Disclaimers:  Poltergeist the Legacy concept and characters belong to Trilogy et al.   Original characters and story belong to the author.   No copyright infringement is meant.

Time:  1995 or so.
Place:  Albuquerque
Spoilers:  Doubtful
Synopsis:  Sometimes Ghostbusters handle other things.  Derek falls in love and promptly forgets he did so.  Part of the Yuconovich arc (see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mortal Kombat: Conquest sections)

A Brush with Destiny

© 2000, dragon

Chapter One

Derek brushed past Nick as he entered the dining room.  No word of apology, the older man strode down the hallway and went into his study leaving Nick looking after him curiously.  He looked around at Alex who was finishing her cereal.

"Something up?"

Alex shook her head, her mouth too full to give him an answer and pointed at the newspaper laying on the table.  There was a picture on the page.  Nick stepped over and took a look.  He frowned.  The face looked familiar but he couldn't place it.  He gave Alex a look of inquiry.

She swallowed and smiled.  "Dr. Cheri Yuconovich," she identified the picture.

Nick frowned.  OK.  Now he had a name.  It took a moment, and the perusal of the article attached to the picture to jog his memory.  "Oh.  Her."

"Yeah."

"I thought he didn't remember anything."

"I don't know how much he remembers.  We never talked about it after he recovered."

"Yeah.  We should have."

"It didn't seem important, then."

"And now?"  Nick tossed the paper back down on the table.  Dr. Cheri Yuconovich was presiding over the local display of treasures from several of the prehistoric Chinese excavations.  She would be in San Francisco for several weeks.

"I don't know.  I really don't know."  Alex joined Nick in gazing speculatively toward the study.

Derek had walked in, closed the door and gone to sit at his desk.  Instead, he found himself standing by the window gazing out at the day.  The photograph had jogged memories he hadn't realized were there.  A smile.  Laughing green eyes that could change from emerald clear to forest dark.  And a kiss that seared the soul.  How had he lost this?  How had he lost her?  What had happened to him that he didn't remember now?

He quelled the chaotic thoughts and tried to reconstruct what had happened in an orderly manner.  His lips twitched, trying to smile.  One of those chaotic thoughts told him that she'd laugh at this.  Chaos theory.  What had she said about it?  Oh, yes.  That one of her friends had decided she was a walking definition of the theory of strange attractors.  He'd meant to look that one up, after ---

It had started with a letter.  And a decision.

"So . . . we go see this Dr. Yuconovich and see if the allegations have any merit?"  The tawny skinned woman regarded Derek obliquely.  She felt there wasn't enough evidence for the Legacy to get involved, but the final decision on this one was, of course, Derek.

The tall, worn looking man frowned.  His dark eyes gazed at a point somewhere between here and infinity.  He fingered the paper of the letter he had read and tried to find a balance of potential.  The problem, if there was one, lay outside their usual theater of endeavor.  The man who had sent the letter presented himself as a Native American shaman, deeply concerned for the comfort of his ancestors.  There were things which rang false in the letter, yet there was also the newspaper clipping.  And there in lay the challenge.  The story was short.  It told of an unexpected disaster on an archaeological site evaluation.  24 people dead in 24 hours.  Only the leader and two members of the site team who were not present had survived.  There was the tang of evil here.  A very puissant and dangerous evil.

He set the letter down and shoved back his chair.  "I will go."

"Just you?"

"Yes, Alex, just me.  I will evaluate the situation and call you in if there is anything to be done."

The commercial flight to El Paso, TX had been uneventful.  He hired a car and drove north into New Mexico.  An hour and a half later, he stood on the abandoned dig site.  There was very little to identify it, the grass had grown back in and the infrequent rains had flattened what was left of the mounds of dirt that refilled the excavation.  He wandered the area searching for some sign of the disturbance he felt must have occurred.  There was nothing until he wandered farther a field.  

A quarter of a mile away from the site, a small cairn of stones under a large pine tree attracted his attention.  He touched the cairn.  Sorrow, deep grief, shock.  The intermixed emotions were practically physical.  He studied the ground to see how the dirt was disturbed.  It was large for a grave.  He touched the dirt.  Overwhelming shock.  He sat down, breaking the contact.  Not horror, not hatred, not any of the usual things he felt, just shock.  It was as though the people buried here had not even had the time to understand what was happening to them.

"We didn't," a soft female voice agreed.  "It was too fast, too final."

"You should move on."

She grinned, a quick gamin grin that lit her face.  She didn't look like any ghost he'd encountered before.  "Most of them have.  They always said that if the Doc hadn't been mother henning us, I would have been."

"Doc?"

"Dr. Yuconovich.  Team leader.  Really good at her job.  She did the best she could.  Really she did."

"What happened?"

"Uh . . . we died?"

"That's all you remember?"

She frowned like she was trying to remember, then nodded.  "Yeah.  That's it.  I was . . . cataloguing pot shards.  God, there were a lot of the things.  Not much else.  Just  lots and lots and lots of pot shards.  I heard . . . I think she cussed at the computer and then was yelling at us to get out of the dig site  -- then . . . nothing.  It didn't hurt.  I was . . . nowhere."

"Why did you come back?"

She looked at him as though she didn't understand the question for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders.  "Some of the guys seemed a bit lost . . . I mean, there we were, headed off to who knows what and there are people dragging their feet . . . like they'd forgotten to turn off the gas, or something.  I figured I'd make sure they all got through before I went."

"Are they all gone?"

"No.  George is just convinced his death is a mistake.  He figures if he hangs around long enough somebody will let him slip back into his bod and go on."  She chuckled.  "I don't think he'd like his bod all that much any more."  She gave the cairn an expressive look and one of her quick grins.  "Y'know what I mean?"

Derek nodded thoughtfully.  "Yes.  I suspect he would not enjoy the experience at all," he agreed.  "Is he . . . around?"

She unfocussed for a moment.  She frowned and turned as though trying to orient on something.  She opened her eyes again.  "No.  I can't sense him.  He's probably drifted off to talk to that nut case shaman."

"Nut case?"  The question was very soft.

"Oh, yeah.  Out here ranting and raving at the Doc all the time, telling her she was desecrating graves, his ancestors, all that stuff.  Not a grave in sight," she gestured expansively.  "Not one.  Not a body, not a burial, nothing, nada."

"You disturbed no burials?"

"Nope."

"Then what brought you here?"

"Pots.  And pot shards.  Zillions of pot shards."

"I don't understand."

She sat down next to him, crossing her legs under her.  "Pot shards.  These guys ate, drank, slept and, as far as we can tell, shit pot shards.  That's all there was.  Well, there were some living areas.  But other than that, pots and broken pots and that was it.  Pots, pots, pots, pots.  It was driving the Doc nuts trying to make sense of it.  And here's Mr. Self-Proclaimed Shaman, Speaker for My People's Ancestors . . . like the Apache  had ancestors in the area."  She stopped and thought for a moment.  "OK.  Past a certain point, he's right.   But, not these guys.  These guys are pre-Mogollon, pre-Anasazi . . . hell, they're pre Clovis point, and they're making fired clay pots.  All the same.  Bunches and bunches of fired clay pots . . . " she ground to a halt as she considered this clearly for the first time.   "Fired clay pots.  The  Chinese are not making  fired clay pots!   Nobody on the  planet is making fired clay pots when these guys are making fired clay pots.  This is an impossible site."  She looked at Derek as though expecting him to make some sense of what seemed to have ceased to make any.  Something in his face must have tipped her that it made less sense to him than it did to her.  The grin did its flit thing again and she laughed.

"Hell, you haven't got any more clue than I have.  Or she did.  Hi, George.  That's George."  She pointed to a fuzzy spot between the trees and the cairn.

"Hello, George," Derek greeted him in the measured tones he generally used to try to keep things soothing.

George materialized as a just this side of middle aged sort, shortish, plumpish, nearsighted and bemused.  "It wasn't my time.  It wasn't.  There's been a mistake."

"No, I'm afraid there hasn't been a mistake."

The man focused on him.  He seemed to be trying to understand.  "There hasn't?"

"No.  I'm sorry."

"No mistake?"

"No."

The ghost seemed to sigh, and accept.  He looked at the girl.  "Well, it seems you were right, after all."

She gave him a long suffering look.  "Just had to have *male* confirmation, didn't you," she practically growled at him."

He looked at her again.  He laughed and nodded.  "Too damn old fashioned by half.  Well, if it's time to go, it's time to go."  He gave them each a nod and vanished.

"That's the lot.  Well, it's been nice.  But, I guess I'd best be getting on myself."

"Yes.  You didn't see what  --"

"Killed us?  No.  The Doc did."

"How do you know?"

She gave him one of those semi-pitying looks he hated.  "She survived, didn't she?"  And she was gone in a swirl of light.

He frowned at the cairn.  Nothing lingered except the sense of sorrow and shock.  And the latter was beginning to fade.  He brushed the dirt from his hands and walked back to the site itself.  He touched the ground in several places.  Sorrow.  Disappointment.  HUNGER!  He started back from that touch.  He tried again.  There was an area about ten feet in radius that was so impregnated with that one thought/feeling/concept . . .

In spite of the girl's reassurances, there were more questions here than answers.  What had happened to the hunger?  Was it responsible for the deaths?  Was it still loose?  He would have to locate Dr. Yuconovich.

He reached the university late in the afternoon.  The Anthropology department was not difficult to locate.  The Dr.'s name was on the directory.  He knocked on the door to her office and opened it.  Inside was a woman with long black hair caught haphazardly into one of those toothed hair clips that was so popular.  She was casually dressed in long sleeved t-shirt and blue jeans.  Moccasin boots rose to just about her knee over the jeans.  She was loading items out of the shelves into several cardboard boxes.  In profile, she didn't look nearly old enough to be a Dr. of anything.

"Excuse me."

For just a moment, it was as though all movement in the room stopped.  She looked around at him, eyes of incredible green under winging black brows in a pale face.  She cocked an eyebrow upward in inquiry.  "Yes?"

"I'm looking for Dr. Yuconovich."

"She's gone."

"Her home address?  It is very important that I get in touch with her."

"Not home.  She's left town.  She's not employed here anymore."

"Not?  Do you know where she's gone?"

"Nope."

"But your  are packing her things . . ."

"They're going into storage locally until she ships 'em out."

"To?"

"I don't know."

"I see."  There was something off here, but he couldn't put his finger on what.  "If you hear from her, could you give her this?"  He handed the young woman a business card.  Luna Foundation.  

She gave it a quick glance before setting it on the desk.  "Sure.  I'll let her know you want to talk to her."

"Thank you."

He left the office, passed by the secretary's office and overheard an interesting exchange.  A delivery man was looking for Dr. Yuconovich.    The secretary gave  him directions to the office Derek had just left.  He stopped and watched as the delivery man took his package on down the corridor and stopped at the office door.  The young woman was coming out.

"Dr. Yuconovich?  I have a delivery."

She signed the paperwork and took the package, placing it inside the office before stepping out and locking the door behind her.  She headed down the corridor in the opposite direction.  He frowned after her.  Then he stepped into the secretary's office as well.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Dr. Yuconovich?"

The young woman laughed.  "You make the sixth person looking for her.  Weird."

"Why?"

"Huh?  Oh, 'cause she's on admin leave until they sort out the disaster on her last dig."  The woman's face sobered at the thought.  "It was a real disaster.  All those people dead.  Not like Cheri . . . I mean . . . Dr. Yuconovich, could have done anything.  I mean, an outbreak of bubonic, for crying out loud.  Who'd a thought?"

A professor poked his head in the office and frowned at her.  "*She's* not in her office."

"Isn't she?  Just got a delivery.  Maybe she stepped out for coffee."  The man harrumphed and went.  She made a face.  "Shit.  Old fart was jealous when she got that office, it's bigger than his.  Now he figures he'll get it."

"I thought you said "administrative leave"?"

She met his gaze squarely, looked a little guilty and then shrugged her shoulders to indicate her decision.  "Just the polite for being black balled.  She'll be lucky to see the rest of her pay, much less get another job anywhere in this part of the country.  And it's sad.  The kids all like her.  She's had better responses from most of the grad students . . . I mean, it's like she breathes life into all this dusty stuff she teaches.  Fires 'em up.  But, our dept. head didn't like her from the get-go, and he's set on breaking her.  Snotty . . . oops."  Another professor walked past the open door.  "Me and my big . . . " she ended with a laugh.  "Anyway, if she's taken off, she drives a VW Thing . . . that kinda WWII looking German car, the doors and top come off . . . it's down in the lot.  Might catch her there."

"Thank you."

He left thinking how incredibly helpful the young woman had been.  Why did it make him suspicious?  He caught up with Dr. Yuconovich as she was unlocking her car door.  Once again, there was that moment of total lack of movement before she turned her head just far enough to look at him with both of those astonishing eyes.

"You lied to me.  Why?"

She turned and leaned against the car, giving him a very measuring look.  "Luna Foundation.  Real life Ghostbusters.  Why not?"

"Hiding something?"  He could feel anger bubbling just beneath the surface, anger at her cavalier attitude, at her treatment of him.  He sat on it.

"Like what?"

"Your last excavation ended badly."

The light behind her eyes seemed to extinguish suddenly.  She blinked.  "Yes.  It did.  Due to the sensitive nature of the situation, I'm not allowed to talk to reporters."

"I am not a reporter."

"or anyone else.  Good day."  She opened the car door and stepped into the vehicle.  He caught the door before she could close it.

"There could be something still out there."

She looked up at him, focused and shook her head.  "It was taken care of.  There's nothing out there to trouble anyone. . . . Except a nutcase who thinks he's a shaman," she amended.

"That could be enough."

She shook her head.  "He's annoying, but harmless."

"How do you know?"  Suddenly it was extremely important that he get her to talk about the excavation and what happened.

"I know."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you badgering me?"

"A little," he admitted.  Her laugh surprised him.  She told him to get into the car if he was going to continue to do so.  He did.  Something told him to fasten his seat belt.  It was a good thing.  He was very glad this was *not* San Francisco, or any other major metropolitan area.

She finally came to a complete halt, the first one, including several red lights at which she had availed herself of the right turn on red law, outside a Pizza Hut <tm>.  If he was surprised, he didn't show it.  He unfolded himself from the passenger seat and followed her into the restaurant.  While they ate, she explained what had happened, from her point of view, and with some interesting time lapses.  She stuck to the plague story until he countered it with his own visit to the site.

"You don't play fair."

"Not where this sort of thing is concerned.  We are discussing true evil."

"No.  You may be looking for "true evil", but that's not what I'm describing.  What happened was . . . unfortunate."  She stopped and thought back to the day they had all died.  It was, unfortunately, just that.  There was nothing inherently evil, nothing even blamable.  It wasn't as though there were big signs all over the place saying "Don't Unearth the Hungry E-T".  Or anything else.  "And that's all it was," she said softly.

"The hunger?" he pushed.

Their eyes met.  It was like electricity across the table.  He didn't know quite what to make of it.  "Gone."

"Where?"

"Back where it belongs.  . . . I have some . . . friends . . . in rather odd places.  I called in a few . . . markers?  It went home."

"Home.  You're certain?"

"Very."

He sat back, only just becoming aware of how tensely he had been scooted forward on the booth seat.  He stared at her hard for a few moments, then nodded.  For some reason, he trusted her judgment on this.  Still, there was something odd about her.  He would let Alex know that the situation was not a problem, but he would keep an eye on his current companion for a day or so.  There was something in the air.

They finished dinner with Dr. Yuconovich asking the questions.  Derek was amused by her curiosity.  She skirted things others might have dived into and asked about those items that were close to public record.  Yes, the Foundation did have employees with special abilities.  Yes, they believed that true evil existed and could be combated. Yes, he had faced such things himself.

"True believer."  She regarded him intently for a moment.  "Must be nice to really believe and know that it's right."

He frowned at her.  "You don't."

"Nope.  I find there are very few absolutes in the world I live in.  Very few.  Good and evil seem to be the most malleable --  religion, politics . . . they define and mold the opinions of people to reflect what will get the most power to the leaders."

"It's not like that . . ." he objected, his dark brows snapping together in a frown.  And it wasn't.  He knew it wasn't.  He and Alex and Nick and the others had faced evil time and again.  Perhaps he was not all good, but he knew it was real and that the evil they faced was also real.

Cheri laughed.  "No.  For you and the work you do, they must be absolutes with shades of gray surrounding them.  For others . . . well, there are places where absolutes don't function well.  And it's getting late.  I have things to finish up before I leave tomorrow."  She slid out of the booth and held out her hand.  The handshake was firm, warm.  Her fingers were slender, her hand smaller than his.  He released her, although there was something inside him that was loath to do so.

He called a cab to take him back to his car.  He called it a night and returned to his hotel room to think, to turn the information he had gathered in the last few days over and over and over in his mind.  He fell asleep trying to make sense of it all.

He awoke with a sense of foreboding.  Something was wrong.  He stood up and stretched to get the kinks out of his limbs and back.  Sleeping in chairs was best left to younger members of the team.  He left his room to follow his sense of wrongness.

Downstairs, it was dark in the lobby.  That, of itself, was odd.  He heard voices and moved toward them quietly.  Just as he began to distinguish words, two heavy hands fell on his shoulders.  They were attached to a couple of really big, muscular types in suits.  They dragged him toward the voices and ended by shoving him to his knees on the floor, his arms still held in their massive hands, effectively holding him prisoner.  The floor was well kept up marble mosaic.

"What have we here?" a man's voice, deep and slightly accented, asked of the two men holding him.  One of them responded in what sounded like Russian.  "Following you?"  from the sound, the man was looking at someone other than Derek.

"Indeed."  The vowels were almost a parody of a heavy Russian accent.  The voice was a woman's.  "He followed me."

"Dispose of him."

He could hear the sound of something compact and heavy changing hands.  Two shots.  He barely got his head up to try to see who was killing him when the two men holding him jerked, let go and fell heavily to the floor, red flower petal looking stains spreading across the fronts of their shirts.  His world spun a little as he saw Dr. Cheri Yuconovich hand a very large looking gun back to a tall, elegant, middle aged man.  The man was looking a bit less than pleased.  Cheri looked up at him, her face a mask.  

"You know how I feel about others touching what is mine."  Still the accent.  She turned and sauntered across the floor toward him.  She stopped just a few inches away, reached down and grabbed a handful of the curly dark hair that haloed his head.  She pulled his head back with a snap.  Wide green eyes bored into his.  "I told you not to follow me.  You only get one.  You understand?"

"Yes," he managed to gasp out.  The hold on his hair was released.

"Get up."  He got to his feet, his eyes on the woman before him.  What was going on?  What had he stumbled into?  She looked back at the elegant man.  "Show him to my suite.  And if he is more damaged by the time I arrive than he is now ---"  she let the thought trail off.  One of the other men with the one she had been standing next to, came over and indicated that Derek should follow.

"Now, Yvygny, just exactly what is it I am to understand from your so foolish attempt to disrupt my plans?"

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