Freaky...Tuesday

Author: Jaded
Story: Tales from Atlantis
49 Ficlet: Freaky...Tuesday
Disclaimer: I own the idea only. Joss owns Buffy, SyFy owns Stargate. No suing please!
Story Summary: Sometimes Lorne was fairly certain he didn’t deserve this.
Ficlet Summary: Evan and co. deal with the repercussions when they get a trans-dimensional visitor.
Acknowledgement(s): Thanks to slmncpm, bucksavage, HiltonK, eriktheviking, & Duchess for the reviews!
A/N 1: Ficlet title comes from Aqua.
A/N 2: Thanks muchly to Kayley for the awesome graphics at the bottom of this chapter. Simple, yet effective. :D
A/N 3: I know some of you have requested this not have McShep. I hope that’s not cause of an aversion to slash. I like slash, I read it, and this will eventually have slash in it (not explicit though). I’m not saying it’s gonna be McShep, of course, but this will have slash. It will always be pretty much an afterthought though, unless its specifically dealing with reactions to relationships and such. Just thought I should warn you all. :/
A/N 4A: There is a request at the end of this chapter, past the fanart. I put it at the end to not give anything away in this chapter. Please and Thank you!


Freaky...Tuesday

From: omegachosen@sineya.gov
To: e.lorne@sga.gov
Subject: I don’t like secrets

Dawn wrote about your visitor but wouldn’t tell us anything more. She said it’s not something to discuss over the net. She said she’s coming next week when she has more concrete evidence.

I’m a little concerned, here, Ev. Is this good or bad?

Buffy

~~**~~

“Well. This is awkward.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have an Ev too?”

“A who?”

Well that answers that question, Evan thought to himself. In the quarantine room were two women, both with the same long brown hair and big blue eyes. Both Dawn and yet…not.

The alternate had showed up while Dawn was in one of the lower portions of the city playing hide and seek with Tyler, Vi, and Chuck. Rodney was swearing up and down they must have activated something to bring the alternate Dawn to them but all four swore they hadn’t—at least not intentionally.

The other Dawn was doing a pretty good job of hiding how freaked she was but Evan knew Dawn—his Dawn—well enough to see it. So did the rest of their team.

“Major Evan Lorne,” his Dawn, who was in the regular purples of the city culture center, said. “Pain in the ass big brother, painter, leader of our team. Do you have a Buffy?”

“I don’t have a big brother, just Buffy,” alternate Dawn said, frowning. Evan thought she was going to say something but was hesitating.

“What happened to Sunnydale?”

“Sank.”

“Are you a witch?”

“What’s with the questions?”

“Trying to determine how different your reality is to ours,” Dawn answered. “Do you have a cousin Rodney?”

“Mer?” Dawn asked, surprised. “Yeah, he works overseas. Has a cute boyfriend too.”

Evan, Graham, Vi, and Tyler all stifled laughter at the gob smacked expression on Rodney’s face at that revelation. Sheppard had a face like he had just ate a whole lemon on a dare and Ronon and Teyla were fighting smiles, as was Beckett and Weir.

Dawn was silent a long moment. “I know I’m gonna regret asking this cause I have a fairly good idea who the guy is and the mental pictures are gonna drive me to drink but…”

“Dr. Carson Beckett,” Alternate Dawn supplied before Dawn could finish. She blinked as Dawn gaped. “I take it that’s not his boyfriend here?”

“Uh…he’s not man-lovin’ here,” Dawn stuttered before pausing. “At least, I don’t think he is. He talks an awful lot about Carter’s breasts.”

“He does that with us too,” Alternate Dawn admitted. “Mostly just to drive her nuts though, according to Jeanie.”

Evan couldn’t hold back any longer—Beckett and Rodney were staring at each other, sputtering, and Vi, Graham, and Tyler had already succumbed to the laughter.

~~**~~

“Dawn, what were you able to get from, er, Dawn?” Weir asked. They were sitting in the conference room, both premiere teams plus Jennifer, Beckett, and Chuck. The Scot and Rodney were sitting as far from each other as it was possible to get, a fact no one had missed.

“Well, the Slayers aren’t part of the gate program, which seems to be the biggie,” Dawn said. “Gray, Ri, and Sam, however, are all currently based in Colorado Springs, which the council is half-convinced is another Initiative.”

“Half convinced?” Gray asked, brow furrowed. Dawn smirked, eyes alight with mischief.

“Apparently Willow’s going with the guy parts again, Tara wasn’t brought back for them,” she told him. “She’s married to one of the men there; Ri introduced them. That’s why the council’s only half-convinced it’s another Initiative—they trust Willow’s judgment.”

“I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know but who is she married to?” Tyler asked, frowning. Evan agreed with Tyler about not wanting to know, figuring the redhead had ended up with Jackson or possibly even O’Neill given the Scooby’s luck. Dawn smirked at Evan and his eyes widened.

“ME?!”

“Uh huh,” she agreed as everyone stared at him in shock. “Wills is pregnant, even, and you already have a little girl named Tara who’s floating pencils, a fact no one in the mountain but you, Ri, Gray, and Sam know.”

“I have a daughter?” Evan asked, his brain currently stuck on that one little thing. Dawn nodded, slipping a picture across the table. It was Dawn, Willow, Buffy, Xander, and Giles with a little girl with Willow’s hair and his eyes.

“Did you get anything else?” Graham asked when Evan couldn’t speak. He may of thought of Willow as definite little sister but he couldn’t argue they hadn’t made a beautiful little girl.

“We-ll.”

“Dawn.”

“It’s…weird.”

“Dawn.”

“You don’t want to know!”

“I’m sure I don’t but tell me anyway,” Graham agreed dryly. Evan shook his head to get focused, looking up just in time to catch the half-hearted glare Dawn was sending him, eyes pained. She fidgeted.

“Dawn, what did she tell you?” Evan asked gently. She was withdrawing, which meant she expected badness. Her biggest issue was abandonment; she still had nightmares that they’d all one day up and leave her.

“It’s got to do with the Key,” she finally said, glaring. Evan sucked in a deep breath as Tyler, Vi, and Gray all stilled.

“The Key?” Rodney asked, frowning. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Evan answered before anyone could say anything. “You don’t have clearance.”

“What do you mean I don’t have clearance?!” Rodney almost shouted. “I’ll have you know—”

“O’Neill don’t even have clearance for information of the Key,” Tyler broke in before the physicist could get into a full blown rant. “Hell, the President doesn’t even know all of it. We only know because Buffy wanted us to.”

“The Monks of Dagon were trying to hide it,” Dawn blurted out. Evan winced. “For some reason, they needed blood to make it hidden. They chose Buffy’s cause she was the slayer. We always assumed they just chose hers but according to…Alti-Dawn, they chose someone else too. A guy to counter Buff’s female-ness.”

“Who?” Evan, Tyler, and Gray all growled, wanting to know and understanding what Dawn wasn’t saying. Because they’d made her out of Buffy, everyone assumed she was the daughter of Hank and Joyce Summers but apparently that wasn’t the case—Buffy was more her mother which meant she had a father out there too that didn’t know he was a dad. Out of the corner of his eye, Evan saw Vi leaned back, arms crossed in expectation.

“Gray,” she finally answered, making a face between irritation and hope. “Apparently, it wasn’t Riley Buffy ended up dating. Alti-Dawn actually choked on her tea when I asked.”

Evan stared at her, mouth slightly open. Tyler and Vi weren’t fairing much better and Gray’s entire face had gone alarmingly pale.

“I dated Buffy?” Gray finally said when the silence got to the point of uncomfortable. It was the right thing to say, apparently, because Dawn relaxed and gave him a small smile.

“The records they got said that Ri was actually the Monks first choice cause he wasn’t dating Buffy which is all kinds of illogical,” she told him. “You were more advanced physically and mentally though. I’m sure the fact you were dating Buffy was just an added bonus because it meant it was easier to get, er, samples.”

Evan had a feeling she was leaving something out but chose not to push it while surrounded by people who didn’t know about her past. Even Rodney, her cousin, didn’t know Dawn was only a couple years older than Jon.

~~**~~

An hour later, it was decided Rodney, Sheppard, and Ronon would go to the lab Alti-Dawn had said she’d first appeared in. Hopefully, the scientist would be able to figure it out on his own; if not, they were calling in Carter to help since the Spook Squad wasn’t trusting just anyone with Dawn’s safety, alternate universe or not.

“It’s a Tuesday,” Dawn suddenly said. They were watching Alti-Dawn talk with Cassie and Molly from the observation room; the girl had nearly had a coronary when they showed up, followed quickly by a very mature temper tantrum that the Powers in her universe hadn’t been as kind to grant them their dead back.

“Of course it is,” Evan sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gray reach to touch Dawn’s head and then retreat before he actually made contact. The army ranger really didn’t know how to proceed with the knowledge he was Dawn’s father in another universe. He’d been struggling between treating her the same or not. It was making them all very uneasy because they’d always had been comfortable with each other.

“I want a paternity test done,” Gray abruptly said. They all turned to him in surprise. His jaw was clenched, eyes shielded. “We can come up with something for Beckett.”

“Tell him it’s from the Scooby’s,” Vi suggested quietly.

“He knows they trust him and that they all have issues with medical personnel,” Tyler agreed solemnly.

“You’re not going to get a moments peace together until you know,” Evan said when Dawn turned to him expectantly.

“He doesn’t need to know it’s for me and Gray,” Dawn agreed quietly and Gray relaxed slightly.

~~**~~

“Will you calm down?” Tyler demanded irritably. Gray’s pacing hiccupped but didn’t stop. Beckett had promised to get them the results today and they were all jittery.

Alti-Dawn had been successfully returned to her own universe thanks to one traveling redhead who assumed her Dawn had been experimenting with dimensional portals again. That had been a funny conversation to witness, since both Dawn’s had taken offense. The hilarity had not been helped when, after insisting they were not that bad, Willow had said “shrimp” and both girls had immediately shut up. Evan really wanted to know that story but no matter how much they pressed, Dawn remained stubbornly tight lipped and embarrassed.

“The world’s not ending, is it?” Beckett asked, frowning at them all from the doorway. They all shot to their feet to look at him expectedly. He startled, hesitating in stepping back. Evan mentally grimaced but didn’t apologize—they all wanted to know the results and the wait was driving them even nuttier than normal.

“That it?” Tyler asked, nodding to a folded piece of paper in the doc’s hand. They’d asked him to not keep any electronic copy and he’d agreed, reluctantly. He handed it to Evan.

“Thanks Doc,” Evan told him. “Not to be rude, but, uh…”

“Of course,” Beckett said, giving them all a funny look. Once he was gone, Evan thought the door closed. Tyler must have been doing the same thing because the door practically slammed itself shut. They all turned to him and he looked at the paper in his hand before handing it to Dawn. Her hands were trembling as she slowly slide the paper open to look at it, Graham fidgeting next to her. Her eyes zeroed in and then widened, mouth falling open a bit. She handed it to Gray, who swallowed harshly, eyes conflicted.

“Negative paternity match,” he read off hoarsely and then shoved it back at Evan to wrap Dawn into a hug. Tyler, Vi, and Evan watched as the army ranger gently steered the obviously crying girl into his office, the door shutting softly behind them. The trio exchanged looks and then sat down at the table. By unspoken agreement they were staying until the shaken duo came out.

~~**~~

From: e.lorne@sga.gov
To: omegachosen@sineya.gov
Subject: Re: I don’t like secrets

Buffy,
I know I should have written before the girls returned to Earth but Dawn asked me not to. Given the situation, I felt it was only fair.

Obviously you know the full story and are probably wondering how’s she’s handling it. How they both are. I think they’re mixed—relieved because it would have been very very weird but also disappointed. Graham admitted to me that he doesn’t have family outside us and the council so having a blood relation like that…and we both know about Dawn’s own identity/abandonment issues.

Dawn did tell me she wants to find out who it is, if only so she knows she’s not the daughter of a monster or something. If you could warn Xander, Giles, Oz, Spike, and Angel, I think she’s gonna send requests for paternity tests—Gray is going to warn Ri cause we think she’ll ask him too, especially with what Alti-Dawn told her. She really wants to know where she comes from, biologically, which is as normal as any of us will ever get. I honestly don’t know what’s gonna happen if its not one of the Scooby’s but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Maybe you could look into the Order of Dagon? Alti-Dawn mentioned they found records from them, which is how the Scooby’s in her reality found out about the paternity thing. Maybe we’ll get lucky too.

I’ll keep you as updated as possible on the issue.

Evan

P.S. Willow’s not freaking out too bad, is she? I know Dawn gave her a copy of the picture with little Tara in it (she gave me one too) but…I haven’t heard from her since Dawn and Vi dropped the bomb-shells.


Made by Kayley

A/N 4B: I have some idea who Dawn’s father is gonna be but I was wondering—obviously Gray is out but anyone you’d all like to see? From either fandom?