SECOND
CHANCE
NOTE: I own none of the Scooby gang because they belong to mean old Joss.
A/N: I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the reviews that I've gotten so far. I have a plot planned out for this story but if you have any suggestions or requests then I might fill them in.
CHAPTER 14
Dawn walked through the halls of school that morning before the first bell rang. She was a little tired since she hadn't gone back to sleep right away after seeing Angel and meeting his friends. As her head dropped wearily, Dawn felt someone touch her wrist gently. She turned to see Jeff.
"Hi," Dawn smiled brightly.
"Hi," Jeff returned the smile.
Dawn pushed her brown hair behind her ear, blushing a little. "So what's up?"
"Have you seen my sister?" Jeff asked, going to a serious expression. "She didn't come home last night and, you know, it's kind of my job to be freaked out I guess."
Dawn nodded. "She's at my house. She needed to clear her head a little."
"Oh. Well, she didn't miss anything," Jeff shrugged. "Just our parents arguing, not even over her."
"Well, I... I'm sorry about that," Dawn faltered a little. "That must be tough."
"You learn to live with it." Jeff looked Dawn over, a playful boyish smile on his face.
Dawn reddened a little at him looking at her. "What are you doing?"
"You know... just enjoying the scenery," Jeff replied coolly.
Dawn was caught off guard by that and stared at him. She was about to say something until a British voice interrupted her.
"Hello, Dawn, Jeff," Maggie greeted.
Jeff glanced at the blonde. "Hey."
Dawn turned to her. "Hi, Maggie." Dawn's eyes grew a little when she saw the white bandage taped under Maggie's eye, clearly a bruise left over from their little patrolling night. "Are you OK?"
"Oh, I'm fine," Maggie assured her. "Nothing starburst won't fix." She turned to Jeff. "Where's Autumn? I tried calling her but my blasted uncle wouldn't let me use the phone."
Jeff pointed at Dawn. "At her house."
"She just needed some time to think," Dawn told Maggie.
Maggie nodded and Dawn and Jeff went back to beaming at each other.
Autumn rested in Dawn's bed late that morning, also wearing a pair of jeans and a long sleeved blouse of hers. Autumn had barely gotten any sleep earlier and was enjoying the moment of peace. The private tranquility ended when Autumn heard what sounded like thumping coming back and forth pass Dawn's door. She slowly crawled out of the bed and saw Connor purposely pacing back and forth and knocked on the wall as he went. He turned to her with a smirk.
Autumn glared and crossed her arms. "What are you doing?"
Connor smiled teasingly. "Thought you could use a wake up call is all."
"That wasn't funny," Autumn snapped firmly. "I'm trying to get some sleep in. Do you mind?"
"Obviously I do," Connor replied coolly.
The girl's glare grew. Jeff, why couldn't he be there? Older brothers were supposed to be here so they could protect their poor defenseless little sisters from strong, horrid boys like Connor. Never mind the fact she was neither poor, nor defenseless and that Connor wasn't strong. Horrid yes, strong no.
Autumn smiled sweetly. "Connor, honey, with all due respect..." her voice turned harsh. "Why don't you get out of my face, crawl back into whatever filthy corpse you rotted out from under, and never come out!" She went back into the room and slammed the door.
Connor flinched a little. She was as sizzling as her hair.
"Connor!" Connor approached the stairs and saw Angel. "What's going on?"
Connor shrugged his shoulders. "She's in a mood." He went down the stairs, pass Angel.
Later that after at school Dawn was in the girls' bathroom, looking into a mirror after washing her hands. As she bounced her long hair she thought she saw what looked like someone in the mirror. Dawn looked catching an odd glimpse of what looked like a bloody skeleton. Dawn gasped and quickly spun around. Nothing was there, just the empty bathroom. She sighed with relief and shrugged it off as her being paranoid.
Dawn exited the bathroom and headed off down the hall. Footsteps seem to follow her and her head slowly turned back. The back of the hallway was deserted. When Dawn looked in front of her again she shrieked loudly seeing someone but it turned out to be Jeff.
"Shush," Jeff hushed her. "What's wrong?"
Dawn sighed. "You scared me."
"I can see that," said Jeff. "Why are you so freaked out?"
"It's nothing. I was just in the bathroom and—" Dawn became muzzled as a blood covered hand grabbed her mouth.
Jeff screeched out in fear when he saw some type of gigantic, bloodied creature holding onto her.
Dawn screamed muffled as she was dragged off down the hall.
"Dawn!" Jeff shouted, racing after her. The creature quickly turned a corner. When Jeff got there he saw nothing, no monster, but most of all no Dawn. She was gone.
Jeff frantically began looking into classroom windows, up and down the hall. He finally spotted Maggie in one of them with the door opened. Maggie, glancing towards the door, noticed him.
"What are you doing?" Maggie mouthed.
"Come with me," Jeff mouthed back.
Maggie had to think of what to do and decided to raise her hand. The teacher called on her. "May I have the bathroom pass, please?" The teacher just nodded, gave her the pass, and Maggie scooted out of the room. "What's going on here?" she asked Jeff.
"You have to come with me, now. It's important."
Maggie shook her head slowly. "Are you bloody mad? I can't just leave in the middle of class—"
"Dawn's been taken," Jeff cut her off firmly. Maggie looked at him strangely. "You know how to get to her sister's house. Come on."
Maggie fidgeted a little then followed Jeff out to the car he always used to drop off he and Autumn. The British girl climbed into the front seat and Jeff started to drive before she could even touch the seatbelt. Jeff, thanks to directions from Maggie, pulled up in front of the Summers household. Maggie nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Giles answer the door.
"What are you doing here?" the English people asked each other simultaneously.
Giles pulled Maggie into the house. Jeff followed. "What do you think you're doing?" Giles hissed at his niece. He glanced at his watch. "The last time I checked you had another hour before school ended."
"I know," Maggie hissed back. "But something came up. I had to leave."
Giles groaned angrily. "What could have possibly—?""Dawn got kidnapped," Jeff interrupted for the second time that day.
Giles slowly took off his glasses, a form of disbelief crossed his face. "What?"
"Jeff says she was taken, Uncle Rupert," Maggie clarified. "We have to do something. Where's..." Maggie trailed off as Angel walked up. "... Buffy." She smiled bashfully at the tall vampire. "Hello."
"Hi," Angel greeted the girl absent-mindedly. "What's going on?"
"Buffy's sister has been kidnapped," Giles informed him.
"Well, where's Buffy?" Jeff asked.
"Not here," Giles replied. "That's why I'm here. She asked me to hold things down for her."
"Well, Uncle Rupert..." Maggie kept her eyes focused on Angel. "What do we do exactly?"
"We have to contact Buffy at the pool hall," Angel chimed in.
At the aforementioned pool hall Buffy nudged her pool stick against the balls on a table and they went flying into different holes. Willow and Xander stood nearby, Xander with a plat of French-fries in his hand.
"Nice one, Buffy," Willow commented.
"Thanks." Buffy turned to the witch. "This is fun. I needed to get a way for a while."
"Away from dead boy you mean," Xander commented, absorbed in his fries.
"No," Buffy told him matter-of-factly. "Honestly seeing Angel isn't so bad."
"I get what you mean," said Willow, positioning to take her turn at pool. "It's like digging a whole and then getting a visit from a really big shovel." Buffy and Xander stared at her strangely. "Um, I make up theories."
"Well, yeah." Buffy looked at Xander. "What she said."
Willow aimed her pool stick at the black eight ball. As soon as she hit it the ball split in two, equal halves, going into a hole on each side of the table. Willow looked at her stick and the pool table strangely.
"Um, I got two in one?" she told her friends.
"Two in one?" Buffy questioned puzzled.
"Weird," Xander said.
"I know," Willow agreed. "Something must be up with these balls."
"No, I mean this." Willow and Buffy turned to him. He held up a pair of French fries that seemed to be joined together. "Double jointed fry. Now that's cool."
Buffy rolled her eyes. He seemed to get entertained so easily. The slayer's cell phone went off then and she reached to the back of her belt and grabbed it.
"Hello?" Buffy greeted into the phone. "Oh, hey, Giles." Buffy's eyes widened. "Dawn what?"
A/N: I would like to thank my good buddy, Pyro Bear, for helping me with this story and I suggest to you that you look at her work, which is awesome. *Waves with a smile* Thanks, Pyro. Please review.