Notes: So, Kwame doesn't appear to be super-popular, but I don't care! I think he's adorable and these little ficlets keep popping into my head! This follows on from Like No One Before and Something Beautiful.

Thank you to plunderer01 for helping me out with this one! So glad someone else has enthusiasm for Kwame fic! Thank you also to those of you commenting on these little ficlets, I really appreciate it!

Kwame wasn't sure what had woken him, at first.

He blinked, squinting at the clock, which read such a ridiculous hour he refused to believe it. Outside, he could barely make out the shadowy silhouettes of the trees against the sky – the night was dark and cloudy.

He coughed and flopped back onto his mattress, when his phone rang again, shrill and loud. He jumped and reached for it, knocking it to the floor and scrambling after it, anxious about it somehow waking one of the other Planeteers, despite the distance between their huts.

"Hello?" His voice was still husky with sleep.

"Is that Kwame?"

He rubbed his eyes. "Yes. Who is this?"

"This is Dr. Robert Carver. Georgina's father?"

Kwame's stomach plummeted and for a moment he wondered what he could possibly have done wrong to deserve a phone call from Georgie's father in the middle of the night.

Dr. Carver continued before Kwame could wrestle his thoughts into sentences.

"Georgie's missing," he said. "She's in trouble."

Kwame's stomach dropped even further and he felt cold sweat break out on his forehead. "What?"

For a moment he cursed his inability to think properly. He kicked the blankets away from his legs, letting them rumple on the floor beside him.

"There have been threats made," Dr. Carver continued, his voice sounding oddly rough, as though he needed to cough. "I think it is something to do with the new biochemical process she has developed."

"The one for the crops?" Kwame asked, still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation.

Dr. Carver was sounding a little impatient, now, but he continued. "Yes. She did not win the environmental award in Cape Town last month, but she has had a lot of publicity since then. Many people are interested in her work and I think someone has decided to – use Georgie in order to make a profit."

Kwame swallowed, suddenly feeling the same anger he could hear in Dr. Carver's voice.

"What do you mean?" he asked, reaching for a t-shirt. "Tell me everything. I will help..." He pulled the t-shirt over his head, wrestling to keep the phone next to his ear as Dr. Carver told him what he knew.

"Someone broke into the laboratory last night," he said in a cold voice. "Georgie was here working late. It looks like someone was after her formula, but she put up a fight. Now she is missing, and I have a note demanding the research in exchange for my daughter."

"I will get her back," Kwame promised, barely pausing to think about what he was saying as he hopped about, trying to pull on a pair of jeans.

"There is security footage," Dr. Carver continued. "I suspected that insane woman, Blight, but I do not think it was her..."

Kwame wrinkled his brow in frustration. Blight had been his first suspect, too.

"Is there a way I can send the footage to you?" Dr. Carver asked.

Kwame threw the door to his hut open and hurried out onto the dark path. Overhead, clouds drifted across the moon, throwing everything into shadow, and a cold wind swept in off the sea, chilling his bare arms. He wished he'd had the thought to put on a sweater. He hammered loudly on Wheeler's hut as he passed, and continued on without stopping to see if he'd woken.

"I can get access to the footage from here," he said breathlessly, knocking on Linka's door. He stumbled slightly in the dark in his haste as he continued on to wake the others. "We will be there as soon as possible."

"Now there's a silhouette I'm ashamed to recognise," Wheeler muttered, shuffling down in his seat, intending on catching a few more hours sleep. His t-shirt remained inside-out, despite Linka and her slight OCD begging him to fix it.

Kwame leaned closer to the monitors. "What on Earth is he doing there?" he asked furiously. The passion in his voice, and the particular wording he had used, caused his ring to glow dappled green in the dim light of the geo-cruiser.

"Is this the only footage?" Ma-Ti asked.

"I think so." Kwame rubbed his forehead and leaned back in his chair, biting his tongue in an effort to resist asking Gi to fly the geo-cruiser a little faster. She had told him several times she was flying at full-speed, though it still felt like a crawl to the Earth Planeteer.

"Dr. Carver said Georgie fought back," Linka said, putting her hand on Kwame's shoulder sympathetically. "I am sure she can take care of herself."

Kwame just nodded, feeling slightly sick.

"I bet she kicked his ass," Wheeler mumbled, half asleep. "We'll find her, man. Don't worry."

Kwame turned to Ma-Ti. "Could you try again, Ma-Ti?" he pleaded, uncharacteristically fidgety and desperate.

Ma-Ti smiled at him and drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes and holding his ring to his temple. Last time, he'd only felt the dull grey cloud of uncertainty and confusion, indicating that Georgie had, perhaps, been unconscious.

Heart.

He knew immediately that this search would be better. She was there, this time, and she was furious. Frightened, too, but he could hear her shouting and demanding to be let free. He scrolled back, further and further, reciting the images and scenery that flashed past him until Kwame clicked his fingers with excited recognition and blurted directions to Gi, tripping over his own words in his haste.

"Is she hurt?" he asked, turning back to Ma-Ti anxiously.

"I do not think so," he said. "A headache, and maybe a bruise or two. But she seems to have a lot of energy..." He trailed off and gave a sigh of annoyance. "I lost her," he said. "Something is blocking me."

"Three guesses," Wheeler muttered, apparently still awake.

"Does she know we're coming?" Gi asked, adjusting the geo-cruiser slightly.

"I did not get time to tell her," Ma-Ti sighed. "She is okay, Kwame." He patted the Earth Planeteer on the shoulder. "We will find her."

For once, Kwame was relieved at Wheeler's hesitation to be hesitant. When the front door to the building didn't open invitingly to them, Wheeler burned his way through it. They were met with a corridor that ran from left to right.

"You guys go that way," Wheeler said, pointing. "Come on, Kwame."

Kwame followed him eagerly, barely resisting the urge to call Georgie's name. Getting her back and making sure she was safe was his number one priority, but behind all of this was the person responsible, and he needed to be found as well.

"You check these doors, I'll get the next ones," Wheeler said.

Kwame nodded in agreement, shouldering doors open as he came to them, peering inside.

"Georgie?"

He called into each room, growing increasingly frustrated when all he discovered was dusty formations of cardboard boxes and chemical drums.

Wheeler had disappeared ahead, and Kwame jogged to catch up with him, his heart leaping as he heard voices.

"Dude, I'm going to be way more patient with you than Kwame will be," Wheeler was saying, leaning against the wall rather nonchalantly.

"He is right," Kwame snapped, kicking the door closed behind him.

Sludge jumped as the door slammed. "I've done nothing wrong!" he denied, sounding slightly panicked. "Check your facts! I've been here all night, you can ask anyone –"

"Oh, give it up, Sludge," Wheeler said in disgust. "You've got scratches all over the side of your face. She fought back."

Sludge gave him an annoyed look, as though he thought he'd been doing quite well to deceive them until that point.

Behind him, Kwame heard the door open again, and he knew the other Planeteers had raced to catch up – probably thanks to Ma-Ti keeping hold of them via his ring.

"Listen, I've been trying to stay out of trouble for a long time," Sludge said innocently. "It's not like I'm, you know... I mean, why don't you check into Blight? She's into all this... uh, bio plant liquid stuff, right?"

Kwame could feel fiery impatience and anger boiling up inside him. The Planeteers had been working hard lately, and he was exhausted, and sick of dealing with reckless individuals who gave no thought to other people's safety. Just two days ago, he and the other Planeteers had been scrambling to evict Plunder and Bleak from an old-growth forest. Now Sludge had the gall to stand there and protest his innocence when he'd done something which, to Kwame, was much worse.

For a moment his stomach tightened uncomfortably and for the first time he realised just how deeply his feelings for Georgie ran. Suddenly, Plunder endangering an old-growth forest seemed like peanuts when compared to the latest acts Sludge had performed.

Kwame felt an altogether-different revulsion for Sludge. He was not clever. He was not charismatic. And he was not, unlike Verminous Skumm or Duke Nukem, mutated or biologically-driven towards darker insanity.

Sludge was a middle-aged man who failed at business and honesty, instead making a conscious decision to manipulate laws and individuals in an effort to scrounge meagre profits.

And he was filthy. He rarely showered. His dark hair was lank and greasy and hung around his shoulders in a thin curtain. Stains blotted the front of his shirt and the rank, bitter smell of body odour and trash clung to him and swam in the air around him. None of the Planeteers could figure out why he bothered with the rubber gloves.

If just one of those rubber-gloved fingers has harmed Georgie...

"You have five seconds to tell me where she is," Kwame said softly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wheeler grin, and he wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or pleased about it.

"Listen," Sludge began, flashing Kwame an innocent smile. "I can understand why you don't trust me."

Kwame leaned over the desk, his palms flattened against its surface. The wood creaked under his weight.

Sludge blinked and his smiled faltered a little. He leaned back in his chair, shrinking away from the Earth Planeteer.

"Tell me where she is," Kwame demanded softly.

Sludge flicked his eyes to the doorway. The other Planeteers hovered silently, watching on.

"Don't look at us for help," Gi said in disgust. "I hope he breaks your nose."

Sludge swallowed nervously. "Okay, look," he said. "I was at the lab. But I didn't hurt her."

"Five," Kwame announced. "Four –"

"Down the back!" Sludge cried. "She's down the back, but I didn't hurt her! She took half of my face off when I –"

Kwame had already left the room, leaving Sludge to the mercy of the other Planeteers.

Georgie jumped violently when Kwame burst through the door. He ran to her immediately, pulling the bandanna from her face. She smiled gratefully at him, though her voice was weak when she spoke.

"Hi."

"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously, tugging at the ropes that held her to the chair.

"I'm thirsty," she admitted. "I was yelling pretty loudly until he came in and stopped it." She glanced to the bandanna on the floor. She looked quite tearful. "I kept thinking about what you said," she said desperately. "About always having a way out – remember? Putting pressure on a lock or a rope or a person... I couldn't do it..." She sobbed and he looked up at her in alarm.

"Sometimes there is nothing you can do but wait for someone to come and help you," he said softly, smiling up at her. He pulled the final rope away from her ankle and go to his feet, helping her up. "Are you sure you are not hurt?"

"I'm okay," she said, but she sobbed again and buried her face in his shoulder. "I'm sure all of my research has been destroyed."

"No," Kwame soothed, hugging her tightly. "He was not there to destroy it; he was there to steal it. But you fought him, so he thought he could swap you for the research instead."

"How did you find me?" she breathed, not particularly concerned by his explanation.

"Your father called."

"He did?" She looked up at him tiredly and he kissed her forehead.

She sighed and closed her eyes. "I was sitting here, you know, and I was so angry... And then I started getting frightened, because I wasn't sure how long it'd be before you found me..." She trailed off.

"How long was it?" he asked, smiling down at her.

She checked her watch. "Nineteen hours."

He kissed her softly. "I will be faster, next time."

She laughed and buried her face against his neck. "There won't be a next time. Next time I'll throw my microscope at him."

He chuckled, and she kissed the side of his neck, clutching him tightly.

"I knew you'd find me," she whispered.

He stroked his thumb across her cheek, smearing her tears. "Come on," he said softly. "I will take you home."

"No," she murmured, leaning against him. "Not yet."

She kissed him, breathless and a little rough, her fingers clenched tightly in the material of his t-shirt. He pushed back against her weight, his hands on her waist, the stiff cotton fabric of her shirt lifting to bare her stomach as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He pinned her against the wall, barely thinking about his movements. All of a sudden the only matter that seemed important was to press his body against hers and feel her, full and warm, and safe, against him.

It was long minutes before the kiss finally broke, and even then, Kwame kept his hand at the small of her back, and she maintained her grip on him.

"I knew you'd find me," she whispered again.

He nodded and kissed her softly, moving his hand across the swell of her hip, tracing his fingers along the waistband of her skirt.

"Do you think there's time for me to give that guy a piece of my mind?" Georgie asked, smiling up at him and raising her eyebrow ever-so-slightly.

"I think so," Kwame whispered, grinning down at her.

"And then do you think we could call my dad and let him know I'm safe?"

"Of course."

She nodded and pressed her lips against the point of his jaw. "Then can I stay with you for a bit longer?" she asked softly.

He grinned and pulled her to him. "I think we can manage that," he said.