Red
A/N
I've created a web community for people who want to be informed when I update.
As well as announcing when I've updated things I'll also be uploading each new chapter as I write it. And you can post your own fanfic and stuff too!
The URL is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fanficupdates/
Feel free to join. First ten people get chocolate! *lol*
On another note:
Harry: re; the convertible. No coconut for you mister! Good guess though. Read this chapter and find out who it was!
Spuffy: Yay! More reviews! *bounces up and down happily*
Lady Earth Goddess: That would be a scary person to meet down a dark alley… especially if she was on a sugar high. *shudders at the thought* But you've never seen me on a Diet Coke high have you? Now that's something to run from!
Mx: I'm glad you're enjoying the fic. Which words don't work for you? And are funny airs a good or a bad thing?
Talk to you all soon!
Love, Kennie
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Day Three: Dusk
It was dark by the time that anything else significant happened across the street.
This time it was Jean's watch and she was observing the few remaining reporters hurriedly pack their stuff up for the night when two men walked up the path to the Rosenburg residence.
Some of the photographers snapped quick pictures of them before scurrying off to their motel rooms.
Curious as to the men's purpose at the house, Jean tentatively reached out to explore the men's minds, starting with the slightly shorter one that she sensed was in charge.
A split second later she screamed in horror.
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Standing on Buffy's front porch, Angel and Wesley exchanged an uneasy look as one of Buffy's neighbours began to scream. And scream. And scream.
They were just beginning to contemplate leaving and coming back to try again another time when the front door opened.
"Angel!" Dawn exclaimed, surprised to see the vampire standing on her doorstep.
Buffy leapt up from her seat in the living room and went to join Dawn at the door.
"Angel, what are you doing here?" She asked, folding her arms.
Angel shuffled nervously. "We heard about Willow." He explained. "When we couldn't get through on the phone, Cordelia, Wesley and I decided to drive down and find out what really happened."
"Cordelia's here?" Dawn asked, glancing down the road.
"She's at the Crawford Street mansion." Wesley told her. "She didn't get much sleep last night so she's making up for it now."
Angel shot Wesley a grateful look for covering for him. Although it was true that Cordelia was still at the mansion, she wasn't asleep. Instead she was looking after Connor, something that she had protested at great length about; insisting that she wanted to see Willow too.
"Can we come in?" Wesley asked as the neighbour continued to scream.
Buffy nodded and she and Dawn stepped back from the door to allow Angel and Wesley entry into their home.
As the small group settled on the comfy sofas and prepared to discuss the recent days events like civilised beings a furious hammering started on the front door. The group exchanged uneasy glances.
"It's probably just more reporters." Dawn suggested unconvincingly.
Buffy frowned. "Whoever it is, is gonna wish that they'd picked another house." She said grimly, getting up and going to the front door.
She yanked it open savagely, surprising the man who stood there, his hand arrested mid hammer.
"You!" Buffy exclaimed.
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In the meantime, across the road, Jean had finally stopped screaming. Now she lay on her bed, exhausted, as Cyclops gently sponged her brow.
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"Hello Blondie." The man replied in return to Buffy's less-than-civil greeting. He barged past her and into the living room where he turned to face her, paying no attention whatsoever to the other people gathered there.
"What the hell do you want?" Buffy asked him, closing the door behind him and squaring up.
"What, you ain't got no manners?" The man asked her, gesturing to the others in the room. "Aren't you gonna introduce me?"
"Guys, this is Stalker-boy. Stalker-boy these are the people that are going to help me kick your butt." Buffy introduced before getting into a fighting position.
Wesley and Angel stood up; each drawing various weapons from their hiding places in their clothing and also got into fighting positions.
"I'll hold him down, you punch?" Angel asked Buffy.
Buffy tilted her head wryly. "Just like old times." She agreed.
The man in the middle of Buffy's living room shrugged and three metal claws immediately protruded from each of his hands.
Buffy's jaw dropped.
"What did you do to Jean?" The man growled.
"Who?" Buffy asked.
"Jean. One minute she's watchin' this place, the next she's screamin' her head off an I'm willin' t'bet that that's got somethin' t'do with these two." The man said, nodding in Angel and Wesley's directions.
"Us?" Wesley asked.
"You've had people watching me?" Buffy asked at the same time, both disgusted and incredulous.
"I fail to see why you should think that we have something to do with your friend's illness." Wesley continued.
"You really are a stalker!" Buffy also continued.
The man rolled his eyes. "We haven't been watchin' you." He told Buffy. "We've been watchin' the house. Tryin' to find Willow Rosenburg." He turned to Wesley. "Jean's telepathic." He informed him. "She probably tried t'read your minds when you arrived. An one of you did something to her!"
Wesley and Angel glanced at one another, dismayed.
"What kind of demon are you?" Dawn asked quietly from the corner she had retreated to when it looked like a fight was about to erupt.
"Huh?" The man asked.
"Dawn!" Buffy admonished. "You know what a rude question that is to ask!"
"Demon?" The man asked. "I'm a mutant!"
"What do you want with Willow?" Angel asked.
"How 'bout I tell you when you tell me what you did to Jean?" The man said roughly.
"They didn't do anything!" Buffy defended Wesley and Angel.
"That's nice Blondie. Why don't you sit down and be quiet whilst your friends answer?" The man told her.
Buffy's jaw once again dropped, this time in amazement that the man could have the nerve to talk to her like that. Her eyes narrowed and she pulled back and punched him, forgetting the consequences of the last time she had done that. The man's claws retracted and he punched Buffy back.
"I told you once." He said to Buffy, as she lay sprawled on the floor, shocked that anyone could knock her down with only one punch. "I don't wanna fight you. That doesn't mean I won't."
Buffy gingerly picked herself off of the carpet, nursing her jaw. Silently, she sat down on the sofa.
The man turned to Angel "Okay bub, you got five seconds to tell me what you did to Jean or else." He threatened.
"Or else what?" Dawn asked, curious.
The man's claws came out again.
Dawn backed up against the wall.
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Anya looked over at Xander and rolled her eyes. "That's the sixteenth time you've checked your email in the last two hours. Have you entered a competition to win money?"
Xander shook his head, not averting his gaze from the monitor as he scanned the contents of his inbox. "No," he said. "I'm waiting for Will to email me."
Anya frowned. "What if she tries to call?" She asked.
Xander turned the computer off.
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The man was grinning. It wasn't a nice grin. You got the distinct impression that he didn't use it much.
"Let me get this straight." He said. "Vampires are real?" The group nodded. "And the reason Jean couldn't read your mind is that you're a vampire?" The group nodded again. The man's grin grew wider. "Nice try." He told them, before beginning to move purposefully towards Angel, his claws out.
Angel vamped out just as Wesley, Dawn and Buffy jumped on the man to keep him away from Angel. The four of them toppled to the ground, destroying Buffy's new coffee table on the way down.
"You know, for a pacifist, you sure seem to like violence." Buffy told the man conversationally as she pinned him.
Within a matter of minutes, the group had the man trussed up like a chicken, making sure that there was no way that he could use his claws to cut the bonds.
"Now." Angel said, still in game face. "What were you saying about vampires not being real?"
There was another knock at the door. Buffy rolled her eyes and walked out of the room to answer it.
A man and woman, clad all in leather, were stood there. The man was wearing strange sunglasses.
"Is Wolverine here?" The woman asked.
Buffy frowned. "Don't know any Wolverine, sorry." She told them. "I know a Stalker-boy if that's any help?"
"Jean?" The man called from the living room.
The two new strangers brushed past Buffy and into her house. Buffy closed the door and followed them into her living room.
"You know." She announced. "I'm getting really fed up with people doing that."
The new man untied Wolverine as the woman turned to Buffy.
"I'm Jean Grey and this is Cyclops." She told her. "I'm sorry if Wolverine caused any trouble."
Wolverine stood up, rubbing his wrists. "They fed me some cock and bull story about vampires." He growled.
Jean reached out into Buffy's mind. Flashes of Buffy's life drifted past her. "It's true." She told Wolverine.
"Alright. We've answered your questions." Angel told them fiercely. "Now it's time you answered ours. What do you want with Willow?"
The three strangers exchanged a glance and Jean's eyes glazed over slightly before she nodded to the other two.
"We're mutants." Cyclops told them. "We were sent here to find her."
"Why?" Wesley demanded to know. "How could Willow interest you?"
"She's a powerful mutant." Jean explained. "And she killed a lot of men. We were assigned to find her and determine whether or not we should hand her over to the authorities, take her back with us or…"
"Or kill her." Dawn finished for her.
Jean nodded silently.
"Don't be ridiculous." Angel said. "Willow isn't a mutant."
"Uh, actually she is." Buffy told him. "She left us a note."
"When?" Wesley asked.
"When she left." Dawn told him.
"Willow left?" Angel asked, incredulous. "When? Where did she go?"
"She left the night of the attack." Buffy informed him. "She didn't say where she was going, just that she was and that she's a mutant."
"Since when?"
"Since High School." Buffy told the brooding vampire. "Ever since she got locked in the boiler room and the janitor rescued her. She said that you came close to finding out a couple of years ago."
Angel thought back, struggling to remember when he could have come close to figuring out that Willow was a mutant. Suddenly the memory came back stronger than ever. Thanksgiving; two years ago. Willow's eyes had flashed silver. Why? Dimly he remembered that she had been carrying something. It had fallen. What was it? Coffee? Coffee was hot. Why hadn't they been splashed? Had Willow done something to her coffee so that it wouldn't splash them?
"You're not killing Willow." He told the group of mutants. "It wasn't her fault."
"Hang on bub." Wolverine growled. "She killed people."
"They were vampires!" Dawn insisted. "They were going to kill people. Willow stopped them."
The mutants raised their eyebrows, not sure whether or not to believe the others.
"Look." Wesley said, offering them a copy of a newspaper and pointing to a photograph. "The man in the far left. Look at his face."
Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine studied the picture intently. Slowly, Cyclops nodded.
Angel released a breath he hadn't even been aware that he was holding. "What are you going to do?" He asked.
"If you don't mind, we'll hang around for a couple of days. See if she contacts you." Cyclops told him.
"And if she does?" Buffy asked, wondering if she'd have to break out the good weapons.
"Then we'll go after her and offer her a choice. Our help and training so she can learn how to harness her power or we'll just leave her alone."
Buffy nodded. "You can stay." She grudgingly allowed. "But I wouldn't recommend going outside after dark."