It's been a tough few months due to the bloody awful job market, but luckily I've been able to freelance a lot. The good point about this is that I can earn lots of money from this. The bad thing is that it eats up a lot of time and energy - I was in Baden-Baden last week for example. Anyway, here's the latest chapter.

The Beast sat on a handy upwelling of magma somewhere under the Hawaiian Islands and did its best to think about what it should do next. Original thinking, as it well knew, was not something it was particularly good at. In fact, it had to confess that it preferred to obey orders, rather than come up with orders.

It stirred uneasily for a moment. The Voice was still silent, and the silence was starting to worry the Beast a great deal. The Voice had been silent before, but the silence had never lasted as long as this time – and judging by the increasing number of commands the Voice had been giving before the silence, it had to consider the possibility that something had happened to the Voice.

Its fists clenched in the molten rock for a long moment. No, it couldn't be true. The Voice had shown itself to be powerful, too powerful to be defeated by anything on this pitiful world. Too wise as well, and too all-seeing. No, perhaps this was a test? A way of seeing if the Beast truly believed…

The great horned head nodded slowly. Yes, that was possible. After all, it knew where to go. The timing was another issue – although if the Beast was being tested, then surely it could guess. Well, perhaps.

Perhaps it should think the whole thing through again. Wait, it had already spent too much time thinking about everything. If this was a test then it had to make a decision soon. Perhaps even now. Perhaps even right now.

The Beast clenched its fists tightly again for a long moment and then it turned and swam off down the magma. When it arrived at the spot then maybe the Voice would speak to it again. Maybe it would reward the Best for its faith.

PXD-472-D had been a world of sand, rocks, more sand, small wind-blown bits of rock that were almost sand, small beady-eyed reptile-birds that all seemed to have upset stomachs and lots of orbital debris that had scared the crap even out of Carter. Writing the report had so been very cathartic. It was a good thing that the software didn't have a strike-through mode that showed deleted text as otherwise it would have been twice as long and filled with enough bad language to shock a 30-year veteran of the Marine Corps.

The phone was therefore a welcome distraction when it rang. "O'Neill," he snapped into it.

"Wow, you only ever use that tone of voice when you're writing a report that you hate," said a very familiar voice.

"Daniel," Jack said as he leant back in his chair. "How's it going, Spacemonkey? Is the Force with you yet?"

"It's with me just fine, but that's not what I'm calling about."

"What are you calling about then?" Jack asked with a frown.

"Jack, I've got some very interesting pictures in front of me right now from an archaeological dig in Great Britain. Would you be interested if I told you that I think that there's quite a large spacecraft under a hill there?"

Jack sat bolt upright in his chair. "What?"

"You heard me correctly."

"Names and locations, Daniel. Right now."

"North Wales, Jack. A place called Caer Seren. I think that that's Welsh for City of the Stars, or star city, or something similar."

Jack closed his eyes and resisted the temptation to say some very bad words indeed. "Well, I can see a slight connection there. Who found this thing then?"

"An archaeological group led by a number of experts from the British Museum. Apparently no-one realised what it was when they received the first results from the ground-penetrating radar they were using. Some of them know Rupert Giles, they sent him the data, he looked at it, had a suspicion that it was out of his league and then he sought me out at the training camp. I'm emailing everything to Sam now."

Well, that figured, Jack thought wryly. Carter would be better at that kind of thing than he would be. But not as well as Daniel would. "Daniel, this is more your kind of thing than mine. Will you be breaking off from your training to help us out on this?"

A strained silence followed. "Jack you have no idea how much I want to. The problem is that my training isn't anywhere close to being finished. And I have no intention of doing a Luke before Bespin and screwing this up."

"Oookay," Jack said in what he hoped was a positive and placatory tone of voice.

"But I will say that if you don't send me lots of situational reports on what's happening there I'll be very annoyed with you."

"Fine, I'll make sure you're copied on everything. As long as we can send it to you safely. Oh what the hell, I'll get Carter to send you a secure laptop."

"Thanks Jack," said Daniel in a distinctly happier tone of voice.

"Now if you'll excuse me I need to talk to Carter and then I need to tell Hammond that we're off to the Land of Tea and Crumpets."

"And single malt whiskey Jack."

"I thought that was Scotland."

"There's a distillery in Wales as well."

"Excellent, I'll make sure I check it out. Take care Spacemonkey." He listened to Daniel's rather distracted goodbye, replaced the receiver and then stood up and dashed for Carter's lab.

There were times when it was almost restful to meditate, Lilah thought wryly as she sat in the large chair in the middle of the even larger room. It was… deliciously decadent to have such a large house all to herself and even now she allowed herself a warm fuzzy feeling as she remembered the shell game that she'd played to hide her ownership of the property. As far as Wolfram & Hart was aware, employee Lilah Morgan owned a nice but not excessively large studio apartment in a good area of LA. Well, they could go on thinking that as far as she was concerned.

She closed her eyes and embraced the Dark Side. Oh this was the moment that she lived for – the embrace of the cracking river of darkness around her. It… exhilarated her. It made her feel more alive than she ever had before. It was better than sex, better than anything.

As she lost herself in the grip of the Force she allowed the currents to take her… she could see images flash in front of her briefly. Sometimes they were fascinating – she'd once seen an image of a very dead Holland Manners. Other times they were boring – an image of an alleyway.

Tonight however something new emerged. She saw a demonic figure in the hallways of Wolfram & Hart with dead bodies strewn around it. Then an image of the same demon but this time it seemed to be approaching her.

Her eyes flashed open. It seemed that trouble was coming. She'd make sure that she was ready for it.

The glass globe looked incredibly delicate, and there was a good reason for that. It was incredibly delicate. It must have cost someone a bit of money as it seemed to be hand-blown glass of some sort.

Daniel looked at it as it hung in the air above his hands. He could feel a bead of sweat running down the side of his face. This was harder than it looked, but at least he'd gotten past his inability to believe that gravity would be beaten with nothing else but the power of his own mind. Rationality could be something of a handicap for a Jedi at times. At least it was taking his mind off the alien ship in North Wales. He just hoped that Jack was being tactful.

"Time," said Oz quietly off to one side and Daniel almost sighed with relief as he used the Force to lower the globe into his waiting hands.

"That was harder than I thought it would be," he admitted with a sigh.

"It always is," Oz replied with a quiet smile. "I remember the first time I tried it. Tired me a bit."

Daniel opened his mouth to ask how much he should be practising with the globe when all of a sudden he heard the squeal of badly-abused brakes outside. "Is that Giles again?" he asked bemusedly. "I thought he wasn't coming back just yet."

The door banged open from the application of a booted foot and a man with gelled-up hair staggered in carrying an almost comatose woman with blonde hair and what looked like very pale and clammy skin.

"Angel," Oz said, sounding about as shocked as Daniel could imagine he ever could. "Is she ok?"

Angel, if that was his name, looked intently at Oz and then seemed to relax ever so slightly before hurrying over to the nearest chair and carefully depositing the woman into it. "Oz, I need your help," he said tiredly. "Can you cure syphilis?"

Oz's eyebrows flew upwards for a moment, before he looked at the woman. "Is that what she has?"

"Who is she?" Daniel asked.

Angel shot him a look that was part puzzlement and part glare. "Who are you again?"

"He's Daniel Jackson, he's my Padawan and you need to tell us who she is and why she's dying of syphilis," Oz snapped as he stared at the unconscious woman.

"She's… Darla. My Sire," Angel said through gritted teeth.

Daniel stared at the woman and then reached out with the Force, probing with it. Then he paused. "She's human - not a vampire." Then he looked at Angel. "But you are. With… something extra. I can't put my finger on it."

Angel looked at him, his eyes narrowed slightly. "I guess you are a Jedi then. I have a soul. I'm not like the others."

Daniel peered at him, fascinated. It was like looking at a light within a void, if such a concept could describe what he was sensing.

Feet pattered rapidly in the hallway and then Lindsey and Rebecca arrived in the room. "Angel," Lindsey said with some surprise. "What's going on?"

The vampire with a soul pointed at Darla. By now Oz had his hands on both sides of her face and was clearly concentrating hard, using the Force deeply. "She's sick," Angel mumbled. "I tried everywhere else. I didn't know where else to go."

"Did you try a hospital?" Oz asked suddenly. "She's more than sick, she's dying. Angel, she has Tertiary syphilis."

The vampire… fidgeted. It looked like something that he had very little experience of ever having done before. "She said that she'd had several examinations from doctors who worked for Wolfram & Hart. They said that it was incurable."

"Yeah, well, tertiary syphilis isn't very common these days. It is treatable though – lots and lots of antibiotics. Of course, that depends on being treated before you start dying," Oz said tersely, his eyes tightly shut. "Ok, I've placed her in a Jedi healing trance. She's stopped dying. Getting rid of the syphilis will be a lot tougher though."

"You can heal her then?" Angel asked, watching the Jedi Knight intently.

Oz opened his eyes and sighed, staring down thoughtfully at Darla. "Angel, what's going on? What happened in LA?"

The vampire with a soul ran his hands through his hair distractedly. "Long story. Short version is – Lindsey, do you remember that box in that room in Wolfram & Hart – the one where we got the scroll back from Holland Manners?"

Lindsey frowned. "I remember catching a glimpse of it. I didn't know what was inside it though."

"It was her," Angel muttered, gesturing at Darla. "She was dead – Buffy staked her in Sunnydale a couple of years ago."

"What? Do you mean that Wolfram & Hart brought a vampire back from the dead?" Lindsey was very pale. "Jesus – do you have any idea of the amount of magical power that requires?"

"She's not a vampire!" Angel almost shouted. "She's human! She has a soul!"

"Quietly," Oz broke in. "She's in a healing trance but no loud noises please. Angel – why did this firm of evil lawyers bring her back?"

Angel scowled a bit. "They were trying to use her to get to me – to turn me evil again. It's a long story, like I said. They failed though – she remembers what it's like to be a vampire, but she's human now, she has a soul." He spoke the last few words quietly, almost in a whisper. Then he shook himself. "I have to save her."

The Jedi all looked at him. Then everyone looked down at Oz, who was looking in turn at Darla. "Ok," he said softly. "I have a lot to do therefore. There's a spare bed in room 6. I need it made up at once before we move Darla there. I need food and water right now for myself. This is going to be a long process, longer than anything I've ever done. Lindsey, I'm going to have to ask you to take over Daniel's training for a bit. We discussed where they are this morning. Sword training to start at once. Angel, please help out as directed." He got to his feet. "Let's go people." And then he paused. "Angel, have you ever been here before?"

The vampire with a soul shook his head, confused.

"Then how did you get in without an invitation?"

There was a long singing moment of silence as everyone looked at each other before Lindsey raised a finger. "Does anyone else have cold water running up and down their spine?"

The doctor was frowning darkly at the results on the medical clipboard in front of him. Every now and then he'd flip back a page and then return to the beginning. He seemed to be permanently on the point of opening his mouth to ask a question and then reconsidering it.

"Well Mr Harris," he said eventually. "I guess that I can't see any reason to keep you in any more. Your wound has healed very well indeed – um, extremely quickly in fact for an injury of that severity. I guess that that red-hot metal bar you were impaled on must have… cauterised the wound. I think." He paused for another moment, flipped through the notes again and then raised his eyebrows. "I guess that you have a very… good… natural healing ability."

"I guess so, doc," Xander said cheerfully. He'd actually done his best not to heal too suspiciously quickly, but he must have cut it a tad close. The last thing he wanted was another battery of tests, this time to find out why he was healing faster than the average patient. "So when can I go home?"

The doctor glared at his clipboard again, bit his lip for a second, realised what he was doing and then muttered something about telling house about the case, although he why he should have discussed Xander's case with an inanimate object was beyond the Jedi Master. Finally he blew out his cheeks explosively and smiled. "Well, as far as I can say you can go home today. Just come back in a week's time to have it checked out one last time. The last thing we want is any kind of infection sneaking in there."

"Thanks doc!" Xander said smiling. Right, he thought, there was a vending machine somewhere with a Twinkie with his name on it in it.

By the time he was packed and ready to leave the hospital the sun was below the horizon. He'd thought about calling the others and telling them, but he felt like surprising them instead. His family could do with a pleasant surprise as well. So he'd loaded up his things, had his bandage checked by a very disapproving nurse and how he was standing at the main doors to the hospital, sniffing the heady air of… air that didn't smell at all of antiseptic and bad food.

He took a deep breath of air and then started out down the road that led to the hospital, glad at the chance to use his legs properly for the first time since his battle with Glory. It was a lovely evening and he had his lightsabre up his sleeve (it had been hidden in his bedside table thanks to orders from a determined Riley Finn that his personal effects were not to be tampered with in any way shape or form) and he was feeling fit again.

And then, as he walked past Priestland Park, he caught sight of a blond head above a black coat walking slowly down the road towards him. He didn't need to use the Force to identify him, he could tell at once who it was.

"Spike."

The vampire started violently, something that was almost amusing given the fact that he usually could sniff out who was approaching almost before they got into visual range. "Christ! Harris, don't do that – you'll give me a bloody heart attack!"

"Your heart stopped beating in 1880, Spike," Xander pointed out.

Spike twisted his face slightly. "True, but I hate to waste a good metaphor." Then he looked at Xander more closely. "So the quacks at the hospital let you go then?"

"Yup, I'm free to roam the streets again."

"Oh joy. I'll watch out for falling ashes."

This brought a smile to Xander's lips. "Nice to know that I'm so appreciated," he muttered. Then he looked back at Spike, who was staring at the nearest wall blankly. "Spike, what's wrong?"

The vampire looked at him dully. "What?"

"You haven't been your normal effervescent self for some time now. What's wrong?"

Spike blinked at him at him for a moment and then curled his lip in a magnificent sneer. "What the hell are you talking about, light-bulbed one?" he asked as he lit up a cigarette.

Xander looked at him levelly. "I'm talking about you. You've been quiet, withdrawn and unusually reticent recently. Totally unlike your normal self. Now, are you going to tell me what the matter is, or are you going to make me resort to threatening to use the Jedi Mind Trick on you?"

The cigarette wobbled violently in Spike's lips for a moment. "You wouldn't!"

Xander just looked at him with a small smile. This seemed to cause great distress for the vampire, who was forced to grab at his suddenly airbourne cigarette before it hit the ground.

"You are… are… a total bastard Harris!"

"Not guilty as charged," Xander replied with a smile. "Now: what the hell is wrong with you?"

Spike visibly seethed for a long moment before deflating more than a bit. "I'm… suffering," he said slowly.

"Suffering from what?"

There was a long pause whilst Xander patiently waited for Spike to come up with whatever the hell had be percolating in his mental carafe for so long. "Promise you won't tell the Slayer?"

"I take it you mean Buffy?"

"Yes, of course I mean Buffy, you git!" Spike closed his eyes, did his best to stop seething and then opened them again. "Promise me. I know that means something to you Jedi – you're all as honest and uptight, sorry upright, as bloody Gladstone."

"Who?"

"Sod it, promise me!"

Xander looked the vampire in the face and then straightened, his hand on his heart. "You have my word of honour – the word of a Jedi Master of the Galactic Republic."

Spike looked at him searchingly for a long moment, before nodding slowly. "Right – remember that I have your word Jedi." His shoulders slumped more than a bit. "I… did something stupid."

There was a long moment of silence as Spike fought to get the next words out. Xander thought about prompting him a bit, but he could tell that this was a hard enough moment for Spike.

"I've… done something stupid," he said eventually.

Xander waited patiently for the next words to emerge from the mouth of the now-grimacing vampire. He had a feeling that prompting him would be a mistake right now, so he merely folded his arms and then raised an eyebrow.

Another long moment of silence and then Spike finally opened his mouth again and said some words that Xander never thought that he'd hear from Spike. "I've only gone and fallen in love with the sodding Slayer." The words were accompanied by a groan.

Well, this was a Sarlacc Pit of awkwardness, Xander thought. "Ah," he said eventually.

Spike glared at him.

"Tricky."

Another glare from Spike.

"What are you going to do about it?"

The glare turned into a look of anguished confusion. "What the hell can I do about it? Turn up with a bunch of flowers, say 'Hello Slayer, please accept my non-beating heart and please don't stake me'? Give her a box of chocolates in a black box with a mysterious card on it before I jump onto a jetski and vanish off into the moonrise?"

Xander must have looked baffled at this last part, because Spike rolled his eyes and muttered something about the wrong cultural reference. "You know what I mean Jedi," the vampire snarled.

This conversation had obviously leapt off the road of normal topics, such as it was on the Hellmouth these days, and was heading downhill into the morass of weirdness at the bottom.

"Right," Xander said eventually. "Okay. I see your problem. I'm not sure that I can give you any advice about it, but I do see your problem. Hmmm. This is awkward. Actually, on a scale of awkwardness, this is rancor-sized one."

"I shouldn't have bloody told you," Spike groaned and then relit his cigarette, which had quite possibly extinguished itself out of sheer embarrassment. "I should have kept my trap shut. I never did know when to keep schtum at times. She'll never love me back. I don't know what the bloody hell I was thinking."

Xander looked at Spike for a long moment and then he sighed himself. "You're right," he said quietly, "She won't love you back. You're everything that she hates, everything that she fights, even if that chip in your head means that you can't attack humans. The demon in you will always be there. You don't have a soul. You can't be another Angel."

The mention of Angel instantly raised Spike's hackles, and he threw his cigarette on the ground and then slammed his booted foot on it to grind it out of existence. "I hate that bastard," he muttered.

"Why?"

"Why? You mean apart from the fact that he's tried to kill me so many times?"

"Spike, everyone's tried to kill you at least once. What are you going to do, keep score?"

Spike glared at him. "Angelus sired Dru, and drove her mad before that. Dru sired me. Do I bloody need any other reason to hate him? Oh wait, then he got his soul back and spent a Century moping around like a bad novelist, crying over the corpse of ever fly he ever swatted, not to mention the humans he killed before he got his soul back. He then gets his clammy hands on Buffy, has his wicked – sorry, non-wicked – way with her, reverts back to Angelus and proceeds to take over my operation. In the process he tries to end the bloody world by activating Acathla, not that that was ever going to be a good idea, almost kills Buffy and then gets his soul back, before getting sucked into a Hell dimension. He then somehow gets dragged out, regains his sanity, leaves Buffy and sets up shop as a vampiric Sam Spade in LA, where he once again gets in my way. So, yes, I hate him. I violently hate him in fact. If there was an "I hate Angel" fan club, I wouldn't sign up just to get the secret decoder ring."

The two men stared at each other for a long moment and then Spike gave up in the face of the Jedi's placid stare. "Whatever, I'm off to sit in a bar and drink whatever kind of god-awful goat's piss passes for whiskey in this place. I'm done talking to you." He stomped off.

"Spike," Xander called out after a moment of fast and furious refelection.

"Bugger off!"

"I have a possible solution for you."

"Bugger off twice!"

"I mean it. The word of a Jedi."

The sound of Spike's boots on the road faltered, slowed and then stopped. "What?"

"I have a solution for you."

Spike turned slowly and then stared at Xander. "What is it?"

Sighing softly to himself Xander approached the vampire. "The thing is I don't know how you'd do it."

"Do what?"

"There's only one way that you could get around your… condition with Buffy."

Something flared in Spike's eyes, something that was a combination of hope, surprise and deep, deep wariness. "What would that be then?"

"Get your soul back."

Spike's face went blank for a long moment in surprise, and then his eyes widened. "Ah," he said eventually. "Interesting. I hadn't thought of that."

"Think it over," Xander said tiredly. It was now very late and he really needed to get some sleep. "Let me know what you decide." And then he walked away from the motionless vampire who seemed to be groping for some form of redemption.

Jack was not having a very good day at all. He was short on sleep, he hadn't had enough coffee yet, the weather seemed to consist of light drizzle at the moment, following on from the heavier drizzle that had been falling when they'd arrived, and company they were in was massively annoying. Oh and he still hadn't gotten used to the time difference yet.

More than half of it wasn't too bad, a bunch of archaeologists who could geek for Britain at the next geek Olympics and who looked awfully like Daniel used to when he'd first met Jack.

As for the others, well they varied. There was the leader of the archaeologists, who was stubborn and suspicious, there were the three new people who'd turned up from the British Museum and who seemed to be held in some awe by the ordinary archaeologists, there was the senior civil servant with the odd name and then there were the final two people, who he had no idea about. The dark-haired Welsh woman was ok enough but her companion was downright weird. He sounded American but he was wearing a very old-fashioned RAF coat with what appeared to be the flashes of a wing commander and he seemed to flirt with anything as long as it stood on two legs and had a pulse. Whoever he was he also had the unnerving habit of asking extremely pertinent questions just before Jack was about to. Oh and there had been that very old guy with the very odd name, but he'd left a while back.

What Jack wanted to do was tell them all to get the hell out of there so that Carter could look at the honking big spacecraft under the hill. Ok, so it had been there for thousands of years and probably wouldn't be in great shape, but hey, you took what you could from situations like this. Any technology would be a good thing.

Unfortunately they weren't in the good old US of A. They were Britain, where they had to be diplomatic. He hated being diplomatic, it meant too much talking and not enough doing something meaningful.

"Right," the leading archaeologist, Patterson or something, was saying. "We know that we can rule out a Martian origin due to its composition, so-"

"What?" Jack asked. "Martian?"

Everyone stared at him, including Carter. "Sir, you were there when Professor Quatermass addressed us at the base when we, um, started operations weren't you?"

Ah. That name rang a bell. "I think I was supposed to meet the guy, but I was busy that week." A penny dropped and he groaned slightly. "Oh. Wasn't that him earlier on today? I was, um, reading something. Didn't really listen to what he was saying that much."

The guy in the RAF coat snorted with laughter and some of the archaeologists actually rolled their eyes in disbelief. Carter being Carter, she just winced. "Sir, I'll brief you about the 1959 Hobbs Lane incident later on."

"Fine," Jack replied, glaring at various people, "You do that. Martians? Seriously?"

"Later, sir, later."

Hell. Looked like he'd missed something rather important there.

Henderson cleared his throat again. "We need to find out what this thing is, so I suggest that we sink at least three test shafts along this line," he said, pointing in a line along the spine of the hill. "We need to look for, well, an entrance. As I understand it our friends from the US Air Force are bringing along some improved equipment that might allow us to take a look at the… object, in more detail. If an entrance can be identified then all the better – we can dig towards that."

Carter raised her hand and Henderson looked over at her. "Yes, Major Carter?"

"What about the smaller anomaly in that small gully to the west?" Carter asked. "We could take a look at that whilst the scans are being carried out."

The Brit looked around the room and nodded at the responses he got back from the others. "An excellent point. Major, could you take charge of that? We'll make sure that you have sufficient archaeological assistants as you dig."

Jack stirred himself. Crap, he had to reassert himself a bit here, although he had to admit that the fishing looked damn good in some of the local rivers, Plus Scotland wasn't a million miles away. Ireland too. "Actually I'll take charge of that. Carter and I will let you know what we find there."

There was a collective moment of 'let's humour him' and then Henderson nodded at him and moved onto the next item. Jack resisted the temptation to put his head on the nearest table and fall asleep. It was at times like this that he really wished that Daniel wasn't off playing at Star Wars-related things. Then again the end result of Daniel's little extracurricular project would be incredibly useful for the SGC and especially SG-1.

He sighed. This was ridiculous. He should be back at the SGC, probably staring at a report about something that threatened to make his brain bleed. Instead, he was… sitting in a tent in Britain, about to start something that might produce results that might make his brain bleed. Oh joy.

"This is oddly easy whilst being very hard," Daniel mused as he hefted the sword in a series of stylized movements that made up his first real swordfighting exercise in the courtyard outside. "Certainly very tiring."

Lindsey grinned. "I imagine that your work with the Air Force didn't include training to use a sword then? Don't grip the pommel quite so hard."

"No, they trained us to use pistols and other firearms. Other weapons as well. Swords, not so much." He tried to relax his grip a little and frowned. It wasn't as easy as it seemed.

"The grip's important," Lindsey went on. "Too loose and your sword can be knocked out of your hand. Too tight and you're not only straining muscles that you're going to need to fight, but you might also not have sufficient give in your grip to absorb a major blow. You'll have to find what's right for you. Plus when you get your lightsabre then you'll have to change your grip again to cope with the new weapon – but this training will get you thinking the right way to eventually use your lightsabre."

"I think he needs to bend his knees a little more," said a tired voice to one side.

Lindsey looked at the looming form of Angel and smiled slightly. "I felt you coming. Everything ok?"

Angel made a vague gesture with both hands. "I… I… have no idea. Oz is just sitting there next to her, with one hand on her forehead. He's not moving and he's not talking."

Daniel winced and exchanged a look with Lindsey, who sighed. "You were there when Oz said that they weren't to be disturbed, right?"

This prompted an embarrassed shuffle of the feet from Angel. "I was just wondering how long this… healing was going to take."

"It'll take as long as it takes," Lindsey told him with a shrug. "We're talking about a very nasty disease here. You yourself said that she was dying. Not even the Force can turn that around instantly – it takes time and energy and patience. Sorry Angel, you're going to have to be patient."

The vampire with a soul growled quietly and then sat down on a nearby bench by the door that was fortunately in full shadow from the rising sun. "I hate having to be patient," he said in a highly frustrated voice. Then he looked around. "I didn't know that this place was so big."

"Xander expanded it after his uncle died," Lindsey told him as he intently watched Daniel's movements. "There's a training room in that part over there, plus another two bedrooms. Xander said that he's planning on having a small gym added to it soon."

Angel looked around and then nodded. "So who taught you to use a sword?"

"It came free with the job," Lindsey replied grimly. "Wolfram & Hart believed in all kinds of extra-curricular activities. They knew that their lawyers would never win awards for popularity. When I left I'd been signed up for a course in submachine guns."

"Sounds like you worked for a very interesting law firm," Daniel mused as he continued to swing the sword.

"No, I worked for a firm of amoral and immoral scum, run by a collection of demons who would terrify the nastier elements of the Mafia." Lindsey swallowed and looked at his feet for a moment, before looking back up fiercely. "I'll be spending the rest of my life making up for my time at Wolfram & Hart."

"I know what that feels like," Angel muttered softly. Then he stood up and walked to the door. "Let me know if you need any help. I've used quite a few swords in my time."

Lindsey nodded and then looked back at Daniel, who was now starting to sweat. "Right – second set of exercises."

If the builders of the little craft had ever been told that their handiwork would last for the time that it had – well, more or less, due to metal fatigue, rust, the weight of earth above it and the fact that even the best of alloys eventually succumb to degradation and decay – then they would have laughed. A lot.

The truth was that the craft was starting to collapse quite quickly now. A few more years and the main struts would finally lose their battle with gravity. The propulsion system had given up the ghost roughly at the same time that Jericho had become a small village. And the skeleton in the remains of the uniform made from artificial fibres had only survived this long because it had been wrapped in an oiled canvas and then had been very, very lucky, rather like the person the skeleton belonged to had been.

And now, for the first time in many thousands of years the weight of earth was starting to lessen as the spades bit into the mound around the craft. Hands started to pull away the long-dead roots that had at various points tried to get inside the craft. And eyes looked into the massively dirty and cracked windows.

The crumbling skeleton waited in the tatters that now remained of the material that had once surrounded it. Part of that material still said, albeit in letters that had long since faded beyond legibility, "Lt Lee 'Apollo' Adama". But that information was for a tale that would never now be told. At least not in detail.