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jedibuttercupPG-13, Terra Nova/B:tVS. 2400 words; part of the Dancing with Dinosaurs series.
Maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope.
Applying Leverage: Part I
Title: Applying Leverage: Part II
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13; gen
Spoilers: Post-series for Buffy; Terra Nova circa 1.11 "Within"
Summary: Maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope. 2400 words.
Notes:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sulien once asked for a bit of fluff from Nate's POV as a coda to the Dancing with Dinosaurs series, daydreaming about magic and the possibilities for the future of the colony. But to get to that, I first have to wrap up the conflict parts....
Buffy stood against the wall of the infirmary next to Commander Taylor, watching the expression on Mira's face as she sat on a biobed holding her seven year old daughter's hand. Sienna looked thin and a little wan, taking careful breaths to adjust to the higher oxygen levels of the Cretaceous atmosphere, but seemed otherwise healthy; Mira, on the other hand, was bloody from right wrist to shoulder from their close encounter with a pair of adolescent slashers near Snakehead Falls. The skin knitters were taking care of it, but it had been a deep, nasty wound; there might have been permanent tendon damage if she'd gone back to her treetop fort instead of Terra Nova.
That hadn't been the only damage, either. Mira had taken out Buffy and Nate's bikes before confronting them over Lucas' latest batch of graffiti; the slashers had paid the effort forward and taken out her transport, too. That had left the three of them with a long day's hike to return to Terra Nova on foot. At the start of it, Buffy would have given no better than even odds they'd all make it back whole. But it seemed luck had been with them, for once.
"So the colony's still in one piece," she said, in a thoughtful tone of voice. "I hear they even caught one of the Sixers trying to break in and steal that computer-box again while we were gone."
"Told you Shannon was up to the job," Nate replied lightly, arms crossed over his black tee shirt.
"Mmm, so you did." Buffy cast her great-nephew a sidelong look, taking in the fond wrinkles around his eyes as he watched Jim Shannon walk up to the Sixer leader, his own five year old in tow. "You have noticed that he's happily married, I hope?"
Nate blinked at her, startled, then gave a rough chuckle and turned his attention back to her boss. "It's not about that, though I won't deny he's easy enough on the eyes. Which isn't saying anything you didn't already say before me. It's more... well, just watch." He gestured toward the unfolding scene.
Shannon hunched forward, hands braced on his thighs as he looked up into Sienna's face. The Sheriff smiled as he confided something to her; the little girl hesitated only a moment before repeating it to her mother with wide, hopeful eyes. Mira gave a slight, reserved nod, which Shannon echoed with an encouraging smile and another question. Then Sienna broke into a gap-toothed smile, beaming equally at both adults, and slid off the biobed to offer her hand to Zoe Shannon. The pair skipped off to the side, Zoe leading them over to the baby ankylosaur Shannon's wife and Dr. Wallace had recently saved via surgery in ovo; bright chatter drifted in their wake. Shannon stared after them long enough to make sure their attention was fully diverted, then turned back to Mira, all business once more. The pair then began a no-nonsense, low-voiced conversation, their expressions mirror images of dogged resolution.
"So he's good at his job," Buffy observed. She'd thought him crazy when Nate had first assigned her to work with him, but he'd grown on her over time. Sort of like the grown-up edition of Xander, the best friend, legendary Watcher and devoted family man that she still missed with all her heart. "So what?"
Nate snorted. "You heard what Mira said about her employers' intentions for the colony. I've suspected something like that was in the wind ever since Philbrick came through alone after the Second and tried to relieve me of my command. I lost my son, my mentor, and a man I once called friend all in the same night. The Sixers' rebellion two years later only added to my suspicions. After that, Wash was the only one left I dared trust... until Shannon arrived. He's the only other person I've been able to be sure wasn't working for the enemy in more than three years. The only one as devoted to this place, and its future, as I am."
Buffy knew well the relief of having another shoulder waiting to bear you up; an equal to share the load of unbearable but inescapable duty. The faces of Scoobies and lovers long gone stirred in her memory again, both the ones who'd let her down and the ones who'd borne her up. She felt a fond, pained smile curve at the corners of her mouth as she thought of Willow, the only one of them still with her, and conceded the point.
"Epic bromance territory; got it," she replied, then decided it was time to broach a more serious, if not more important, subject. "And how do I fit into the picture?"
Nate studied her again, then shook his head. "You're family, Aunt Liz. And the things you can do-- they might just give this colony a chance. But your means and motives are far outside my experience, and you carry too many secrets for me to be entirely comfortable with. Full trust is going to take time. For both of us."
Buffy nodded back. That was about what she'd figured. "Is that why you haven't asked yet?"
"Pardon?"
She frowned. By now, it had to be obvious that an appeal to Eryshion wasn't limited by the whens or wheres of the person to retrieve. There were other limits, but she hadn't yet spelled them out for Nate. And yet, he'd never mentioned his lost wife. She'd hesitated before to bring up what had to be a very painful memory, but she doubted there'd ever be a better time to ask.
"Whether it would be possible to do this for Ayani," she clarified gently, gesturing toward Sienna.
She knew immediately she'd made a mistake. Nate went as tense as a drawn bowstring as he glanced at the child, now a quiet, polite presence at Zoe's side; his stance had gone so rigid that even the tendons stood out on the side of his neck. One hand dropped to his hip, flexing on the butt of his handgun in unthinking reaction; then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing muscle by muscle. When he was calm again, he speared her with a look as cold as a glacier.
"I'll forgive the question, because you weren't there," he said, tersely. "You want to know why I haven't asked? I have eyes. You've fetched three people so far, and not a one in circumstances that contradicted anything we know about their history. You've even admitted to being the cause of one disappearance that'd bothered you for years." He gestured toward Willow. "Which means that regardless of the fact that we're supposedly in another timeline here, paradoxes are a real concern."
Buffy winced. If he was that sure it wouldn't work, he had to be absolutely certain his wife was dead. Maybe even saw it happen? Lucas' anger would make a lot more sense if he'd been there, too. She wouldn't wish that on anyone, even without getting into the possibility that breaking what was probably a key pivot point in their history to save her great-niece-in-law could shatter reality in the process. Because he was right; whether or not there were parallel timelines out there where Ayani survived, she could only touch her timeline's residents.
"I'm so sorry," she said, inadequately. She'd have to doublecheck with Willow later whether there were any loopholes; but best drop it for now.
He waved her apology aside, then swiftly changed the topic. "I noticed something else, as well: it took you longer to fetch Mira's daughter than it did Ms. Poulier. And it was you that did the...." he made a wide, uncomfortable gesture in the air, echoing the circle she'd raised for the spell, "...summoning, not Ms. Rosenberg. I thought that sort of thing was supposed to be her specialty?"
Buffy shuddered, and took a deep breath. Even after all this time, even though she'd already told him part of the story and he if anyone deserved to hear the rest, she found it difficult to talk about Dawn's origins. If the government had known who Buffy really was to the Key, would they have ever let her go? That possibility was past her now, though; and it was information he'd need to factor into his plans.
"It is," she said. "The thing is, the spell I used? It has diminishing returns. The more I use it, the more energy it takes to bring someone through. And when Willow tried it, it wouldn't work at all. She says the only people it will work for are the ones who already 'echo across time'."
His gaze sharpened on her, as wary as Dawn's had ever been when suspicious that Buffy was leaving something out of an explanation. "You mean the ones affected by the time fracture. Like Lucas and I," he guessed, shrewdly.
She nodded, feeling the pain of her sister's loss all over again.
"Then how does that explain you? You're Dawn's sister, not her daughter-- assuming you've been telling the truth. I may not be an expert geneticist, but it's my understanding that unique mutations of DNA don't transmit that way."
"Those secrets you mentioned? This is one of them," she replied. "I can't really explain the hows and whys, but she was made from me, Nate. We called her my sister because she was supposedly only five years younger than me, and everyone's memories were altered to remember her that way, but she didn't actually exist before my sophomore year at college. The people who built her... they used me to do it. And when they unmade her, when the fracture was created...." She swallowed, hard.
Nate stared back at her, aghast. "Made from you?" he began, then cut himself off with an abrupt gesture. "You're saying, you're not so much my aunt as...?"
Buffy gave a tight shrug. "The important part is, whatever made her the Key? It knows me. I can't use its energy, not like she could, but the day I tried to fetch Kara the first time and got Willow instead? I didn't know it then, but it wouldn't have worked at all if it hadn't been for that connection."
"Well." He cleared his throat. "Then I suppose we'd better choose our next few targets well... and you'd probably better teach me how to do it, too. If that's even possible."
"I sure hope it is," Shannon said, breaking into the conversation. He'd been pretty skittish about magic since finding out it was real, but the seriousness of the matter at hand seemed to have overcome any lingering uneasiness. "Because Mira says half her people are in the same boat she was: family back uptime given quote, 'opportunities', in exchange for service. And most of the rest don't have any family other than their fellow Sixers. We can probably turn most of them if we can move fast and retrieve their hostages before Lucas' employers figure out something's gone wrong."
"You mean, before they figure out something else has gone wrong," Buffy replied, then glanced at Nate again. "No guarantees, but it might be worth the effort. Sooner or later they'll send another special computer through for Lucas, or enough guns and tech to breach the walls, or something else we won't be able to predict or plan for. We need to take the initiative on this."
"And what happens if the colony finds out we're bringing the Sixers' loved ones here rather than more of theirs? Almost everyone here left someone behind," Nate pointed out, playing devil's advocate. "There are dozens of Sixers; there are hundreds of Terra Novans whom I took an oath to serve and protect."
"You are putting them first," Shannon countered, firmly. "Their survival. The people in charge of this project don't care about the colonists; as far as they're concerned, they've already rendered themselves irrelevant by coming here. If this is what it takes to save them, then that's what we've got to do. And you don't have to put all the Sixers first. Look into the colony's records; figure out a way to prioritize who gets a crack at it, or even run our own lottery and alternate who we retrieve. Tell 'em we have some kind of limited-use tech that'll bypass the portal and, I don't know, claim later that you accidentally put all the colonist records in the hat, including the ones for the bunch who rebelled. That'll explain the Sixer dependents. And meanwhile, we fort this place up against whatever they're planning to send at us with the Eleventh."
Nate frowned, expression torn. "I don't like it... but I suspect I'd like the results of doing nothing even less. I managed to track Curran down before we went to the Falls and got him to spy on the Sixers in return for another chance, and Reynolds says he sent word that several messages came through yesterday. No details, but from Lucas' reaction, I'd lay odds whatever they had to say doesn't bode well for the colony."
Buffy sighed, tipping her head back against the prefab wall. "How's that quote go? 'Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world'? This spell might not be quite that much of an advantage, but...."
"It might give us a fighting chance," Shannon replied. "So what's next? Mira's offered to leave Sienna here as assurance while she goes back to her camp to talk to her people."
"Much good that'll do if Sienna takes it into her head to escape the way Mira's last child associate did," Nate replied. But then he nodded, pushing away from the wall. "Alright. Shannon, get with Wash, start revamping security protocols both for repatriated Sixers and possible threat via Hope Plaza. In the meantime, Summers and I will go OTG with Mira. Those of her people who'll come, we'll try to help; those who won't... well, one way or the other, we'll be ready."
And maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope. She'd lost enough of her family to the slings and arrows of fate as it was.
"Understood, Commander," Shannon replied.
Buffy echoed him with a solemn nod.
(x-posted at AO3)
Maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope.
Applying Leverage: Part I
Title: Applying Leverage: Part II
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13; gen
Spoilers: Post-series for Buffy; Terra Nova circa 1.11 "Within"
Summary: Maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope. 2400 words.
Notes:
sulien once asked for a bit of fluff from Nate's POV as a coda to the Dancing with Dinosaurs series, daydreaming about magic and the possibilities for the future of the colony. But to get to that, I first have to wrap up the conflict parts....Buffy stood against the wall of the infirmary next to Commander Taylor, watching the expression on Mira's face as she sat on a biobed holding her seven year old daughter's hand. Sienna looked thin and a little wan, taking careful breaths to adjust to the higher oxygen levels of the Cretaceous atmosphere, but seemed otherwise healthy; Mira, on the other hand, was bloody from right wrist to shoulder from their close encounter with a pair of adolescent slashers near Snakehead Falls. The skin knitters were taking care of it, but it had been a deep, nasty wound; there might have been permanent tendon damage if she'd gone back to her treetop fort instead of Terra Nova.
That hadn't been the only damage, either. Mira had taken out Buffy and Nate's bikes before confronting them over Lucas' latest batch of graffiti; the slashers had paid the effort forward and taken out her transport, too. That had left the three of them with a long day's hike to return to Terra Nova on foot. At the start of it, Buffy would have given no better than even odds they'd all make it back whole. But it seemed luck had been with them, for once.
"So the colony's still in one piece," she said, in a thoughtful tone of voice. "I hear they even caught one of the Sixers trying to break in and steal that computer-box again while we were gone."
"Told you Shannon was up to the job," Nate replied lightly, arms crossed over his black tee shirt.
"Mmm, so you did." Buffy cast her great-nephew a sidelong look, taking in the fond wrinkles around his eyes as he watched Jim Shannon walk up to the Sixer leader, his own five year old in tow. "You have noticed that he's happily married, I hope?"
Nate blinked at her, startled, then gave a rough chuckle and turned his attention back to her boss. "It's not about that, though I won't deny he's easy enough on the eyes. Which isn't saying anything you didn't already say before me. It's more... well, just watch." He gestured toward the unfolding scene.
Shannon hunched forward, hands braced on his thighs as he looked up into Sienna's face. The Sheriff smiled as he confided something to her; the little girl hesitated only a moment before repeating it to her mother with wide, hopeful eyes. Mira gave a slight, reserved nod, which Shannon echoed with an encouraging smile and another question. Then Sienna broke into a gap-toothed smile, beaming equally at both adults, and slid off the biobed to offer her hand to Zoe Shannon. The pair skipped off to the side, Zoe leading them over to the baby ankylosaur Shannon's wife and Dr. Wallace had recently saved via surgery in ovo; bright chatter drifted in their wake. Shannon stared after them long enough to make sure their attention was fully diverted, then turned back to Mira, all business once more. The pair then began a no-nonsense, low-voiced conversation, their expressions mirror images of dogged resolution.
"So he's good at his job," Buffy observed. She'd thought him crazy when Nate had first assigned her to work with him, but he'd grown on her over time. Sort of like the grown-up edition of Xander, the best friend, legendary Watcher and devoted family man that she still missed with all her heart. "So what?"
Nate snorted. "You heard what Mira said about her employers' intentions for the colony. I've suspected something like that was in the wind ever since Philbrick came through alone after the Second and tried to relieve me of my command. I lost my son, my mentor, and a man I once called friend all in the same night. The Sixers' rebellion two years later only added to my suspicions. After that, Wash was the only one left I dared trust... until Shannon arrived. He's the only other person I've been able to be sure wasn't working for the enemy in more than three years. The only one as devoted to this place, and its future, as I am."
Buffy knew well the relief of having another shoulder waiting to bear you up; an equal to share the load of unbearable but inescapable duty. The faces of Scoobies and lovers long gone stirred in her memory again, both the ones who'd let her down and the ones who'd borne her up. She felt a fond, pained smile curve at the corners of her mouth as she thought of Willow, the only one of them still with her, and conceded the point.
"Epic bromance territory; got it," she replied, then decided it was time to broach a more serious, if not more important, subject. "And how do I fit into the picture?"
Nate studied her again, then shook his head. "You're family, Aunt Liz. And the things you can do-- they might just give this colony a chance. But your means and motives are far outside my experience, and you carry too many secrets for me to be entirely comfortable with. Full trust is going to take time. For both of us."
Buffy nodded back. That was about what she'd figured. "Is that why you haven't asked yet?"
"Pardon?"
She frowned. By now, it had to be obvious that an appeal to Eryshion wasn't limited by the whens or wheres of the person to retrieve. There were other limits, but she hadn't yet spelled them out for Nate. And yet, he'd never mentioned his lost wife. She'd hesitated before to bring up what had to be a very painful memory, but she doubted there'd ever be a better time to ask.
"Whether it would be possible to do this for Ayani," she clarified gently, gesturing toward Sienna.
She knew immediately she'd made a mistake. Nate went as tense as a drawn bowstring as he glanced at the child, now a quiet, polite presence at Zoe's side; his stance had gone so rigid that even the tendons stood out on the side of his neck. One hand dropped to his hip, flexing on the butt of his handgun in unthinking reaction; then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing muscle by muscle. When he was calm again, he speared her with a look as cold as a glacier.
"I'll forgive the question, because you weren't there," he said, tersely. "You want to know why I haven't asked? I have eyes. You've fetched three people so far, and not a one in circumstances that contradicted anything we know about their history. You've even admitted to being the cause of one disappearance that'd bothered you for years." He gestured toward Willow. "Which means that regardless of the fact that we're supposedly in another timeline here, paradoxes are a real concern."
Buffy winced. If he was that sure it wouldn't work, he had to be absolutely certain his wife was dead. Maybe even saw it happen? Lucas' anger would make a lot more sense if he'd been there, too. She wouldn't wish that on anyone, even without getting into the possibility that breaking what was probably a key pivot point in their history to save her great-niece-in-law could shatter reality in the process. Because he was right; whether or not there were parallel timelines out there where Ayani survived, she could only touch her timeline's residents.
"I'm so sorry," she said, inadequately. She'd have to doublecheck with Willow later whether there were any loopholes; but best drop it for now.
He waved her apology aside, then swiftly changed the topic. "I noticed something else, as well: it took you longer to fetch Mira's daughter than it did Ms. Poulier. And it was you that did the...." he made a wide, uncomfortable gesture in the air, echoing the circle she'd raised for the spell, "...summoning, not Ms. Rosenberg. I thought that sort of thing was supposed to be her specialty?"
Buffy shuddered, and took a deep breath. Even after all this time, even though she'd already told him part of the story and he if anyone deserved to hear the rest, she found it difficult to talk about Dawn's origins. If the government had known who Buffy really was to the Key, would they have ever let her go? That possibility was past her now, though; and it was information he'd need to factor into his plans.
"It is," she said. "The thing is, the spell I used? It has diminishing returns. The more I use it, the more energy it takes to bring someone through. And when Willow tried it, it wouldn't work at all. She says the only people it will work for are the ones who already 'echo across time'."
His gaze sharpened on her, as wary as Dawn's had ever been when suspicious that Buffy was leaving something out of an explanation. "You mean the ones affected by the time fracture. Like Lucas and I," he guessed, shrewdly.
She nodded, feeling the pain of her sister's loss all over again.
"Then how does that explain you? You're Dawn's sister, not her daughter-- assuming you've been telling the truth. I may not be an expert geneticist, but it's my understanding that unique mutations of DNA don't transmit that way."
"Those secrets you mentioned? This is one of them," she replied. "I can't really explain the hows and whys, but she was made from me, Nate. We called her my sister because she was supposedly only five years younger than me, and everyone's memories were altered to remember her that way, but she didn't actually exist before my sophomore year at college. The people who built her... they used me to do it. And when they unmade her, when the fracture was created...." She swallowed, hard.
Nate stared back at her, aghast. "Made from you?" he began, then cut himself off with an abrupt gesture. "You're saying, you're not so much my aunt as...?"
Buffy gave a tight shrug. "The important part is, whatever made her the Key? It knows me. I can't use its energy, not like she could, but the day I tried to fetch Kara the first time and got Willow instead? I didn't know it then, but it wouldn't have worked at all if it hadn't been for that connection."
"Well." He cleared his throat. "Then I suppose we'd better choose our next few targets well... and you'd probably better teach me how to do it, too. If that's even possible."
"I sure hope it is," Shannon said, breaking into the conversation. He'd been pretty skittish about magic since finding out it was real, but the seriousness of the matter at hand seemed to have overcome any lingering uneasiness. "Because Mira says half her people are in the same boat she was: family back uptime given quote, 'opportunities', in exchange for service. And most of the rest don't have any family other than their fellow Sixers. We can probably turn most of them if we can move fast and retrieve their hostages before Lucas' employers figure out something's gone wrong."
"You mean, before they figure out something else has gone wrong," Buffy replied, then glanced at Nate again. "No guarantees, but it might be worth the effort. Sooner or later they'll send another special computer through for Lucas, or enough guns and tech to breach the walls, or something else we won't be able to predict or plan for. We need to take the initiative on this."
"And what happens if the colony finds out we're bringing the Sixers' loved ones here rather than more of theirs? Almost everyone here left someone behind," Nate pointed out, playing devil's advocate. "There are dozens of Sixers; there are hundreds of Terra Novans whom I took an oath to serve and protect."
"You are putting them first," Shannon countered, firmly. "Their survival. The people in charge of this project don't care about the colonists; as far as they're concerned, they've already rendered themselves irrelevant by coming here. If this is what it takes to save them, then that's what we've got to do. And you don't have to put all the Sixers first. Look into the colony's records; figure out a way to prioritize who gets a crack at it, or even run our own lottery and alternate who we retrieve. Tell 'em we have some kind of limited-use tech that'll bypass the portal and, I don't know, claim later that you accidentally put all the colonist records in the hat, including the ones for the bunch who rebelled. That'll explain the Sixer dependents. And meanwhile, we fort this place up against whatever they're planning to send at us with the Eleventh."
Nate frowned, expression torn. "I don't like it... but I suspect I'd like the results of doing nothing even less. I managed to track Curran down before we went to the Falls and got him to spy on the Sixers in return for another chance, and Reynolds says he sent word that several messages came through yesterday. No details, but from Lucas' reaction, I'd lay odds whatever they had to say doesn't bode well for the colony."
Buffy sighed, tipping her head back against the prefab wall. "How's that quote go? 'Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world'? This spell might not be quite that much of an advantage, but...."
"It might give us a fighting chance," Shannon replied. "So what's next? Mira's offered to leave Sienna here as assurance while she goes back to her camp to talk to her people."
"Much good that'll do if Sienna takes it into her head to escape the way Mira's last child associate did," Nate replied. But then he nodded, pushing away from the wall. "Alright. Shannon, get with Wash, start revamping security protocols both for repatriated Sixers and possible threat via Hope Plaza. In the meantime, Summers and I will go OTG with Mira. Those of her people who'll come, we'll try to help; those who won't... well, one way or the other, we'll be ready."
And maybe, if they took out enough of his support, Lucas would agree to talk? Buffy could only hope. She'd lost enough of her family to the slings and arrows of fate as it was.
"Understood, Commander," Shannon replied.
Buffy echoed him with a solemn nod.
(x-posted at AO3)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2015-01-26 10:15 pm (UTC)Anyway, all of the above is to tell you how much I really enjoyed this! Thank you for writing it, I had completely forgotten about Terra Nova and your fix of it. I hope your muse decides to run with it a bit more at some point, at which time I'll rediscover it and squee some more. :)
Pardon, this review was written under the influence of strong painkillers and alcohol, so please pardon errors and oddness. Yep, the Alien is at it. *sigh*
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Date: 2015-01-28 08:05 pm (UTC)