A Whole New World
By Willowfan

Disclaimers: The characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Stargate:SG-1 are not mine. They belong to other people. They are the ones that make money off of them, not me. I just enjoy writing them. I'm not challenging their copyrights in any way, shape or form.

Feedback: Yes please! Send feedback to .

Pairing: W/T, B/R (only for a bit), X/A

Summery: Instead of aimlessly wandering the country in a broken down jalopy at the end of S3, Xander instead joins the US Marine Corps.

A/N: Long time since I updated. I am trying to work on my fics, but I think I bit off too much with...four going now? Anywho...small update...hope you like it...

The night was calm, and a little cooler than Xander was used to. He checked his watch again and sighed. It was exactly five minutes later than the last time he checked, which meant that he had 55 minutes left until he needed to wake up Farther.

Peering out into the night, he kept his eyes roving. He knew from many patrols that if he focused on one spot for to long his eyes would start seeing things. Suddenly, Xander picked up a small sound, very faint and quite far from their position, almost like machinery. He couldn't quite place it but the harder he concentrated the more he heard it. Suddenly, it was quiet again and Xander chuckled to himself; now he was hearing things. He was about to turn and begin his walk around the camp when he caught movement in his peripheral vision. Snapping his P-90 up, he focused on the spot, but there was nothing there.

He stayed there for a few seconds and slowly lowered his weapon, peering around the darkness. This was a bad situation, and his instincts, from living and fighting on a Hellmouth, told him something bad was happening. He moved into the camp and, without taking his eyes from the darkness, knelt by Colonel O'Neill and woke him. "Colonel. I think we have company." He said when O'Neill opened his eyes and frowned at him.

"What kind of trouble, Private?" O'Neill asked, standing and picking up his weapon.

"I thought I heard machinery in the distance, and I think I caught movement in the woods." Xander reported.

"You think?" the Colonel asked, staring into the dark. "What did this machinery sound like?"

"I'm not sure sir. Like grating metal. I don't know of anything in nature that makes that sound, so I decided to play it safe." Xander shrugged.

O'Neill nodded, picking up a pair of night vision goggles. "Good idea." He said, slipping the goggles on and scanning the tree line. "Looks like your instincts were right. We have some visitors." He said. "Carter. T'ealc. Jackson." O'Neill said over his shoulder. "We have some visitors." He repeated.

Xander jumped as T'ealc suddenly materialized beside him, in full gear and holding a large staff. "Great googly-mooglies." He snapped.

"My apologies Xander Harris." T'ealc said, scanning the tree line.

"Harris. Wake the others. They aren't Jaffa, but they aren't our people either." Colonel O'Neill said.

Xander nodded and hurried over to where the recruits lay asleep. He soon returned, flanked by the others. "What are we going to do now sir?" he asked.

"Now we wait. It's going to be light soon, and they're not moving, so we wait." O'Neill said.

"I don't like being this exposed, sir." Major Carter said. "If they have weapons they'll cut us down without much of a problem."

"I concur with Major Carter." T'ealc said. "We should fortify our position."

O'Neill sighed. "With what? Do you happen to have any sandbags, maybe a wall?" he snapped. "Besides. I don't see any weapons. They're just sort of…standing there."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dawn broke and Xander blinked rapidly, realizing he had fallen asleep while sitting on the small rock he was on. He jumped up, spinning and looking for any sign of trouble.

"Easy there, Harris." O'Neill said quietly.

"Sorry sir. I must have dozed off." Xander said, trying to appear calm while his heart hammered in his chest.

"It's alright. You were the only one who didn't get any sleep." O'Neill said.

"Any sign of the…uh…visitors?" Xander asked, unsure of how to classify the movement he saw. They hadn't attacked, so he didn't want to say hostiles, but he didn't know if they were friendly either.

"Not a peep. The sun will be up soon and we will be able to see them more clearly." O'Neill said, looking through the binoculars. O'Neill frowned as he looked through the binoculars. "Huh." He said.

Xander looked up and then out towards the treeline. "Sir?" he asked.

"They're gone." O'Neill said, handing the binoculars to Xander. "Just inside the line, along that copse." He said.

Xander looked and sighed. "Guess they didn't want to play." He said. He couldn't help feeling, however, that something was very wrong.

"Pack it up people. We're heading to the research facility." O'Neill barked.

The six other people moved with precision, the members of SG-1, however, moved with a practiced ease from years of experience while the three recruits still moved with an unsure gait as they checked off everything in their head step by step.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

O'Neill held his hand up and they group stopped and took up positions along the path, scanning the area for trouble. "Something's wrong." He muttered.

Xander could feel it too. "There's no sound." He said softly.

T'ealc raised an eyebrow. "You are correct, Xander Harris." He said. "There is no wildlife in the background. A sign of an ambush." He said, his respect for Xander raising a notch.

O'Neill nodded. "There's that, and the research facilities door is off of the hinges and there are bodies scattered around." He pointed out towards the complex as they crested the rise in the small trail they were following.

Teal'c and Carter immediately brought their weapons to bear, watching their flank for an ambush with practiced eyes.

"Sir, maybe we should take them home and come back with SG-3." Carter said softly.

Jack looked at his 2IC and shook his head. "They gotta learn sometime." He said.

Carter nodded once. "Yes sir."

Xander, meanwhile, was looking down at one of the corpses that was laying broken in the clearing. More accurately, he was looking at the gashes in the corpses neck and the distinct lack of blood. "Dammit." He muttered. "You can take the boy from the Hellmouth and ship him light years away to another freakin planet, but you can't get the Hellmouth away from the boy." Shouldering his weapon, Xander knelt and looked closer at the wound. 'Yep.' He thought to himself. 'Defiantly bites, add a lack of blood and what do you get?' Xander shook his head. "Space vampires." He muttered softly. "Sometimes, I hate my life."