here yet, but we will find out." Jack paused slightly before deciding it was best to just tell them, "Loki's clones only last about a week. We can contact the other Asgard for help, but they probably won't come in time to save the clone."

"He's already over a year old. He was meant to be a permanent 'place-holder' for Loki. The Fi... an inter-dimensional being told Loki that the original was the solution to their cloning problem. The clone thinks that Loki would have returned the original if he hadn't found anything."

"The clone knew about Loki, about being a clone?"

"Yes," Buffy said not really wanting to go into the details.

Wesley, who had simply been following the surprisingly straight forward conversation, finally spoke up, "Now that that's all cleared up. Are you going to help us? And either way we should probably agree on a story to tell everyone not in the know about the supernatural."

Jack ran his hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head for a moment as he thought. "I was given permission to give you almost all the help you might need depending on why you were contacting us. An explanation that will be accepted by the others here will be a tad more difficult. I'm not authorized to reveal the supernatural except in the most fubar of all fubar situations."

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 22

Jack walked into the security room where Sam was working on the security footage for the hallway with the no longer secret door. Sam looked back at Jack as she heard the door close. She frowned at him as the guards saluted him. “I’m not sure I really need protection. I’d rather have these guards helping to search for these people.”

Looking up at the screens Jack saw several faces isolated. He slowly committed the unfamiliar faces to memory. These were the people most likely responsible for hurting Jon. Sam turned back around and returned to trying to find all the people who disappeared into the looped footage for any extended time. She knew that Jack was feeling a little overprotective after realizing that his clone had been kidnapped. The fact that he had been held prisoner in a supposedly secure base didn’t help matters.

“How did they know he was there?” Sam asked.

Jack turned to the guards and dismissed them from the room. “Lia isn’t human.”

Sam paused in her typing for a moment but didn’t turn around.

“Her people lived on earth a long time ago before the Goa'uld came to Earth. I don’t know the details but apparently she’s been sleeping for a very long time.” Jack wasn’t about to mention demons and allowed Sam to fill in the blanks for herself knowing that he was implying that Lia was an Ancient. “That’s how they found out that their friend had been cloned. Lia has a very sensitive nose and clones seem to reek.”

Jack paused as he thought. “Do we know anything about how they kidnapped him yet or how they got him in here undetected?”

Sam sighed deeply, “Dr. Smith is examining him now in the base infirmary. We aren’t sure yet how they got him in here and he’s still unconscious. The doctors aren’t sure how long it’ll take him to burn through the drugs keeping him under. I checked with his High School though. We forgot about him graduating last year since legally he’s 19 now. From what I can tell he was supposed to be going to college only he decided to drop out before arriving. My guess is that he was kidnapped in route since no one would notice him missing by timing it right.”

“So he’s been drugged and experimented on for over 5 months?”

“Yes. Probably. They might have questioned him or something before moving on to experimentation since he knows everything you did until 4 years ago. We won’t know for sure until he wakes up or we interrogate some of the people responsible.”

“What’s the status on finding these people?” Jack asked gesturing towards the screens.

“There aren’t too many people who disappear off the camera long enough to be sure if they’re involved or not. The video for this corridor has been looped for at least 3 months and the footage for that whole area before that was replaced with copies from less used areas. I’ve already cross referenced the suspicious personnel with the staff directory and identified 7 possible culprits, 4 of them are already in custody. We’re moving as fast as I can find them before they can notify any of their superiors that their operation has been compromised.” Sam didn’t need to mention to Jack that there was no way to conceal what had happened in the hallway since so many guards had been with them and the damage done to the secret door was impossible to repair quickly.

Jack nodded even though he knew Sam couldn’t see him. He took a deep breath, rubbed his forehead for a moment, wishing his headache away. Today totally sucked.

An Unnatural Scent - Chapter 23

In general, Samantha Carter was very curious. For the most part it had served her well so even though she knew there was a great deal Jack was not telling her and she did trust him it was hard to resist the urge to look into what he was keeping from her. She knew that he would tell her anything that she really needed to know so she hesitated for only a moment before she hit the delete button erasing the conversation he had with "Buffy" and all the other footage taken from the room without watching it and did her best to make sure that no one would ever be able to find out that any conversation even happened. With a hearty shrug, stretching her neck, she returned to her given task of trying to find out what happened to Jack's clone.

Jack walked with purpose as he returned to his visitors. He'd always been good as a judge of character and believed his unwanted guests when they said that all they wanted was their friend back. They had found his clone who no one had even known was missing, so he would do his best to find who they were missing. Jack barely responded as he passed his officers mostly nodding at the extra manpower sent from the Daedalus. Jack barely changed his pace as one of the four men opened the door. He said nothing of the approval he felt as the additional four men inside the room remain steadfast, their eyes taking in everything around them although Jack highly suspected that if "Lia" wished to leave they would stand no chance against her.

"I've spoken to one of the Asgard, by now he will have sent a message to their leader. I cannot guarantee that he will come or that we will find your friend but I will use all of my power to help you find him."

Jack smiled lightly at the hopeful expression on Buffy's face. Jack said nothing of his relief that the Daedalus was in orbit with its resident Asgard. Nor did he say anything of his hope that the ship being nearby was a coincidence. He didn't know enough about magic to know if the timing was good or not.

"Thank you," Buffy said relaxing. As odd as it was she trusted Illyria's judgement and could tell that although she herself didn't trust anyone here she did believe what the general was saying. However since she had managed to get his agreement without offering the Egyptian items that the council had in storage she would wait to see how things worked out before hopefully giving them it in thanks knowing exactly what they are first.

***

Dawn glanced over at Willow who was still out of it on the sofa from staying up so late researching. Kennedy was stretched out resting again the sofa, next to her, still awake reading through some of the many files the Scoobies had compiled over the many months since they'd started searching for Xander. Dawn was cross referencing her many files when a name began to repeat itself in the files, Dr Daniel Jackson. She frowned knowing that there was no such thing as this many coincidences. She hoped she'd hear from Buffy soon.

***

Erin grinned widely as she released Oz's lips from her own. She grabbed his wrist in her own enhanced grasp and pulled his willing self after her towards their room. She loved celebrating breakthroughs especially now that she had someone who could keep up with her. She was also thankful that her lab at the new watcher's LA headquarters was just down the hall from her bedroom. Not only was she one step closer to curing lycanthropy, her career was also taking off, there were rumors of receiving the Field's Medal in mathematics from her work with Charlie if it worked as expected when completed, although that was still years away. And she was getting married soon and had all sorts of interesting things to research once those two projects were finished thanks to the resources of her soon to be husband's friends. Life was good and soon to be better, she pushed Oz into their room being sure to lock the door tightly behind them activating the silencing wards that Willow had installed after the noise complaints started.

***

The sound of construction always made Xander and by extension Xander 2.0 smile. So it was no surprise that 2.0 smiled at his crew made up of both humans in the know and some of the nicer demons willing to work near slayers made headway at repairing and making renovations at the former hotel. He was thankful for his new friendship with Gunn, it was sometimes hard to deal with people he'd known from the original Xander, so although he and Gunn both knew of each other neither had trouble from the shadow of this was not the "real" person they knew. Willow tried but it just wasn't the same with her worried about Xander 1.0. In the meantime he would do his best to get things done and hoped Xander would take having a permanent copy of himself better than he thought he would.

***

"Loki," an annoyed Asgard said as he opened up the travel logs from Loki's last ship, not that many non Asgard would have been able to tell how annoyed Thor was. Loki had long since taken to deleting incriminating data when he knew he was about to be captured. Thor knew he backed up his data where it would be harder for others to find. The best he could do to help find the test subject that Jack O'Neill was asking about was to decrypt the navigation. After his last break out the Asgard had frozen the recaptured Loki until they would have time to deal with him. That time was rapidly decreasing, they had had no time to deal with him in-between replicators, the Goa'uld, and now the Ori. They hadn't even made any improvement on their own research in cloning with one disaster after another affecting them. They were close to choosing the end of their people to continuing on like this. The tau'ri were close to being ready to inherit their legacy.

End chapter 23