DISCLAIMER: Listen up and Listen good, because I'm only saying this once! OC stuff, not mine. Buffy stuff, not mine.
SUMMARY: the OC/BtVS. Faith was taken from her family when she was ten. Now the Watchers Council is gone she's free to go back, but it's not that easy when over ten years have past and nothing's the same as when you left.
RATING: PG-13 for language.
TIMELINE: Faith is aged 21 in this fic. That makes her 16 when she first arrived in Sunnydale (around the same age Buffy was when she was called). She was 10 when she was taken from her family, so they've been without her for about eleven years. Takes place after 'the Blaze of Glory' for the OC and goes AU (alternate universe) i.e. Trey will not show up. At least not for now, but I may change my mind later.
A/N: Thanks for the plot bunnies! A couple of them will come into play in the next couple of chapters…
Distant Elephants by Kiara
12- AND THEY LIVED
"Gone? What do you mean, they're gone? Gone where?" Buffy said, a familiar panic settling in her stomach.
"Mom phoned. She called them in for dinner but there must have been some vamps waiting or something. Dawn, she tried to fight but… They took them, Buffy." Faith explained. She'd gone worryingly pale and looked scared as she spoke to Buffy.
Buffy took a few calming breaths. So Dawn was in trouble. She'd worm her way out of it, she always did. She'd be fine. They all would. "They'll be fine, Faith. Dawn's with them, and she's practically an expert at being kidnapped. And they want you to go and find them- they won't risk harming them until you show up. All we have to do is find them."
"And how are we going to do that?"
"I'll call Willow. She must have something of Dawn's that she can base a locator spell around. Let's head back to your parents house. They'll be worried, and wherever they've taken them shouldn't be too far from there." Buffy said, finding it easier to cope if she focused on someone else's worry instead of her own fears for her little sister. Dawn was tough, she'll be fine… probably.
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"Hey, hey, hey- watch the hands." Dawn protested as she was unceremoniously thrown on the cold floor in what could only be described as a cell in one of Newport's houses. They'd been dragged into the basement and down a flight of stairs behind a thick locked door into a totally dark, empty room.
Summer watched the vampires ignore them and walk back up the stairs that they had just dragged their hostages down. They closed and locked the door at the top of the stairs, shutting out the only source of light to the room. "They're going to kill us."
"No, they're not." Dawn said firmly, getting up and feeling about the cell for anything that could aid them in any way.
"How do you know that? They're evil!"
"Even vampires are smart enough not to kill the bait." Dawn said, not looking at them from where she was examining their surroundings. "Trust me; this kind of happens a lot."
"Maybe to you. " Ryan muttered from where he was sitting, one arm draped around Marissa's shoulders.
"Yeah, this is kind of a new experience to us." Marissa said, her voice shaking.
"This is not how I pictured my death." Summer groaned.
"You picture your death?" Seth asked, attempting at normalcy. "What does it look like?"
"Well for one thing it's not on a stone floor." She snapped.
"We're not going to die here." Seth said quietly.
"He's right." Marissa said, trying to be optimistic. "There must be a way out somewhere…"
"If there is, then I can't find it." Dawn said sitting back down with the group.
"Then I guess we wait." Ryan said, unconsciously pulling Marissa tighter to him.
"To die?"
"Summer, we're not going to die." Seth snapped, stunning her into silence. "Faith will come for us. I know she will."
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Kirsten and Sandy looked up from where they had been nervously sitting as they heard footsteps running up the driveway. Sandy jumped up to answer the door, arriving just as the visitors pressed the doorbell. A breathless Faith entered the hall, immediately followed by Buffy. Faith immediately gasped out, demanding information; waving off the concerns as to if she was okay.
As the two younger slayers ran up, noticeably more worn out than either Buffy or Faith, the Cohen's attention was drawn to the doorway, in particular to the man they hadn't seen before hovering just outside it.
"Hi." He said uncomfortably when he realised the attention.
Buffy rolled her eyes. You'd think that after over two hundred years of living he would have lost some of the awkwardness but nooo…
"Mom, Dad; this is Angel. He needs an invite to come in." Faith explained.
"Oh, of course!" Kirsten said, obviously flustered. "I'm so sorry, so much has happened in the last hour that I just-"
Sandy put a hand on his wife's shoulder and she immediately stopped. "Come in."
Angel didn't flinch at the slightly frosty reception. It had taken Xander years to lose that edge to his voice and the Cohen's sons had been kidnapped by vampires. It was perfectly understandable and he was well used to it by now. The reassuring smile Faith sent him banished all doubts of his acceptance from the group from his mind.
Any explanations were halted by an obviously exhausted Xander flopping into the room.
"I'm…okay…" He panted, all evidence to the contrary.
"A little out of breath there, Xand?"
"Can't…all have…superpowers." He gasped indignantly.
Kirsten smiled slightly, glad for the brief humour in the serious moment. Now they were there, she was already feeling better about the situation. Faith would know what to do.
"Xander, would you like some water? Anyone?" She looked around and received a series of nods from the slayers, she tensed when she came to Angel. "I, uh, I'm not sure I have anything that you'll like." She said delicately. "I didn't know…or where to…"
"It's okay, Mrs Cohen, thank you." He murmured quietly and she nodded relieved and turned into the kitchen.
Everyone followed her in and explanations were given. Buffy groaned when she heard how Dawn had stepped outside the pool house into the garden to be snatched by the vampires. Would she never learn? She looked over to see how Faith was coping with the news that her brother had been kidnapped- she hadn't had nearly as much practice as Buffy had and Seth wasn't really experienced with the supernatural world. She heard Xander calling her name.
"Huh? What?"
"I said we should call Willow and get her to do a locator spell." Xander repeated slowly.
"Oh yeah, good idea. We'll do that. Be right back." They went into the living room to call for help.
Faith was worried, she was pacing the Cohen's kitchen frantically. "I'm so sorry."
"Why are you apologising? You didn't take them."
"This is all my fault. If I hadn't have come here, then none of this would have happened. The vampires wouldn't have detected a slayer and they would have no reason to come to Orange County."
Kirsten grabbed her arm to stop her pacing. "You never apologise for coming back to us. Never."
There was a long pause as everyone became lost in their thoughts, thinking things that they were to scared to say aloud.
"Should we call Summer and Marissa's parents?" Sandy asked eventually.
"I wouldn't." Shannon said when Faith didn't volunteer an answer. "They'll be home safely soon enough, no need to worry them."
"Yeah. The other week when Dawn got kidnapped with a couple of her friends, Buffy didn't call their parents. Try not to worry; Dawn's even had some training in fighting vampires and stuff." Vi offered in what she hoped was a reassuring tone.
"I'd want to know when my kid's in danger. I think we should tell them." Sandy said.
"Do you think they'd believe you?" Shannon asked pointedly. "Only a handful of people know the truth, even the people who get captured sometimes don't believe us and they've seen it with their own eyes."
"I guess not." Sandy sighed, one arm going around his wife's shoulder. "So we wait."
"Not for much longer." Xander said coming back into the room. He and Buffy had been on the phone to Willow to see about getting a location spell done.
"Willow will call us back in a couple of minutes with the location. We'll bring them home safe." Buffy promised the worried parents.
It was barely two minutes later when Willow called Buffy back, but in that time Faith resumed pacing, Kirsten checked her watch every ten seconds and Sandy sat down and then got up again seven times.
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Meanwhile, in a dark, dank basement…
Silence had long since settled over the teens. Save for the occasional thud as Dawn banged her head against the wall, marvelling at her own stupidity. How many times had she been told to wait inside? How many times had she been kidnapped by something waiting just outside the house? And yet, barely half-an-hour after promising Faith that she wouldn't do anything stupid and get her new brothers kidnapped, what does she do?
"Stupid." She muttered, banging her had again.
Ryan was dimly aware of Dawn's muttering, but paid little attention he had too many of his own thoughts to contend with, not all of them about their current predicament, although it had fazed him when he'd given one of the vampires a punch easily hard enough to break their nose and he didn't even flinch- that definitely didn't bode well for any of the escape plans he had yet to think of.
Marissa shivered and he instinctively pulled her closer to him. As she leant back further into his arms, Ryan rested his chin on her head. This was the main problem.
He wasn't stupid, he knew that he and Marissa were well on their way to getting back together and he was fairly sure that she knew as well. Seth and Summer most certainly did, given their constant comments, and even Faith's friend Xander had picked up on it in the few days he'd known them. That didn't make it any easier. They'd had one of those long, drawn out break-ups, had they ever officially broken up? He'd moved back to Chino to be with Theresa, and then there was DJ… and Alex and Lindsay. Except for that (awkward) time at the mall, they hadn't been alone since…it couldn't really be Caleb's wedding, could it?
He tried to stop thinking, now was not the time to be obsessing over his (very complicated) love life, or lack of. He should be trying to get out of this situation… even though he knew it to be useless. They just had to wait to be rescued.
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As Willow put down the phone, she sighed and shook her head. Would that girl ever learn? "Giles! Dawnie's been kidnapped again!"
Sigh, groan. "Again?"
"Yep. I told you it was a good idea to fit her with that magical tracker. It'll save me a fortune on location spell materials."
"You were right." Giles conceded. "Silly me, I hoped that Dawn would be a little more careful after being dangled over a pit of fire last week. I should have known better."
Willow shrugged. "It's Dawn. She can be as careful as… I don't know, a nun? Nuns are careful, right? Anyway, she could be really careful and still get kidnapped."
"I know. Let's get the map and find her then. The sooner she's home safely, the sooner Buffy can keep her there for the next two weeks."
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How is it that even when you've been kidnapped by creatures that by all logical reasoning shouldn't exist, things can still make perfect sense?
Marissa took another shuddering breath. Whenever her thoughts drifted back to her current situation, she couldn't help but think that it wasn't going to end well. However more often she found herself thinking about Ryan. He'd always protected her and she knew he would now as well. No matter what, he'd always be there for her.
"Ryan?" She whispered pointlessly, everyone was too preoccupied with their own thoughts to pay any attention to them.
He shifted in the darkness so he was looking at her. Or so he thought he was at least. "Yeah?"
"Are we gonna be okay?"
"Sure." He said after a pause.
Marissa caught the nervous lilt in his voice and bit her lip in worry. Ryan was the one who always managed to fight his way out of anything.
"Hey," he said softly, sensing her worry. "I won't let them hurt you."
He spoke with such sincerity that she believed him, despite the situation.
Across the room, Seth listened to the exchange and smiled. Yep, well on their way to being fantastic again. Ryan and Marissa were talking again, his sister was back, he was starting to get used to the dark and Summer had stopped crying. Now if only they could get out of this pesky basement then they could get back to normal.
Seth wasn't worried. Well, not really. Although she'd only been back in his life for a few days, he had complete faith (no pun intended) in his sister. He knew that she'd be out looking for him and she'd find them. They'd all get through it in one piece. He just knew it.
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Everyone stopped and looked at Buffy as she answered her mobile phone. And waited with bated breath as she snapped it shut with a click.
"Okay, we have a location. Not too far from here, we can walk it. Vi, Shannon; grab your weapons."
Faith picked up her own sword. "Lets motor."
Xander offered the Cohen's a slight smile as he pulled a bag onto his shoulder. "We'll be back soon."
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Next Chapter: Operation Kick Ass