Title: Applying Leverage

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

Rating: PG.

Summary: B:tVS, Terra Nova."Speaking of secrets," Buffy said, frowning at Mira. "What brought you to Terra Nova, anyway?" 4400 words.

Spoilers: Set circa TN 1.10 "Now You See Me" and TN 1.11 "Within", as affected by this crossover-AU.

Notes: More fallout from "Paging Eryshion". Posted originally in two parts.

Buffy let Nate lead as they hop-scotched across the rocks edging the rushing stream. She could probably have gone twice the speed he was managing without falling into the water if she didn't let her attention wander; but they were there looking for signs of Lucas, not trying to cover as much ground as possible.

"You sure it was a good idea to leave Jim in charge of the colony while we're gone?" she asked, then leapt to the top of a boulder next to the trail for a better look around, scanning slate-colored stone and thickly grown vegetation for any sign that another human had been there before them.

"Why?" Nate glanced up and back at her, brow furrowed at the question. "You don't think he's the right man for the job?"

Buffy made a see-sawing motion with her hand. "I think he can do it, I just think there's a lot going on right now with Skye under house arrest, her mom turning up alive with a possible cure for sincyllic fever, and two other women not on the colony rolls showing up out of nowhere. Whatever you told Boylan to shut him up, he's sure not stopping anyone else from gossiping in his bar. Everyone knows the Sheriff's involved somehow, and not everyone trusts him the way you do."

"Well, I'm not exactly disinterested in this situation myself," Nate shrugged, then turned his attention back to the stream. They were nearing the head of a small waterfall, and he'd unshipped his backpack, rooting around in it for the coil of rope he'd brought along. "And short of trying to explain magic to the whole colony, there's not much I can do about the gossip. Regardless, he's the only person with any authority I can be one hundred percent sure will keep the Sixers out while Wash and I are both OTG. We may have blinded Mira's main eyes in camp, but Boylan can't have been the only one working deals with her people on the side."

"Oh, I agree," Buffy shrugged. "I just wonder what the hell else he and Willow are going to get up to while we're gone," she added, grinning mischievously at him. "They both have a way of... improvising in unexpected situations, you may have noticed."

Her nephew gave her an amused, rueful look, then finished securing his rope and picked his way around to start rappelling down the steep rocks beside the waterfall. "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine," he said. "How much damage could they do in twenty four hours, really?"

Buffy snorted. "I'll be sure and tell them who they have to thank for jinxing them when we get back," she said, then eyed the slanted cliff and took a running leap, taking the height in a few carefully placed bounds. She landed in a crouch at the bottom before Nate was even halfway down, smiling to herself at the exertion. Her Slayer side hadn't got much of a workout in Terra Nova, just that one incident when the dino herd had charged the colony and that raid on the Sixers, and it felt good to stretch her abilities.

Nate made a noise of disgust as he came down after her-- but Buffy didn't stick around to hear whatever smart remark he'd undoubtedly have added. Her gaze had caught on another cliff-like protrusion a dozen yards away, covered with white etchings clearly visible against the dark rock. The symbols could have meant anything from summoning spells to wormhole equations for all she knew, but they had definitely been put there by human agency. "This what you're looking for?" she said, pointing them out.

Her nephew glanced over as he reached the bottom, then started unhooking himself from the rope. He narrowed his eyes at the mathematical angles and curves, then started searching around under their feet as well-- and finally paused as his eyes lit on a charred pile of sticks nearby. "Yeah. He was here."

Buffy skipped over to the impromptu firepit, crouching to place a hand over the blackened stubs of wood. "Cold," she said, shaking her head. "It's been a while since he was here."

Nate sighed as he crossed the rocks to join her, staring down at the symbols scrawled under and around the ashes. Then he slung his bag off his shoulder again, retrieving a black light to aim at the markings. "Looks like he's gotten closer to a solution, too. Damn; I was hoping the fact that Mira never got her hands on that box had slowed him down."

Buffy opened her mouth to reply-- then whirled abruptly on the spot as she felt a subconscious itch approaching behind her. There were only a handful of people sharing the planet with her at the moment who had also been touched by the supernatural, and half of those were currently with the enemy; and unluckily, were also two of the only people who might expect the colony leader to come to that spot without any backup. Good thing she'd insisted on coming along.

She whipped a knife off her belt, holding it up in position to throw-- and came face to face with Mira, who seemed as startled to see Buffy as Nate was at her quick movement. The terrorist leader had a sonic rifle in her hands, but wasn't quite able to arm it by the time Buffy released the knife in a quick, hard throw, hurling it so it hit Mira's left wrist pommel first. Before she could recover from that, Nate was on his feet again, pulling his pistol to back Buffy up, and Mira swore.

"Not quite what you had in mind, was it?" Buffy snarked. "I'm starting to really enjoy foiling your plans. Put the gun down."

Mira was still wearing a bandage around her right upper arm from the bullet she'd caught in Buffy's night-time raid to retrieve Deborah Tate, and her hand tightened visibly on the stock of the rifle for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and took her bruised hand off the gun, crouching slowly to lay it on the rocks.

Nate scrambled over to retrieve the weapon, then holstered his own handgun, yanked a long serrated knife off Mira's belt, and took a few long steps back. "What are you doing here, Mira?" he asked, warily.

"Same thing you are, apparently," she said, glaring between the pair of them sourly as Buffy stooped to retrieve her own knife.

"What, you can't just ask Lucas directly what he's up to?" Taylor replied.

She snorted, unamused. "You think he actually tells me all the details of his work? It's been a couple of weeks since the last time he stopped by the camp. This job was only supposed to take six months, and it's been more than three years."

"And it's going to be even longer, since he never got the computer you were supposed to bring through for him, isn't it?" Buffy chirped, giving her a false smile. "Oh! Yeah; didn't we tell you we figured out what's in the box? We've got a computer genius of our own who finally cracked it. You might have seen her the other day; red haired girl, has a real gift for area of effect electronic suppression."

Mira's face darkened at that. "So that's why our guns didn't work when you stormed the camp. Was she the reason half my people wouldn't wake up until you were long gone, too? Some kind of new, aerosolized suppressant drug?"

"A girl's got to keep some of her secrets," Buffy replied. Then she used her knife to cut off a length of Nate's rope, and approached the woman, gesturing for her to turn around.

Mira tensed, but obeyed, fuming as Buffy secured her wrists; she was probably used to being able to beat most people in hand to hand combat, but she and Buffy had already gone a round, and while she'd got a lick in during their brief struggle earlier Buffy had put up quite a fight. If Mira was going to try to bolt now, she'd probably wait until Nate was the one guarding her, not the Slayer.

That thought reminded Buffy of something Willow had told her, and she frowned. "Speaking of secrets," she continued. "What brought you to Terra Nova, anyway? We figured your employers must have gamed the lottery somehow to put their people in. But why you? I know-- I know-- you have a better developed sense of right and wrong than to think you're actually on the side of the angels, here."

"You do, do you?" Mira glared over her shoulder at her. "And who's to say you're on the side of the angels? The last time I tried to stand up for what I believed in, your precious government threw me in prison for my efforts. And then my daughter got sick, and I had no money to treat her. What was I supposed to do, turn down the offer that might mean I could save her, and strike back at the dome-bred assholes lording it over all the rest of us at the same time? You can take your 'sense of right and wrong' and shove it, bitch."

Buffy flinched back a little at the woman's vehemence, some of her anger seeping out of her at the story. Sure, Mira could just be fishing for sympathy with that blunt speech-- but it was disturbingly plausible. And goddess knew Buffy was there for much the same reason. The only difference was, she'd been able to make a clean break from her would-be masters, and her flesh and blood had already arrived in Terra Nova ahead of her.

She cleared her throat, then shot a warning look at Nate, hoping he would go with what she was about to suggest. Nate frowned back, but nodded; he probably had some idea where she intended to take the conversation. Not the partially activated potential Slayer thing-- she hadn't shared that with him yet-- but the family angle. After what had happened with Willow and then Kara, he should see the potential to blow the whole war open here as well as she did.

"You're not the only one who had to leave family behind," Buffy continued, softening her tone. "You ought to know, since you were so willing to use Josh's girlfriend against him."

"You think another sob story will change anything for me?" Mira replied, scornfully. "I'm not going to switch sides and worship at Taylor's altar while her life depends on this. Even if it takes Lucas another three years to finish the calculations longhand."

"And what if her life didn't depend on it?" Buffy said, bluntly. "What if I told you we have something new in camp, a trick our new computer guru figured out, that lets us bring people from the future without activating the portal directly?"

Mira's eyes flashed, and her posture stiffened. "That's not possible," she spat.

"Oh, but it is," Nate added, nonchalantly. "I nearly had a heart attack when my niece here demonstrated proof of concept; I thought for a minute she and her friend might be in league with you, that you were trying to suborn my Sheriff and his family. But they proved to me that wasn't the case. They can bring people through, one at a time. Anyone."

"I don't believe you," Mira insisted, glaring at both of them.

Buffy shrugged. "You will, when we get you back to camp. You know what Kara looks like, right? You've talked with her, because of Josh? And you know you didn't summon her."

Disbelief and hope flickered across Mira's face, and she swallowed hard. "If you're mocking me...."

Nate exchanged a long look with Buffy, promising a detailed conversation later-- if they could convert Mira, it would change everything.

"We're not," he said, gently. Then he gestured with the muzzle of the rifle. "C'mon. You'll see."

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.

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