Chapter Sixteen
The first hour passed without incident. While Sam very definitely was one to keep his cool even in the most extenuating circumstances, he did have a habit of sulking away from others when his temper wasn’t at its best. Thus, the irritability of both Josh and Toby combined with the stress embedded naturally in such helpless situations was immediately placed at the fault of his disappearance.
Besides, he had an inherent interest in history. Now that their time in Natchez was running out and he had the means to do so, he was likely enjoying the roundabout tour and ingesting everything he could.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Josh said, peering over Donna’s shoulder before she thwapped him away. “We were only going to be gone for four days, and yet you manage to pack your entire wardrobe in two very small suitcases and a handbag.”
“Feminine ingenuity,” she replied with a shrug. “It’s hardly my entire wardrobe. Besides, a girl can never be too careful. I might’ve met Mr. Right, become an heiress, and left you.”
“You would never.”
“Leave you?”
“Become an heiress. You don’t have that kind of luck.”
“You’re a mean man. You know this, right?”
“Besides, as insane as they may be, I’m pretty sure our housemates are not republicans or your ex-boyfriend, and therefore wouldn’t hold your interest.” Josh sighed and ignored her affronted look, sliding a piece of paper from the nightstand with interest. “What’s this?”
“Message from Leo.”
“When did you get this?”
“He called your cell when you were outside not-fixing the car.” She shrugged, folding another t-shirt and returning his favor of willful disregard.
“And you were planning on telling me…?”
She looked up. “Josh, Leo called. He wants you to look into a thing when you get back.”
“Sometimes there is just no good reason not to fire you.”
“I hope you remember saying that when I leave you to become an heiress.”
“Never gonna happen.”
“Why not?”
Josh quirked a brow. “Because I say so. Why can’t you tell me when people call?”
“You can’t do anything about it now. He just wanted you to know that it would be a thing.” Donna shrugged. “I didn’t want you to start complaining about something until the absolute minute that you needed to.”
He scowled and held out the message. “Why would I complain about this?”
“Because I know you, and you will.”
“It just happens to be a bad assignment.”
“And hence the complaining.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m making a very valid observation.” Josh sighed and turned his eyes back to the sheet. “I swear, I get handed 197, stuck in Hicksville USA, and now Leo wants me to—”
“Well, when you get through not-complaining, I’ll be downstairs trying to become an heiress.”
He smiled dryly. “By means that are almost positively self-depreciating.”
“I’m going to leave you, you know.”
“Yes, and become an heiress.”
“There happen to be three very eligible British men staying in this house.” Donna quirked her head as he shot her a mildly amused look. “I’ll have you know that Wesley finds me very charming.”
“Great. You’ve charmed a ringleader in the freak show brigade. I’d be impressed, too.”
Her face fell. “Leaving you.”
“Never happen,” he replied loudly, eyes scanning the message once more as the door shut determinedly behind her.
But that had been the first hour. Just the first. The next few ticked by sluggishly with no result. And when Giles came inside inquiring after Buffy and Spike’s whereabouts, Donna began to panic.
A lot.
Donna was panicking, and it took everything that Josh and Toby had from refraining to express their similar concern. It was not in Sam’s nature to randomly disappear for hours on end. He was likely the only male on the President’s senior staff that did not presently nor previously make a habit of going out for the purpose of getting drunk. And while his fascination with history was fervent, it was very unlike him to stay out as late as it was in a strange town with nothing but local interest to keep him occupied.
Something was wrong.
“We should go look,” Donna insisted. “We need to go looking for him. Mr. Giles has a Winnebago—”
“Buffy and Spike have the Winnebago,” Xander said softly.
“And no one bothered to ask them where they were going?” Josh demanded, pacing the room. Both parties had decided tacitly to confer in the parlor of the main house, as it was the only place large enough to accommodate them. “You just handed them the keys and—”
“They’re trying to find Faith,” Anya replied.
“Well, you’ve been trying for three days now,” Toby snapped. “I’m thinking the girl doesn’t wanna be found.”
“All the more reason to find her,” Giles retorted, removing his glasses. “But that is not the point. Buffy and Spike’s absence is conspicuous at best, but hardly timely.”
“Conspicuous, yeh,” Josh snorted.
“You really don’t wanna go there,” Xander advised. “Really.”
“I don’t think I need any directions on where I do and don’t wanna go, thank you.”
Donna sighed. “Josh…”
Willow had remained silent for the entirety of the impromptu gathering, her eyes glued to the carpet. When it became apparent, however, that they were headed into an all-out screaming match, she knew that staying silent was no longer an option and cleared her throat for the floor. “I can’t speak for Buffy and Spike,” she said, flushing at the feel of everyone’s eyes on her. “Buffy’s been acting really strange lately…and she does have a habit of disappearing for hours at a time because of…well…stuff. But I…I think Sam’s gone because of me.”
That revelation effectively stunned the room.
“Because of you?” Josh repeated, brows arched.
Donna wasn’t so fast to brush the notion off. She neared the redhead tentatively, eyes filling with compassion. “Why would Sam leave because of you, Willow?”
“Yes,” Toby mumbled from his position against the wall. “Please follow that through with logic.”
Xander and Giles shot her identical looks of warning, but she ignored them. “Sam…he walked in…I was in the kitchen and he walked in…we…” She licked her lips and swallowed hard. “There were words. I think I upset him. He saw something he wasn’t ready to see.”
Josh perked a brow. “You do understand that Sam’s boyish innocence doesn’t mean he’s never been with a woman before, right?”
Donna scowled at him. Willow’s flush deepened.
“I wasn’t suggesting that he…that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Thank God,” Toby said.
“Sam wouldn’t run off like this because of anything you did,” Josh said. “And if you think he’s the kind of guy that would, well, that just proves that you don’t know him all that well.”
Wesley frowned, speaking up for the first time when he spotted an open window. “Willow was not implying anything of the sort.”
“Well, yes she was. And even if she wasn’t, I’m a politician. Trust me, I have the art of saying things while meaning another down pat.”
“Where would Buffy and Spike go?” Donna asked.
Xander shrugged. “Normal hits, I guess. The cemeteries, the—”
“The what?” Toby retorted, eyes wide.
“Oh God.”
Josh stepped forward. “The cemeteries?”
“Faith hunts in cemeteries,” Anya said, unblinking.
The Scoobies stopped unanimously and just looked at her.
“Is Faith a person or a dog?” the Communications Director asked.
There was a pause. “Well…” Xander replied, shrugging. “I can see why one would make that assumption.”
“We can’t just sit here,” Donna said. “We have to find Sam.”
“How?” Josh snapped. “We have no wheels, it’s storming, and we’re in a strange town. How do you wanna do it, ‘cause I’m open to suggestions here.”
There was another pause. The Scoobies stopped and glanced at the Witch.
“Willow…” Giles said after a moment. “Perhaps in light of the current circumstances, you would like to—”
She had jumped to her feet the next minute, nodding her accord. “Yes. Yes.” She turned to the others, nodding still even if they had no idea what she was agreeing to. “I’ll go now and…do that. But my stuff—”
“Just do what you can.”
“Going.”
“Where exactly is she going?” Josh asked after the redhead’s footsteps could no longer be heard on the floor above them.
“She’s going to try to help.”
Toby shifted a little, balancing his weight from one leg to the other. “By doing what, exactly?”
Giles met his gaze and held. “Helping.”
And that was it. No more discussion on the matter. Just waiting.
*~*~*
No one had really invested much confidence in Willow’s ability to solve their problem as fluently as her friends had been hoping. And when that inexorably fell through, they were once again at a loss as to a plausible course of action. It was more than frightening—it was just strange. And they were at an irrefutable standstill.
Much later that night when everyone had consigned there was nothing to do until morning and agreed to try to sleep, Josh and Donna were up and talking, keeping constant watch out the window and looking at their cells every few minutes. “Maybe someone recognized him and is going to hold the President ransom,” the blonde said worriedly. “Oh God, Josh. We should call Leo and let him know. We should—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Sam’s not as noticeable as some others.” He paused, then nodded as though to convince himself. The look in his eyes verified, however, that he had not ruled out the possibility. “We’ll find him.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. We just will.” Another heavy breath passed through his lips. “You should really get some sleep, Donna.”
Easier said than done. Yet she managed, as did Josh. They slept surprisingly hard until around four-thirty in the morning when a desperate but soft knock sounded at the door.
Then they were up, and sleep was out of the question.
It was Josh who opened the door—it was Donna who ran forward.
“Oh my God! Sam! Oh my God.”
She had never seen him look worse. His hair was a mess, his body aligned with sores and scrapes. He was dressed in nothing but jeans and sneakers, and his skin was damp with rainwater. More over, his entire body was trembling, and not just with the cold. He started a bit at the shrill in her voice, but looked at her with such relief that it inspired tears to her eyes almost immediately.
“Hey.”
“God, Sam.” Josh took him by the arm and guided him inside. “What the hell happened?”
“I’m gonna make you some coffee,” the blonde said, unable to stop from shaking. “You want some coffee?”
The Deputy Chief of Staff glanced up at her wearily, but he smiled anyway. “Donna, it’s four-thirty in the morning.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go make coffee.”
“No, it’s okay.” Sam held up a hand and offered her a worn but thankful smile. “I don’t need coffee.”
Donna didn’t look convinced but nodded all the same and moved back to the bed. “Are you okay?”
“Of course he’s not okay!” Josh yelped. “Look at him!”
Sam flinched a bit. The other man immediately quieted. “Are you okay?”
Donna rolled her eyes and stood. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”
“It’s…I…” He glanced down, still trembling. “I don’t know where to start.”
“It’s okay.” The blonde patted his knee encouragingly but backed off when he flinched again. “How about what happened after you left with the car for the test-drive?”
“Willow.” He blinked. “Is Willow okay?”
Josh and Donna exchanged a look over his head. “Why would Willow not be okay?” the latter asked.
“I saw her in the kitchen and…I was wrong. There’s no doubt about that, I was wrong.” He stood abruptly. “I have to go apologize now.”
“Sam—”
“I was wrong and I need to tell her. I need—”
“Sam!” Josh flashed an apologetic look when he flinched again. “Sit down. Willow’s fine. She’s worried about you, but she’s fine. Now…did she have anything to do with what happened tonight?”
“No.”
“Okay. Start at the beginning.”
The Deputy Communications Director paused, his expression torn. Then he released a sigh and nodded, taking one of Josh’s shirts when it was offered. “This…it happened fast. The car is gone.”
“It’s gone?”
“Ruined. She…she punched through the hood. I didn’t see her take anything out, but I couldn’t get the car to start. I couldn’t…I tried. I tried and I—”
The blonde held up a hand. “It’s okay. We don’t care about the car.”
“She punched right through the hood?” Josh was staring at him dumbly. “How could anyone punch through the hood of a—”
“Josh.”
“Yeah, so she punched through the hood?”
Sam smiled wearily. “And then she forced me inside.”
His friends exchanged another look. They didn’t like where this was going.
And as he spilled everything that happened after the fact, words left the room for means of human expression. They were there for him, but didn’t know what to say.
There was simply nothing to say.
*~*~*
Unsurprisingly, none of the Senior Staffers got any sleep that night. After Sam was through relating what had happened to Josh and Donna, they went to Toby and rehashed everything. Toby, in turn, started on a wild tangent about male rape and how no one took it seriously—how it was a joke saved for prison humor—and immediately called the police once he was done ranting.
The cops called back a half hour later. The room indicated in the report was vacant. The bed linens were stripped and in the wash, according to room service. Furthermore, registration didn’t have marked that anyone was staying on the first floor until the week after next. Even the car was gone. They were advised not to phone in false accusations, as they were a police station and had no time with practical jokes.
That sent Toby on a whole new warpath. “This is Mayberry!” he shouted into the phone. “What, did Billy Bob’s cow go missing at daybreak? We have a real crime, here!”
Needless to say, yelling at the authorities didn’t get them far.
Donna stayed with Sam, mothering him horribly and fuming with outrage that someone could get away with something so vicious.
By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon, she wanted blood.
“You don’t want to go downstairs to breakfast, do you?” she asked. “I’ll go and bring something up for you.”
“No. It’s fine.” He smiled. While he was hardly feeling his best, the reassurance that came simply by having friends that cared did wonders. Josh and Toby were reacting in a way that only Josh and Toby could—outraged, knee-deep in compassion but too much like themselves to allow that much to be revealed on a surface level. “I need to…you know…be around people right now.”
“Really? Because there’s no shame in hiding.”
“And yet, here I go.” Sam stopped at the doorway and smiled at her. “You’ve been great, Donna. You’re always great. I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here.”
It was a typical thing of him to say, but it made her flush all the same. “I don’t understand how someone could do that,” she whispered. “How she could just…take you and make you…I don’t understand.”
“She was unbalanced.”
“She…Sam, she raped you.”
He nodded, shaken but composed. He was ages ahead of where he had been when he came to them just a few short hours before. “I know,” he said. “But it’s…I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but work with me.” A worn smile crossed his face and he nodded at the door. “Let’s go eat.”
“I can really bring it up to you.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
Josh and Toby met them in the hallway. They had evidently moved from indignation to complaining about being stuck here even longer, as they were again without a car. It was their best defense mechanism, and neither Donna nor Sam could blame them from turning to it. It was all they had in such situations.
Of course, they couldn’t make it all the way to the dining room without incident. Willow was waiting for them at the stairs; seated about a quarter of the way from the hall with her eyes downcast. She was evidently so immersed in her thoughts that she didn’t hear their approach, and turned to them only after Donna and Sam had called her name twice.
It was strange watching such potent relief flood the eyes of a virtual stranger, but she was up in seconds, very visibly restraining herself from hugging him. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I…we were so worried!”
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Sam blurted.
“Why is it that you spend more of your time apologizing to her for frivolous things than you do actually talking to her?” Toby asked pointedly.
“Leave him alone,” Donna berated.
Willow wasn’t paying attention to any of them. Her eyes were soaking up the picture that Sam presented, frowning her concern when she realized the depth of what must have occurred the night before was more serious than they were putting on. “My God, you look awful.”
“Thanks,” he replied, smiling weakly.
“Are Buffy and Spike back yet?” Donna asked.
The redhead shook her head. “No, and believe me, I’ll be wigging soon. But Buffy…well, she’s with Spike and I think that means it’s okay.”
“What’s this?” Sam asked.
“We’re going to breakfast,” Josh said as he and Toby wheedled through them and continued on downstairs. “Sam?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. What’s this with Buffy and Spike?”
“They disappeared last night, too,” Donna explained. “Right around the time that you did.”
The man’s eyes went wide. “And you’re not worried?”
“Oh, I am. Massive wiggins all around.” Willow sighed. “You don’t know them. Buffy is…well, she’s not the most reliable person in the world. And Spike? Spike and reliability are like polar opposites. And seeing as they’re together…I’m thinking they either hit a hot trail or…I dunno.”
Donna shrugged. “Maybe they eloped.”
“No way.”
“It’d be romantic.”
The redhead frowned. Three weeks ago, had anyone suggested that, she would have laughed them out of the room. Now she wasn’t so sure. It was hard to miss the sparks that had been flying between the blonde duo ever since the disastrous encounter with Faith during the body-swap fiasco. Buffy was behaving very unBuffy-like. She laughed more, she hung out with Spike virtually all the time, and now they had disappeared for an entire night.
Perhaps elopement was not out of the question.
As for the other, Willow couldn’t explain why she wasn’t worried; she just wasn’t. Oh, she had her concerns here and there, but something told her that they were fine. They were just out, being themselves. Whatever that meant anymore.
Another look at Sam verified the exact opposite. Something had happened to him last night. Something awful. And while she would never pry for such personal information from a stranger, she was already gearing up ways to extract powerful and painful revenge on whoever was responsible. It didn’t take a long acquaintance to recognize that he was easily one of the sweetest men in the world. He made her feel things she hadn’t felt—and she had felt a lot.
Someone had hurt him, and if she ever found out whom, she would hurt them back.
She just hoped that someone wasn’t herself.
TBC