Title: Desperately Seeking Padawan
Fandom:Global Frequency, Criminal Minds, some mention of Chuck, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, X-Files, Sarah Jane Adventures and Leverage. (Minor spoilers for all of these.)
Rating: G
Words: 1200
Summary: Penelope Garcia and Aleph talk about the future.
Notes: Happy birthday lilacsigil! I hope you have an awesome day! (You know how we always say "I wrote this at 2am on a sugar high!" and laugh hysterically? Um. *cringes*)


"Penelope Garcia, you're on the Global Frequency." The window popped up with no warning, while Penelope was working late, catching up on the ever-present paperwork that came with working on the official side of the law.

Penelope looked at the tiny chat-window with a sour expression. "Is that joke ever funny? I mean, seriously?" Her office was quiet, there were no cases on the board right now. She really should be at home, but after the events of the past week she was finding it difficult to leave her safe-haven.

Aleph pushed her face up close to her camera, and planted a big kiss on Penelope's screen. "You know I like to tease, pretty baby." She left lip gloss on the lens. Penelope was impressed at the way the fuzzy little circle framed Aleph's face perfectly, but not enough to mollify her mood.

"Don't be the girl who cried wolf, okay? There's only one reason the Frequency would be calling on me, and that's if something really lousy happened to you. And frankly, I've had enough of seeing my friends hurt." She flicked through a series of constantly open windows – the GPS phone trackers for everyone on her team. They were all where they were supposed to be. They were all safe.

Aleph politely gave her a moment to compose herself, turning away from the camera to attend to whatever global crisis was currently on the boil. "I didn't call you up just to tease, you know. I had a realisation today: we're getting old. Remember the old hackers? That's us now. We're the current grandmothers of illicit computer activity."

Penelope tapped the camera with the end of her pen. " You know, that's just gruesome. On a number of very wrong levels, we are nothing like grandmothers. I don't want to have to show you my underwear because we don't have that kind of relationship any more, but let me assure you, it is deliciously naughty. Not at all grandmotherly. "

Aleph grinned. "So, we can talk about the good old days, then?"

"All right, If you must. Nostalge away; blast shields are set to maximum." Penelope grinned back. They were good old days indeed; when they were both immortal and untouchable. Not very realistic, but good memories none-the-less.

" Remember when we were like a digital Hall of Justice? I'm talking DCU, not Super Friends."

Penelope pointed an accusatory finger at Aleph. "I will not hear a word against the Super Friends. They were responsible for shaping my high moral code."

Aleph shrugged. "Yeah, but have you noticed? Our brethren are getting a little thin on the ground."

"I hadn't noticed. I mean, you know." She tapped her ID badge with her pen. "Some of us grew up and got real jobs."

"Come on. You got caught and they made you take a real job." Aleph would never let her forget that.

"That is true, but it doesn't mean that others haven't done the same thing."

Aleph held up her hand. "Let me give you a sound off on the missing in action: Orion..."

"...was working inside Roark Industries when it all went down. Gotta tell you, I'm not going to miss Ted Roark."

"I never trusted him," said Aleph.

"Trust no-one," Penelope said gravely.

"So true."

Penelope pulled up the FBI report on Roark Industries and flicked through it. "Orion's gone underground before. What makes you think he hasn't done it again?"

"Work with me for a minute. What about Ash? Heard from him lately?"

"Not for a while – he was working up a freaky weather algorithm last time we spoke. Come to mention it, that was a while ago. He offline?"

Aleph sent her a file. "In the most permanent way."

Penelope opened the files. "Not possible – Ash was preserved in alcohol. Steeped, even."

"Which is, you will recall, a flammable medium. Check the dental records."

Penelope scanned through the files with a sinking heart. " Oh, my sweet mullet king. May flights of beer maidens sing you to your rest."

After a respectful silence, Aleph looked back into the camera. "And then there's Willow."

Penelope held up a hand like a traffic warden. "Do not look for Willow. Last time I tried, it took me a week to get rid of the bees."

Aleph looked interested. "Oh, you got bees?"

"They swarmed out of the USB port." Penelope shuddered.

"US-bee." Aleph sniggered. "Girl is funny."

"Yes," said Penelope. "I can see the humour in it, now that the welts have gone down."

"So, there's Orion, Ash and Willow – three absentees in the computer world. Do you agree there's a bit of a power vacuum coming up?"

Penelope made a face. "It's not a vacuum – there's hundreds of kids out there. And they're better than us." At Aleph's raised eyebrow, she amended her statement. "Well, they're pretty good. Better than I was at that age."

"You know it's not the talent that matters. It's the, what did you call it? The high moral code. That's why we do what we do. We have to be mentors, or it devalues the mentors who taught us."

Penelope whispered reverently. "Invisigoth."

"I don't care what anyone says," Aleph's face was serious for the first time in the conversation. "She's out there. And I don't want to let her down. It's time for us to cultivate the next generation."

"I'm not so good with the cultivation." Penelope eyed the pot-plant that Kevin had given her on Earth Day. It wasn't going to live long and prosper.

"Don't worry, I've got the perfect candidates lined up. Yours is on the East Coast and everything." Aleph tapped idly at a keyboard off-screen, and two files popped up on Penelope's screen. "Myself, I'm taking on this new guy who popped up in the UK – a mysterious Mr Smith of Bannerman Road. Very enigmatic person, deeply weird coding. He likes his privacy though, keeps redirecting my satellites away from the house." She leaned a little closer to the camera and spoke in a stage whisper. "I think his wife keeps him locked in the attic."

"Uh huh," Penelope said dubiously. "Unlike you, I don't feel quite so comfortable with the stalking part of a relationship."

"Oh, don't worry. I've got someone easy for you – he's a con-man. You can slip past the stalking phase and move straight to the blackmail. He's working out of Boston, for a kind of philanthropic, Robin Hood-type operation. He's perfect for us. His name, as far as his thoroughly constructed history shows, is Alec Hardison."

Penelope glanced through the file. "Hardison. He seems to have his heart in the right place. I guess it wouldn't hurt to give him a ping, see how he feels." She pointed her finger at the screen. "But no blackmail. I work for a Federal agency now. I'm a good and legal person."

"You know this is a good thing, right?" said Aleph. "I don't want us to be these battle-hardened survivors, I want us to remember there's good things out there amongst all the destruction. We do this for a reason, and it's a good reason. I want us to share that."

Penelope touched her fingers to her lips and pressed them to the lens of her camera. "I love you too, babe."

"Yeah, you do." Aleph blew a kiss at the screen. "Now, get back to work, stop wasting my tax dollar."

Penelope closed the window with a smile. "Like you've ever paid your taxes." Somehow, though, her darkened office felt a little more friendly, and a little less like a defensive bolt hole. She pushed away from her desk, and picked up her pot-plant to give it some water. Perhaps she could save it after all.