After one ear-splitting scream, Emma yelled, “Anybody out there?”  She knew it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but anything was better than sitting here waiting to be part of the big hellmouth smorgasbord.

 

Emma heard footsteps stomp toward the door.  She unconsciously pushed against the wall, as though it could some how absorb her and get her out of this mess. 

 

“Shut up, girlie,” a bored voice said from outside the closet door.

 

“Yeah, shut up.  If you don’t quit screeching I’ll come in there and shut you up,” said another voice, farther from the door than the first one was.  Great, there were two of them, and neither sounded like they were going to be of any help.

 

Still, she felt better.  There was something to be said for that entire scream therapy thing her shrink had told her about once upon a time.  But at least Emma knew she wasn’t alone in this dark and cold place.  The big question here was why they weren’t coming in to shut her up.  Emma took that as a bad sign.

 

She scooted to the door and tried to make out the murmurings of the two guys on the other side.  Were there only two? 

 

“I don’t have any sixes.  I already told you that.  Go, fish.”

 

You have got to be kidding!  Emma moved back against the wall.  Her life was in mortal danger and the two numb nuts that were guarding her were playing cards.  She refused to think that ‘Go, Fish’ could eventually be the death of her.

 

Emma sighed and looked around, her gaze settling on the wire hangers above her head.  If she could somehow get her bound hands on one of them, she might be able to use it for a weapon or at least to help free her hands and legs.  Couldn’t she?  Emma knew that whatever she did would have to be done quietly.  Her stomach had finally started to settle down and she wasn’t ready for another bout with the chloroform.

 

Using her legs, Emma pushed herself back until she was against the wall again.  She knew she could stay on her butt and kick hard enough to bust down the door, card-playing uglies or not, but she wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.  First, she needed to get her arms and legs free.

 

Emma scooted her legs beneath her and rocked back and forth to get momentum. She shimmied up the wall, not stopping until she was upright.  Her feet stung, tingling as the numbness wore off, but she felt less helpless now that she was standing

 

XXXXX

 

Faith thought she heard a yell.  She decided it was wishful thinking that made her hear Emma calling out.  She waited to see if she heard it again.  Nothing.  But what if it wasn’t her imagination?  What if it really had been Emma crying out for help?

 

Faith turned toward the shout and ran.

 

XXXXX

 

“She wasn’t that far ahead of us,” Buffy said out of pure aggravation.  “Why haven’t we found her yet?”

 

“She probably went the other way,” Spike said, standing next to her, sounding as frustrated as Buffy felt. 

 

“Then we go the other way,” Buffy said, stopping suddenly and throwing him a look over her shoulder.  “How come you can’t tell where she is?  You’re usually pretty good at the sniffy thing.”

 

“I can’t distinguish between when you were here before and now.  And there are too many other smells getting in the way,” he said, sounding disgusted.

 

Buffy was about to ask him about the nature of the other smells, but he could still read her.  “Don’t ask,” he said.  “You don’t want to know.”

 

“You’re right.”  Buffy shook her head.  “I don’t want to know.”  They began walking and Buffy stopped at a door.  “I remember this room,” she said, opening the door slowly.  “Faith said it reminded her of The Shining.  If she saw it now, she would be even more freaked out.”  Buffy shivered and Spike placed his hand on her shoulder, letting her know he knew she was wigged.

 

“Faith got freaked out?” he asked, removing his hand and taking a step back.  “I can’t see her freaking out over some old room.”

 

“She didn’t really freak out.  It was creepy during the day.  Now it’s dark and she’s alone.”

 

“Yeah,” Spike said. “Let’s go find her and the girl so we can get the hell out of here.”

 

XXXXX

 

“They have been gone over an hour and Emma’s been gone even longer.  We’re not just going to stay here and wait for them to bring her back,” Dawn announced, her patience pretty much at the end.  “There are only three of them, okay four once they find Emma, but still, there are probably way more bad guys.”

 

“And there are four of us,” Xander reminded her.  “Doesn’t increase our odds all that much.”

 

“Dawn,” Giles cautioned, “we know you want to help, but if we go running off with no plan, we will not be helping anyone.  And if I might add, when did you start acting so much like Buffy?”

 

“Who needs a plan?  We have a powerful witch on our side!” she continued, ignoring Giles’ comment.  No one was going to talk her out of this.  No one.

 

“Whoa!  Wait a second,” Willow said.  “I just can’t whip up something this big lickity-split.  That would fall under ‘not having a plan’ and too much bad could happen.  Small stuff, I can do, we just need to figure out what would work best.”

 

“Andrew said there are only four or five vampires.  We can handle four or five of them and some virgin-loving-demon-jerk without magic,” Dawn insisted.

 

“Dawn…” Giles began.

 

“We?” Andrew said.  “Um, who exactly would ‘we’ be?  Because the freezer could use a serious defrosting.”

 

Giles glared at him.  “Andrew, if you don’t mind, and please stop interrupting.  If we had additional slayers here, I would agree that we should go, but with our limited abilities--I don’t want us to become a hindrance.  Our entire plan cannot be based on magic alone.”

 

“Giles,” Dawn said.  “You already have three slayers and a vampire at the ballpark.  And everybody here has been through at least one apocalypse.  We’ll be fine, with or without magical help.”

 

“Willow,” Xander asked, “can’t you do some type of spell to find out just how many of our un-dead pals are hanging at the stadium?  That could be someplace to start.”

 

“Anya and I tried that once before,” Willow said.  “Do you know how many demons are over a hellmouth?  I set her carpet on fire, there were so many.”

 

“If I could make a suggestion…” Andrew began.

 

“Andrew, we don’t have time for…” Xander interrupted him, but Dawn didn’t let him finish.

 

“Xander, let him talk,” she demanded.

 

Andrew kicked at an invisible rock on the living room floor.  “Our most-powerful witch, Willow, may not have time to come up with a big spell, but I believe she could come up with a smaller one that could help us--one that we would not need to rely on completely.”

 

“I’m listening,” Willow said.  She leaned forward tucking her hair behind her ear.

 

Andrew’s confidence grew.  He began pacing and talking faster.  “I believe our problem is two-fold,” he said and held up his index finger.  “One.  We don’t know how many baddies are waiting for us at the stadium.  And two,” he added another finger.  “How certain are we that we would not be walking into a trap if even one foot is stepped out of this house?  Our young slayer is not the only virgin in our midst.”  He glanced at Dawn and arched an eyebrow.  “Our supreme witch, Willow, has placed a protection spell over this house; maybe they’re outside waiting for us as we debate our plan.”

 

“If I live through this, I’m so doing something about this virginity issue,” Dawn muttered.

 

“Bite your tongue!” Xander said.  “Uncle Xander can’t handle it when cute little Dawn talks like that.”

 

“Uncle Xander?”  Dawn rolled her eyes.  “Like you’re that much older than I am.  And what’s with the third-person speak?”

 

“I can cloak us,” Willow said, ignoring the exchange between Xander and Dawn.  “I could do that.  Not all of us, though.  I would need to stay here, but a couple of you could sneak out.  If we are being watched, I don’t think they’d notice you being gone.”

 

“It’s dark.  The lights are on.  We’ve been moving around.  If that stops all of a sudden, they’ll know we’re not here anymore,” Xander said.  “It’s not like we’d just turn the lights off and go to bed with them not being home yet.”

 

“I could be mistaken, but I believe in one of the Home Alone movies, our little Macaulay Culkin ran into the same problem.  Actually, I believe it was the first one, which if you ask me, was the best,” Andrew said.  “Young Master Culkin gave the illusion of people being home, when if fact, he was alone.”  He met each of their gazes.  “‘Home Alone’ and he, um, made the bad guys think there were a lot of people around when there really weren’t.”

 

“God!”  Dawn shouted.  “If Willow can do cloaking spells and teleportation spells and detection spells, why are we even standing around here talking about this?  She can send Xander and me.  Giles and Andrew can stay here looking all busy-like so it looks like no one has left and Willow can do what she needs to do from here.  Once we’re gone, we’ll be on our own and we won’t be relying on magic entirely.  We’ll be relying on ourselves.  Why is everyone making this so difficult?”

 

Silence hung in the air.  They just looked at Dawn, their expressions baffled.  Good!  That got their attention, she thought.

 

“Super-witch is starting to get a little stressed out, already,” Willow stammered.  “Cloaking and detection spells, usually no big.  But teleportation?  I only did that once and it took dark magic.  I can’t do it again.”

 

“Yes, you can,” Giles said quietly.

 

“What?”

 

“You can.  True, it will take a lot of energy, most likely all of your energy and it will take some time for you to fully recuperate, but you do have the ability--if you focus without any distractions.  I can help you,” he said.

 

Dawn smiled.  “That’s more like it.”

 

“Willow,” Giles said.  “Come with me, I have what we will need.”

 

“I’m coming, too!” Andrew exclaimed as he followed Giles and Willow out of the room.

 

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Xander asked, running his fingers through his hair.  “And why are you so gung-ho about running off into God knows what?”

 

“Don’t you ever get sick of being the one left behind?  Everyone rushes out to save the day and you know you can help, but they never let you.  I’m sick of it.  If I can help, I will help.  With or without their blessing,” Dawn said.

 

“Giles was right.”

 

“About what?”

 

“You did turn into Buffy.”

 

XXXXX

 

“Okay.  That was… interesting,” Xander said, trying to maintain his balance.

 

“No kidding.”  Dawn agreed.  “I feel all funny on the inside,” she said, placing her hand on her stomach.

 

“I still don’t know why I had to come,” Andrew whined, getting up from off the floor.  “Why would I be a distraction?  Besides, I feel all weird and I think I may have landed in something sticky.”  He reached behind himself to check.  “Eww, I did.  There’s something all over my pants.” He sighed.  “And now it’s all over my hand.”

 

“If you hadn’t fallen down, that wouldn’t be an issue, now would it?” Dawn asked, looking around.  “This place is too big.”

 

Xander took out a penlight and blueprints of the stadium.  “Here, hold this,” he said, handing the paper to Dawn. 

 

Dawn watched as Xander followed the path that Willow had laid out for them--demons, hard to narrow down over a hellmouth due to their numbers.  Three slayers?  Not so much.

 

“They’re spread out all over the place.  These two,” he said, indicating two red spots, “keep moving.  That must be Buffy and Faith.”  Xander looked at Dawn.  “And I’m not even going to ask why they’re separated.”  He glanced back down, his light resting on one tiny red dot.  “This one hasn’t moved.”

 

“Emma,” Dawn said.

 

“Emma,” Xander agreed.

 

“Someone needs to help me get this off my pants,” Andrew demanded.  “I can’t focus.”

 

“So what else is new?” Xander asked.

 

“Turn around,” Dawn said, walking over to him.  She shined her flashlight on the back of his pants.  “It’s something slimy,” she said, reaching out and touching it lightly, pulling her hand back almost immediately, “and old and really gross.  But there’s nothing you can do about it right now, so get over it.  Where’s your flashlight?”

 

“A funny thing happened…” he began.

 

“You broke it,” Dawn said.

 

“You forgot it,” Xander chorused at the same time.

 

“No, you two think-you-know-everything’s,” Andrew said, crossing his arms over his chest.  “I didn’t break it or forget it.  I lost it.  That’s different.”

 

Dawn shook her head.  Who thought it would be a good idea to bring Andrew along?

 

“Let’s go,” she said, as the three of them entered the shadows of the old ball park.  None of them noticed the form that began to take shape out of the slime Andrew had fallen into.

 

XXXXX