Disclaimer: See chapters 1 and 2
Buffy sat in front of a desk in a dark room, a lamp spilling light over a mound of shuffled papers. An empty coffee cup on the only clear square of desk and a file she was searching through on the top of the pile. Sighing she picked up another file and tried to take a drink of her coffee. "How can I be out of coffee again I just got some. Gah… nothing is working." She dropped her head to the desk letting the hand holding the coffee cup drop to the side of the desk. "The world is against me it hates me it wants me to die." Sarcasm and intended melodrama dripped from her words.
There was a chuckle at the door and Buffy turned to see her mom shaking her head at said melodrama. "Buffy dear. Why don't you take a break? You haven't eaten or slept since Willow left two days ago. You won't be able to help anyone if you don't take care of yourself first." Jenny stood at Buffy's door with a plate of food. "Here eat this while you work and then take a shower and get some sleep."
Buffy handed her mom her empty cup and a plate of untouched old food "It sounds great, but I can't mom. I have to do something." She took the plate of fresh food from her mom and a new cup of coffee. "I can't just sit here doing nothing."
"It's ok dear." Jenny hugged Buffy and walked away "Eat. Sleep... for me... please." It wasn't a question or request it was a mother's authority.
"I will mom." Buffy turned back to her desk one thought on her mind. Once I find my sister, my brother, and my lover. A lone tear fell down Buffy's cheek as she laid her head in her hands. They can't be dead I'd know so would Willow if she just took the time to think about it she would know too. We would feel it if they were dead. Somehow I know we would. With that final though and a sigh, she went back to the papers covering her desk, her only hope hidden within. Her eyes landed on an over turned paper under the desk. Buffy picked it up and turned it over. As she read over the paper her brow furrowed and concentration covered her face. Food forgotten, again, she read over the paper and began digging through and scattering the other pages on her desk until she found what she was looking for. With a wide grin she rushed from her room knocking her coffee to the floor and ran down stairs.
"Mom" Buffy called as she descended the stairs "Dad" she jumped the last group of stirs and took off toward the living room.
At that time her parents came around the corner to meet her in the hall. "What is it what's wrong sweetie? Are you ok? What was the big thud? And..." the questions faded as Buffy handed her parents the pages she had found.
"What are we looking at honey" Giles was slowly reading the paper "I see that this is Xander's contract but what about it. I am not the law based mind of the family you are."
"A FBI field agent wanna-be is far from a contractual master mind. Either way this page is one from Xander's contract yes and Faiths is an exact copy." She said taping on the top of the stack. "And these…"
"…Are the ones we got telling us of their deaths." Giles finished looking at the rest of the stack. "But what am I not seeing in these that you are?"
"Read right here." Buffy said pointing at a place on the page with a post it note place marker and line holding Xander's signature.
"All solders are missing in action or absent without leave until proven otherwise." Jenny read out loud "and again I ask please put this in common terms. What does this mean?"
"This means that they must go find them and send them home no mater what state they are in. They can't be proclaimed dead until they find a body with their dog-tags or a body that is proven theirs by DNA or Dental records. Or until 7 years have passed without any sign of them." At the pause and blank looks her parents were giving her she continued "They have to keep looking not just take a single mans word for it." Buffy watched as her parents blank looks turned sad "Ok what is it I'm all with the woo and the hoo and you're not."
"Buffy" Giles began "like we told Willow it is better to hope that they are dead and not captured."
"Trust me I know that" Buffy gathered the papers again "but a funeral would offer more closure with a body rather than without." Buffy stopped and the toile of the last few days became visible over her entire being as she sighed and dropped her head. "I would want nothing more than to have Faith back here in my arms and Xander giving Willow a look of pure confusion as she tries to explain Sudoku to him. But if them being alive right now means they are dyeing slow and painfully in a terrorists' prison or camp then I would kill them myself than leave them there to suffer. At the same time if they are already dead I want them here in our home town cemetery with a funeral of a hero a warrior. What they deserve as American Soldiers who fought and died for their country. Where I can go and talk to her and be with her as close to her as I can."
Giles and Jenny reached out and pulled their daughter in to a hug between them holding her tightly. "We want that too honey." her mother whispered
Willow woke up to find the room dark and still. A thin beam of light came from under the door where a hall light was lit. "Great, I got to pee. Grrr stupid bladder. Oh this is gonna hurt." Willow slowly sat up groaning at the pain coursing through her body it wasn't as intense as earlier and she could sit up on her own with enough work. Yet the pain was still very percistant at reminding her how hard her run had been. "Oh boy I don't even know where the bathroom is, haven't needed it yet." She moved to the edge of the bed and braced herself to stand up. "I haven't done this yet either gulp this will be interesting to say the least." She pushed down against the bed with her hands and stood up with minimum difficulty but as soon as her full weight was on her own two feet searing pain shot through her left leg. She almost collapsed to the floor from the pain but luckily at the last moment caught herself against the bed. She sat back down and though of waiting for Tara but decided she needed to go too bad. She slowly made her back in to a standing position and flexed her ankle. She felt something wrapped around her ankle and looked down to find an ACE wrap there. She wondered how bad it was but pushed that though away as her bladder reminded her that she had to pee. Slowly she leaned weight on her foot. This time without the surprise of the immense pain she was able to bear the pain enough to hold herself up. She limped her way slowly to the door and opened it quietly. She looked down the hall and noticed it only went one way, and on the wall was a piece of paper by the door.
Willow
If you try to walk I figure you're going to the bathroom. But I don't suggest walking on your ankle which I'm sure you have noticed by now if you've made it this far. You gave it a good sprain and maybe more damage than just a sprain. So I figure you're in a good deal of pain but I thought you might need to go to the bathroom. So I put up a few signs to help you get there and there is some more medicine in a bottle on the table by the bed. The lamp on the table is also a touch lamp. And there's a bottle of water and a box of Pop-tarts eat a pack of pop-tarts and drink the water with four pills and the pain should subside enough for you to fall back asleep.
Hope you don't mind just thought they would help. Good night.
Tara
Willow smiled at the thoughtfulness and silently thanked Tara as she followed the signs to the bathroom. Each one had a little note on it explaining something or another about what they were hung on. A few pieces of art were even art done by Tara herself. As Willow returned from the bathroom she noticed other rooms in the house, it was much bigger than she had originally thought. She passed by a door that was slightly ajar and heard a rapid movement and something like a whimper shortly followed by a cry. She stopped and listened at the door until she heard it again. As Willow became worried she pushed the door open enough for her to see a bed and Tara laying on it curled in a ball crying as she slept. Willow walked into the room and painfully knelt by the bed.
"Tara wake up it's just a bad dream" She reached forward and shook Tara's shoulder lightly. "Tara?" Willow asked as Tara moved to wrap her arms around Willow in her sleep. Willow sat there for a moment her pain forgotten she moved on to the bed holding Tara in her lap. She could feel the girl was shaking and could hear the faint whimpers caused by the dream.
It was dark, you couldn't see anything, and it was cold, and wet, or at least it felt wet, it smelt of mold and dirt and decay. It was quiet, so quiet. There was this feeling of being surrounded by something but it was so dark and quite that it was be impossible to find. Yet the feeling was still there, almost thick in the air. Knowing something is there looking for it but to dark to see it.
Then it starts, barely a sound, you heard just to your right. You turn and look but there's nothing but blackness. Your eyes can't even tell if you have moved or not. Then it's behind you. You turn again. It moves again and you turn to it, breathing faster and faster with every turn pressing the border of hyperventilation. Then it's in two places. You realize there's more than one. Above and behind, left and right, their everywhere, to dark to see them to dark to find them, they get louder. Now you can tell that the noise is a scratching, squeaking, and scrambling all around, hearing them moving and not knowing where it is or how to avoid them.
It's terrifying you jump each time it moves. You fear the touch of whatever creature it is. The thickness in the air turns in to a creepy-crawling feeling air not quite touching your skin. Then you realize you don't have clothes on. There's nothing, no cloth, no clothes, not even a scrap to cover you or protect you from the creepy-crawling feeling of the air touching your tinder skin. Then it's not just in the air it's on your unprotected feet first, it starts pinching painfully rising over and up your feet then there's a poking and prodding feeling joining. It moves up further over your feet and ankles, then passing your caves. It leaves a coating of the feeling over everything it passes You move trying to stop it but it continues up your knees, slowly over thighs, and up further still. You try to wipe it away but the feel of your hand on your skin never comes. You try again and again but it never comes and the feeling continues to crawl. You can't push your hands past that feeling to your skin no matter how you try. It covers your legs and spreads higher. Dipping between your legs it covers the lips of your sex dipping in and surrounding your entrance but stopping just before going inside. The feeling moves around and over a round tight ass stopping at the edge of the hole and up the hips and continuing up further more. The crawling and pinching wrapping around the waist and traveling higher up growing harder and more painful with each passing moment. It's just under your fully exposed breast causing your nipples to grow hard and stiff. The pricks clamped tightly around your hardened nipples squeezing painfully as if trying to break through the sensitive skin. It moves higher to your upper chest, it gets hard to breathe like there's a weight on your chest. It moves up to your shoulders then stops. You hope for it to finally stop it slow accent but it continues down both arms and past elbows to the tips of your nimble figures. On your fingerer tips it's the feeling of needles being stabbed into your skin. After covering your fingers and arms the feeling moves up over your shoulders and neck. Everything becomes slow as it creeps up squeezing the neck so slowly making breathing even harder as it chokes you and moves to under your shaking chin. Pinching its way over and stopping just under a quivering lip but continuing back and up through thick hair and over the top of your head. Surrounding your eyes but stopping over your eye lids it's covering your ears but just the outside. It closes in around your nose stopping under the nose and above the upper lip.
You pray for it to stop their as it just sits on your skin covering you in the intense feeling of circulation being cut off and your entire body falling asleep but your mentally aware of it all and the pain is worse than you've ever felt or could imagine. Tears fill your eyes and you think they are falling down your face but you can't feel them after they leave your eyes. Thinking is it done you wonder if this feeling will last forever and begging that it doesn't get worse, but it does. Without warning the feeling dives into the body at every opening spreading so quickly that it feels like it should rip the body apart. Yet it doesn't it nearly fills the body when a warm safe sensation wraps around your waist. The warmth grows and spreads and the creepy-crawling is chased from the body. .
The warmth grows stronger once the creepy- crawling is gone and the scurrying scraping sound is replaced with soft whispers. The smell of dirt and mold becomes a strawberry patch on warm summer night. The dark becomes a black light of waking from a deep sleep.
The wipers became soft words and the words became comforting sentences calming the memory of the dream away. Eyes opened to see a silky soft golden red and the strawberry patch only became stronger as the sleep faded from Tara's body. Feeling she was safe in Willow's arms Tara snuggled closer wrapping her arms more comfortably around Willow's neck holding her close instead of clinging with a deadly grip.
When Willow felt Tara shift she started to pull away to leave and let Tara have some space. However Tara tightened her grip once again and whispered "Stay?" and when Willow didn't answer she added "Please I know it's strange but please stay with me?"
Willow curled back up to Tara hearing the fear of being alone thick in her voice. Together they relaxed holding each other close Willow whispered "It's ok I'll stay."
