Fight Your Own Demon: Part 9
by AKA Becker
The bell woke Xander, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the snooze button.

"Answer the phone, you idiot," was Cordelia’s gentle explanation for the din.

It was then that he realized that it was 1:35 am. He picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Cordy could hear a slightly panicked female voice on the other end, but couldn’t tell who it was.

"Oh, hi, Mrs. Rosenberg. Willow isn’t here, she was with Oz tonight." He replied to the voice.

After a pause he said, "They never came back from there?"

The rest of the conversation sounded like this to Cordelia’s ears. Judging by the tone of his voice and look on his face, she decided now might be a good time to get dressed. "Don’t worry, I’m sure they are fine.....I know it’s a school night.....She’s been taking self defense lessons with Buffy, so that she can handle herself......I trust Oz.....I’ll call Buffy to see if they went over there.....If I hear anything before you do, I’ll call you right away.....Goodnight, Mrs. Rosenberg."

Xander hung up the phone, and tried to think of what to do first.

"What’s wrong?" Cordelia asked.

"Willow and Oz never came back home tonight. I better beep Buffy," Xander said, now with part of a plan in his head. He was certainly no longer tired.

"Good idea," for once she didn’t mind him thinking of Willow and Buffy. She was upset too. "I hope that call didn’t wake up your mom."

"My mom hooked me up with my own line over the summer," he explained as he dialed Buffy’s beeper. "Shocked much? Guess I was on the phone more than I used to be, though."

He entered in his phone number, followed by "911" so that she would know it was an emergency for her to call him. He did turn down the ringer on his phone, after he thought about Cordy’s comment about his mom.

"Do you think Angel got them?" She asked.

"I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about that. I hope not," he said, staring at the phone.

* * *

"Somebody just beeped me," Buffy said from the back seat.

"Oz?!?" Willow pleaded.

"Oh, who?" Giles replied, simultaneously.

She looked at the number, "It’s Xander. He used the emergency code. I have to call him."

The look of hope on Willow’s face retreated back to pain after hearing it wasn’t Oz.

"Hopefully he has some news about Oz," Giles said for Willow’s benefit.

"I hope so," Buffy said. "There’s a payphone over there. Anyone have any change?"

The three of them scraped together some change and she got out to call Xander.

* * *

"Buff, where’s Willow?" Xander spoke into the receiver before the first ring had even finished.

"She’s with me," Buffy answered.

"She’s with Buffy," he told Cordelia. They both let out a sigh of relief together.

"Have you heard from Oz? Who are you talking to?" Buffy asked.

"No, I haven’t heard from him. What’s up?" he asked, avoiding her second question.

"A vampire grabbed him outside the movie theater. We can’t find him," she explained.

He didn’t want to ask, but he had to, "Was it Angel?"

With that question, Cordelia tensed up again.

"No, Willow never saw this one before. He was big. Knocked Oz right out, then he must have carried him away or something," she told him.

"How’s Willow holding up?" he asked.

"She’s been crying all night. We were really hoping you had heard from him," she said wearily.

"No I haven’t. Hold on," he said as a thought came to him, "the theater’s right around the block from here, I can help look for him if you want."

"That would be great, but I don’t want you going out there alone. It’s not safe," she said. Now she was trying not to cry, because she, too, had hoped Xander knew something, because he did only live two blocks from the spot Oz vanished from.

"Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ok. I check around here, you guys go check wherever it is these guys go," he replied. He looked at Cordy and motioned to her that they were about to go out.

"Well, I wish I knew where that was," she said. "Beep me in 30 minutes at the latest. 411 means you have info for us."

"Gotcha. Good luck. Tell Will I’m on the case," he said with half a smile in his voice, if not on his face.

"OK, beep me in 30. Bye," and then the line went dead.

"Well?" Cordy asked.

"Oz got nabbed by some vamp right around the block. They can’t find him, now we’re gonna try," he told her.

"OK," she said. "Why can’t these things happen on a weekend?"

Xander gabbed the bag of stakes and stuff out of the closet, and they quietly sneaked out of the back door.



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