Fic: Missing Red 3 /?

["frank_8281" <frank_8281@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for all the great feedback I've been getting on this story, 
both here and in my e-mail. Sorry it's taking so long but I am a 
horribly slow typist, for which I deeply apologise. I am writing this 
as fast as I can.



Author: Bob Head  
Disclaimer: None of the characters below (Except for the Slayer's 
Shadow) belong to me. All the BtVS people belong to Joss Whedon, 
Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox. I'm just trying to have fun.
Rating: PG-13 for now
Feedback: Well, Yeah! frank_8281@xxxxxxxxx   






Missing Red: part 3

Shadow's POV?


Unbelievable. She fainted. The Slayer that killed the Master, sent 
Angelus to Hell and has been terrorizing the entire Demon population 
of Sunnydale just fainted over the possibility that Red might not 
survive this. I catch her as she falls and lay her down on the stage. 
The Watcher rushes to the stage and checks her over.

"Oh, thank God, she's just fainted. Exhaustion combined with
shock 
probably."

He looks up at me with something akin to fear in his eyes. "Are
you 
who I think you are?" 

"Yes, but we don't want to be discussing this in front of
her, do we?"

"No, I suppose not." He says. 

I watch as he bundles his jacket and places it under her blonde head. 
Then I motion for him to follow me to a table across the club. 

"Um? Will she be alright up there alone, you think?"
Concern colors 
his voice.

"I'll know if she wakes up. Besides, she needs the rest." 

"Yes, I agree. Uh? what exactly should I call you."

"Shadow's as good a name as any."

He stares at me for almost a full minute. "You look human."

"Yeah, well I'm not. Let's just leave it at that
okay?"

"Can you prove you are who you say you are."

"How would you like me to do that Rupert? Would you like me to
recite 
the names of the Slayers from the first one till Buffy? Would you 
like me to tell you about the men who would later become the Watchers 
Council? About what they did to gain control of the Slayer line? 
About how, for centuries, the Council has finagled, bought and 
sometimes outright kidnapped potential Slayers from their parents? 
Raising them in virtual isolation from the rest of the world so that 
if they were Called they would be dutiful little soldiers and go off 
to fight and die for their masters back in merry old England! ?"
By 
the time I finished I was half way across the table and right in the 
Brit's face. I was breathing hard and I didn't look very
Human at all.

Willow's POV

I'm as scared as I've ever been in my life. I don't know
where I am 
exactly, but I'm locked inside a makeshift cell in what looks
like a 
cave. I don't know how long I've been here even because, of
course, I 
forgot wear my watch that day and how was I to know that while the 
sun was still setting a van with blacked out windows would pull up 
beside me and a Vamp would snatch me up right off the street like 
that! Okay that was what Buffy would call 'full on babble mode.'
I've 
been trying not to do that because it just makes me more scared, but 
I'm already so scared that it makes me do it anyway.

Sometimes I hear voices through the heavy wooden door that covers the 
irregular opening of the cave, Most of them I can't make out but
one 
of them is loud, echo-ie and scary sounding. Kinda like what a frog 
might sound like if it were the size of a really big man?eeewww, 
scary visual place there. I know he's talking about Buffy because
he 
keeps using the word Slayer and saying something about the appointed 
time. Oh Goddess, I am so scared! Not just for myself but for Buffy 
too. I love her so much and I've been too afraid to tell her,
afraid 
that she'll hate me or be disgusted by me being bi-sexual. I mean 
Buffy is as 
straight as an arrow! Now I'm afraid I'm gonna? that I'm
not gonna
get to tell 
her ever! I look towards the roof of the cave and sob.

"Oh, please Buffy, come and get me!"

Buffy's POV

Am I dreaming? It's so dark? wait, is that a light over
there? Yeah, 
it's? a candle? I move closer. That's when I see it. A
splash of 
color in the dim light. Oh God, it's her! Even in the pitiful
light 
of the flickering candle, face smudged and dirty, in clothes
she's 
worn for over a week, she's just so beautiful it makes my heart
ache. 
I try to tell her that it's going to be okay. That I'm going
to 
rescue her. But she can't hear me. Then she looks up, almost
straight 
at me, Tears start to roll down her cheeks. I can't hear what
she's 
saying, but I know she's begging me to save her. Oh God?..

"Willow!!!"

I'm awake. In the Bronze, lying on the stage. What the Hell am I 
doing lying on the stage? Then it comes back to me. What Giles said 
about the Demon and why he wants Willow. Giles is next to me, saying 
something but all I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears. All I 
can see is?. Will's tear streaked face!

"Giles, I saw her, I saw Willow. In my dream!"

"Could you tell her location Buffy?" 

"No, but she's alive Giles, she's scared but she's
alive." 

Giles looks back at the guy we came here to meet. There's
something 
in his face that I can't quite make out.

"What, Giles." 

"The fact that Willow is apparently unharmed only confirms our 
suspicions as to A'racmos' intentions. She has to be
physically 
intact for the ritual to work."

The ritual, where he's going to?. No! I can't think about
that now! I 
can't afford to break down. I can't fail her. Can't lose
my Willow. 

"Giles, this ritual, can he do it where he is now?"

"Umm?. Mr. uh?. Shadow and I have been discussing exactly
that. We 
believe that it can only be performed in close proximity to the 
Hellmouth."

`Mr. Shadow', what kind of name is that? "How close?"
I ask.

"There are two possibilities," Giles says, "the library
and the 
Master's lair."

"My moneys on the lair." Says the mystery man in the leather
jacket.

"Why there, why not the library? It's closer to the Hellmouth
than 
the lair is." I know I'm being a bitch now but prying answers
out of 
this guy is starting to piss me off.

"A'racmos has been going about this whole business in such a
way as 
to avoid the one thing that is sure to get him killed. A direct 
confrontation with you, the Slayer."

I give him `the look'. He doesn't flinch. That bothers
me more than 
I want to admit.

"So why snatch Willow so early? If he can't perform the
ritual till," 
I glance at my watch, it's almost 4:00 A.M. "well, tomorrow
night 
now. It doesn't make sense."

Shadow, (I'm still having trouble with that name.) just shakes
his 
head and asks Gilles,

"Is she always this slow on the uptake?"

I stiffen, and Giles, sensing I'm about to blow a gasket, steps
in 
with, "She's under a great deal of stress."


"And that's why he did it. To rattle you, stress you out, and
wear 
you down. And it's working. He took the one thing from you that
he 
knew would make you do exactly what you're doing now."


"Which is what, exactly?" I so want to pummel this guy, the
only 
reason I've held off this long is the promise I made earlier to
Giles.


Again with the head shaking! "Hey! Bobble head guy! Answer my 
question!" I demand.

"You really don't know, do you?"

I take a shaky breath and let it out slowly. "I've about had
all the 
cryptic I can stand for one night. Either you start giving me 
straight 
answers or I am so going to kick your ass!"

"Think Slayer, when was the last time you were so afraid for
another 
person. When was the last time you busted Willie's bar multiple 
times. And more importantly, why?"

I start to come back with a smart-ass remark when it hits me, Angel. 
When Spike kidnapped him for Drusilla's cure. I was seriously 
crazed. I hit Willie's twice in less than twelve hours. The
second 
time I knew Willie had lied to me and I beat the Hell out of him to 
force him to lead me to the desanctified church where they were 
holding Angel. As bad as I was then, it was nothing compared to this. 
Over the past eight days, no nine days now, I've turned Sunnydale 
upside down and inside out. I've killed more Demons and dusted
more 
Vamps than I usually do in a month! All for the love of my Willow. Oh 
crap! I'm in love with Willow? When did this happen!?


TBC?.