The Red Sorceress
Part 1
Disclaimer and such please refered to Prologue.
On the bed in one of the rooms inside the Summer's house, Buffy carefully covered the sleeping figure with a blanket before leaving quietly, closing the door behind her. Returning to her own room, she sat on the edge of her bed, looking at the alarm on the nightstand.
5:47am
Buffy sighed. It had been a long night. Dawn ended up with a broken arm, and Buffy ended up with a younger sister who refused to talk to her. The slayer did not understand. How could she be blamed for Dawn's injury? She was not the one who had gotten her into the accident. Willow was.
"Willow..."
She did not understand that either. Willow was always the good one, the responsible one, the reliable one. How could she do that to Dawn, to her? How could she bring Dawn into such danger when she knew full well how much Dawn meant to her?
Had she done something to Willow? Had she done something that had made the redhead so mad she wanted to hurt Dawn in order to punish her? Wasn't that enough punishment for her to be banished from heaven, from peace? How could she do this to her? Buffy shook her head. 'No.' She thought. 'Willow is not like that. She will never hurt me on purpose. She will never hurt Dawn. She loves us - or is she?'
Closing her eyes, Buffy took a deep breath. 'This has to end.' She stood, resolved to get the much needed answers from her best friend.
Buffy walked into the corridor, and stopped in front of Willow's room. She took a deep breath, before knocking on the hard wooden surface and waited.
Silence.
Buffy frowned, and knocked again. "Willow?" Still getting no response, the blonde opened the door and went inside.
Books and clothes cluttered around the same way it had been since Amy's little "visit" - and without a trace of the redhead witch.
"Great." The slayer sighed, picking up the things on the floor, and started tiding up the room.
Tara screamed. She sat up, panting heavily. The blond witch reached for the other side of bed without a second thought, searching for the familiar comfort... only to find reality slapped her in her face, hard. 'I'm at my dorm.' She sighed. 'And Willow's at Buffy's.'
She turned towards the other side of the bed, staring at the phone, feeling uneasy. That nightmare scared her - the nightmare about her gir- 'No.' She corrected herself. 'The nightmare about her ex-girlfriend scares her.' Sighed. 'May be I should call?'
Her eyes slowly moved towards the alarm nearby, watching as the ugly red blinking back at her.
5:48am.
'Too early. She is still sleeping. May be I can go to the Summer's house later and check on her? No. It's a bit strange. But...' She took a deep breath. 'Better safe then sorry.' She stood, picking up some clean clothes, and went for the shower.
Buffy put down the phone. It was now 7:30 am and Dawn was still sleeping. She had just called Xander and told him not to come to take Dawn to school. Of course, that led to a short conversation about the accident. Xander was concerned, not only for Dawn but also Willow. After all, Willow was his best friend for like... forever. Xander wanted to go and find Willow right away, but Buffy had promised him that she would go as he still needed to go to work. Talking to Xander had led Buffy to re-think the whole situation. But before she could go any further, someone knocked on her front door.
Buffy ran towards the door, swinging it opened. "Wil- Oh. Hi Tara."
"Hi Buffy." Tara said. "Can I..."
"Oh. Of course. Come in." Buffy stepped aside, and let the taller blond entered the house.
"Um... is Dawnie a-awake? I-I was thinking may be I can walk her to school t-today." 'Well, that's not exactly a lie.' Tara thought. 'Just not telling her the whole truth.'
"Nope. She's still sleeping." Buffy said. "Tara... um... I have something to tell you. Something happened yesterday..."
Buffy and Tara sat in the kitchen, and the slayer filled her in about the accident. "Oh Goddess." Tara was shocked. She couldn't believe that Willow would do that. First herself, now Dawn. "A-are they alright?" She asked.
"Dawn's fine, except the broken bone thingy. Willow... um... she kinda hasn't come back yet."
"She hasn't come back?" Tara whispered. She knew Willow. She might have done something wrong but there was no way she would run away - Willow never run away from anything. It was one of the reasons she loved her so much in the first place.
"Um... do you have class today? I need to go find her but I don't want to leave Dawn at home alone. I've already called her school so she can get some rest."
"No, that's all right. I'm free today."
"Cool." Buffy said. Taking her jacket, she turned and looked at Tara. "I'll find her."
Tara nodded, watching Buffy left the house. She closed the door behind Buffy, and sat on the coach. Remembering the nightmare, she prayed to the Goddess... praying for the safety of her Willow.