Riley hesitated a moment before knocking on the half-opened door. He had barely slept at all the previous night, but after having taken a good two hours to muster the courage to come here, he wasn’t about to chicken out of it. Was he?

"Hi," he said, coming in and closing the door behind him. This wasn’t a conversation the whole dorm should be hearing.

The blonde girl who had of late become the object of his every thought looked up from folding her clothes and softly returned his greeting: "Hi."

Seventy-two hours ago, there would have been bright smiles on both their faces as a simple reaction to seeing each other. Today however, their expressions were grim and thoughtful.

Suddenly not so sure he should have come, Riley walked to the other bed and sat. "I guess we have to talk." It didn’t come across half as good as it seemed to in front of the mirror earlier that morning.

Across from him, Buffy put her laundry down and sat on her bed, facing him. "I guess we do," she said, not sounding much more convinced than he did.

They stared at each other for half a minute, their resolve melting like the proverbial snow, then both looked away, suddenly fully grasping how hard this was going to be.

Spike was bloody tired of it all. Whatever had possessed him to go to the Slayer and her merry band of mates for help, he was truly starting to regret it.

It had been going rather well, all considered. Once the Watcher had convinced Buffy that "no, Spike won’t do anything stupid, I’m sure", and had unchained him from the bathtub, that is. But then he’d thrown him out when his sexy chick had come to town…

Living with Xander was *not* Spike’s idea of the highlife.

Anya was about ten times older than him and had some really awesome stories to tell, but listening to her whining and watching her glue herself to Xander at every occasion was starting to make the vampire feel sick.

It reminded him too much of Harmony.

"How long before sunset?"

"Four hours, seven minutes or so," Xander answered in the voice of someone who thought he’d die waiting for it.

Spike knew the feeling.

He’d counted the window panes, knew every title of the books on both Buffy’s and Willow’s shelves, had examined his hands and his shoes for what seemed like an eternity, and was now back at counting – the different motifs in

Willow’s quilt.

Riley wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the dragging silence made it feel like centuries had come and gone. He'd often been speechless in front of Buffy, but this was different. This was the occasion to do what he’d wanted – come clean, tell her about the Initiative, explain what he’d been doing in town, geared up and fighting those… whatever they were – yet he had no idea how to do it and not have her running away from him.

It never occurred to him that Buffy might be asking herself the exact same question. She’d never been shy, and rarely froze speechless in front of someone – on the contrary, she had a tendency to babble incessantly. But now that she had the chance to tell Riley about the Slaying, explain what she’d been doing in town, armed with a crossbow, fighting the Gentlemen, she was afraid of how he might react.

Her gaze locked with his for a second before finding Mr. Gordo, and she couldn’t help but wonder if her eyes held the same look of helplessness his did.

For the hundredth time, Riley took a purposeful breath, moistened his dry lips… and sighed, unable to say the words.

They probably would have stayed that way – facing each other, yet avoiding each other’s gaze – all afternoon if the phone had not rung then, making them both jump out of their skin.

Buffy flung herself at the phone like a person to a lifeline, which she truly believed it to be. She promised herself to thank the caller abundantly before even knowing who it was. At this point, she’d be happy even if it was Giles calling to say she had to baby-sit Spike… Or not.

When she turned her back to him to answer the phone, Riley did something he never thought he’d ever do in his entire life: he fled from a situation. By the time Buffy convinced the weirdo on the phone that he had dialed a wrong number and turned back around, Riley was already outside Stevenson Hall.

The minute the sun went below the horizon, Spike was out Xander’s basement and strolling down Sunnydale’s streets. He didn’t have any destination in mind, just that he should avoid the campus, and that for once in his life, he needed to stay out of trouble.

Being unable to defend himself sucked.

Groaning at his own bad pun, the blond vampire decided to head for Willy’s, figuring that drinking himself into oblivion would surely beat having to endure Xander and Anya all day and not be able to torture them. Those two were a lot more fun when they had no voice.

"Initiative vocal code match complete. Special Agent Finn, Riley," said the computerized voice as the elevator door opened, letting Riley, Graham and

Forrest in the underground complex. The dark-skinned man continued as if he hadn’t heard it: "… and Walsh was having a field day, I’m telling you. The hostiles all started screaming as soon as they realized they had their voices back, apparently, and the decibel level…"

Riley tuned him out, having already heard the events from Professor Walsh herself when he’d reported in the night before. Forrest really had a tendency to talk too much.

"Hey man, you okay?" Graham asked him, placing a hand on Riley’s shoulder. He had tuned Forrest out too – out of habit – and his usual perceptiveness told him that something was bothering his partner.

"Yeah, I’m fine," Riley lied, "just tired. I got beaten up pretty bad last night, and couldn’t sleep." Well that much was true. Except that he hadn’t been able to sleep because he kept thinking of Buffy, not because he was injured.

He just didn’t know what to tell her. How did you tell a girl like Buffy that monsters really existed? Well okay, she’d been there, so maybe she knew. So how did you tell her that you captured those monsters for experiments, fought them every night or so, and expect her to ever talk to you again?

After she had killed the hovering uglies and their goons with her blood-curling scream, Buffy and him had locked eyes, and he was sure he’d seen doubt, and a hint of despair, in her green orbs. Then she had calmly retrieved her crossbow and left without a word, leaving him there to contemplate how the Hell he was going to explain this to her.

Riley had been so nervous about it since then that it had yet to dawn on him that Buffy had some explaining of her own to do.

The UC Sunnydale campus had never been so silent. It was eerie. And it made the patrolling Slayer uneasy. Buffy usually had to taunt vampires into relocating their fights away from the always-busy paths, but tonight, there wasn’t a soul in sight. To be fair, there didn’t seem to be any unsouled creatures around either.

It didn’t feel right.

Silently making her way around another building, the blonde Slayer tried to fight off the urge to run far, far away and hide from the oppressing silence. Of course, that’s exactly the moment a vampire chose to jump her as she turned a corner, breaking the absolute quiet. Its roar was deafening in the otherwise calm night, and Buffy had to consciously stop herself from crying out in surprise.

The fight was brief – a series of kicks, punches, blocks and dodges made quick work of the relatively young vampire. Within a few minutes, a stake had appeared in Buffy’s hand, and she pushed it through the unbeating heart of the creature. As it crumbled to dust, the Slayer sensed another presence behind her and quickly turned around, her fists high in a fighting stance.

Riley chuckled, looking down at her. "No need to hit me, I’m not planning on hurting you. Ever." Before she could react, he had her in his strong embrace and was kissing her softly.

Buffy lost herself in the kiss, feeling incredibly safe within the confine of Riley’s arms. She would gladly have stayed there all night, but, like any good thing, it came to an end. When Riley released her and stepped back a little, she reopened her eyes to find him entirely clad in commando gear. At her confused – and slightly frightened – look, he shrugged and gave her a reassuring smile. "You have to look beyond the uniform. It’s not as bad as you think."

Buffy was about to ask him what he meant when an angry British voice cut her off: "*Yes*, it’s bloody bad, mate. I can’t even hit a fly," Spike said, appearing from behind a tree and walking to the couple with slumped shoulders. "I’m a pathetic excuse for a vampire. I’m nothing. I might as well be dust," he finished – almost whining – in a low voice, and flung himself onto the stake Buffy had forgotten she was holding.

"*Spike!*"

Buffy woke up with a start, the blond vampire’s name on her lips. It took her a few seconds to realize she had fallen asleep studying for her Psych final. That probably explained, she realized, why she had been dreaming of Riley – not that she needed much incentive. It didn’t explain his comments about the commando gear though.

She needed to talk to Giles.

And she had to find her bleached-blond nemesis before he did something stupid.

"Spike! Old friend…" the short bartender nervously greeted the vampire, backing up behind his bar. "What can I do for you?"

"Hello Willy," Spike replied with a smile, quite happy to see that his reputation was intact. He slowly walked to the end of the counter and sat down on a stool. There were only two other patrons at this early hour, some horned human-looking demons that were much more interested in finding the answers to their sorrows at the bottom of their glasses than in the newcomer. "Got any Jack for your pal Spike?"

Immensely relieved that this wasn’t a ‘let’s beat Willy to get information’ call, the bartender reached under the counter for an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old Time Old N° 7 Brand Quality Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey.

Grabbing what passed for a clean glass, he put both down in front of the vampire and leaned on the counter. He managed to watch Spike pour his first glass and drink it down in two long swallows before his curiosity got the better of him: "Drusilla dumped you again, pal?"

After all these years living on the Hellmouth and serving drinks after drinks to all kinds of Hell-spawn creatures, you’d think that Willy the Snitch would have learned a lesson or two on diplomacy. Unfortunately for him, that’s one thing the punches and kicks had never managed to hammer into his thick skull. On the other hand, that’s mainly why he always knew what was going on in this town.

Spike, however, was not about to risk an intense headache just to scare the little shit. Calmly, not even looking up from his re-filled glass, he answered: "She left me months ago, mate. There’s a bloody limit to a man’s moping!" Then, locking serious blue eyes with Willy’s curious ones, he added, "This is a toast to myself. For being the bloody fool that I am and coming back to Sunnyhell." Which he saluted by downing his drink in one long gulp and banging the glass down on the counter.

Forrest put down his drink on the cafeteria table, purposefully making it thump to get Riley’s attention. "Come on, Rye. Speak. You’ve been glum all week, what’s up?"

For the umphieth time that week, Riley dismissed Forrest’s attempt at getting him to open up with a flat "Nothing" and a shake of his head. He knew his friends were getting worried, but he didn’t want to talk about it. In the four days since he’d fled from her dorm room, he had seen Buffy only once, in Psych class. He hadn’t found the courage to even say hi, and she had avoided looking at him during the whole class. Riley felt miserable, and he knew he didn’t look much better, but he still didn’t know what to do.

\His thoughts were interrupted by Graham’s tray hitting the table in front of him. "Hey," the tall man greeted his two friends, sitting down. Then he took a good look at Riley and voiced his concern: "You look like a lost puppy, man." It was said in his usual non-committed tone, and it made Forrest snort in hidden laughter.

"That’s it!" the dark-skinned man exclaimed, his face brightening at the prospect of – hopefully – making Riley laugh. "What did Miss ‘She’s Special’ do? Steal your favorite bone?" Unfortunately, he didn’t get the reaction he had hoped for. "Forrest, just shut up," Riley deadpanned, not even looking up from the paper napkin he was studiously shredding to pieces. Then, realizing it wouldn’t help any to have his friends mad at him, he quickly apologized: "Sorry… I didn’t mean that."

"No problem," Forrest easily dismissed it. Cautiously, he tried to get more out of his friend: "Problems in Dateland? I thought it was going well between you two?"

Sighing, Riley finally decided that it couldn’t exactly hurt to confide in his two best friends. He had hesitated so far because he felt stupid to be worried of Buffy’s reaction, but maybe the guys would come up with a solution for him. "We aren’t exactly talking anymore. In fact, she pretty much avoided me all week – not that I really tried to see her…"

"What happened?" Forrest asked, his tone turning serious and concerned.

"Remember I said in my report that there was a civilian with me when I fought those voice-stealing creatures?" At the guys’ nod, Riley continued: "Well, it was Buffy." He completely missed the incredulous look on his friends’ faces. "So now I have to tell her what I was doing there, and, well, I know I’ve been saying that I wanted to do just that, but… I don’t know how."

"Wait. You mean that the person who actually killed those hostiles is a little blonde wisp of a girl?" Forrest clearly didn’t believe him.

"You said that the civilian had a crossbow, and had kicked some serious ass," Graham added, confused. "You admitted yourself that they were extra-strong and that you got beaten up pretty bad. How could *Buffy* have survived?"

Riley realized that he hadn’t thought of it that way. "I- Well, I don’t know. She knew what she was doing though. You should have seen her fight!" His eyes glazed over in that dreamy look the two other guys had come to associate with rated thoughts about Buffy.

"I think you’ve been worrying for nothing, buddy," Forrest said, lightly punching Riley on the arm.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it seems to me you’re not the only one who has explanations to give."

"Giles, I need to know."

Buffy was bordering on desperate. Ever since her dream, she had been begging Giles to find something about the commandos. Olivia was still in town however, and the Slayer felt her mentor wasn’t doing all he could.

"I honestly don’t know how to help you, Buffy," Giles tried to explain – again. "They are not demons, so I won’t find anything in my books. I still say you should ask your friend."

"Riley isn’t exactly talking to me anymore," Buffy countered, sounding every bit as sad about it as she felt. "Besides, what am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, why don’t you tell me everything about your obviously secret life?’ I can see that going over well!"

"Well, no," Giles conceded, "but he saw you fighting, so he’s bound to have questions of- of his own. You could offer him a- a trade of information, if you think he is trustworthy."

"Of course I trust him, Giles, we were practically dating!" Buffy exclaimed vehemently. "I’ve been meaning to tell him eventually, but now he probably just thinks I’m a freak," she finished, pouting.

Giles decided to change the subject, seeing as there was nothing he could say he hadn’t said before. "How’s Spike?"

"Annoying," Buffy deadpanned, making him smile.

That was the second thing she’d been vehement about since her dream. She had asked the gang to keep an eye on Spike night and day, afraid that he’d do something stupid, like start a fight he couldn’t win. They had all – Xander particularly – looked at her as if she’d grown a second head, wondering if Willow’s last spell had lasting effects, but had nonetheless complied, particularly after seeing the vampire completely drunk and actually sobbing.

The blond vampire wasn’t suicidal – yet – but he was definitively depressed.

Buffy had found him twice getting smashed at Willy’s before making him understand that it wasn’t the best way to keep a low profile and avoid getting caught by the commandos again. So now he was getting plowed at Xander’s.

"I should stake him and end his misery," Buffy mumbled for the tenth time since her dream. She knew she wouldn’t do it, but she didn’t know why. She figured she was just too nice for her own good.

"Spike is somewhat of a colorful character, I’ll agree," Giles started, only to receive a ‘No kidding!’ look from the Slayer, "but his knowledge of demons and the vampire community could turn out immensely useful."

"Sure! If you can convince him to work for the good guys team, that is!" Buffy retorted. "We’d probably have to torture him into telling us his own name if we didn’t already know."

"Maybe he needs a reason to work with us... An incentive of sorts," Giles mused.

"We talking blackmail?" Buffy asked, perking up considerably at the idea.

"This is blackmail!"

"I like to think of it as positive reinforcement," Anya grinned evilly at an outraged Xander.

"But, but…" he started, obviously looking for a way to make the ex-demoness change her mind, "it’s not like I *want* Spike to live here. I didn’t have much of a say in it."

"Still, I think it’s not too much to ask for one night alone. Ask Willow to keep him," Anya said, not backing down one bit.

"Willow lives with Buffy. And I’m pretty sure that although she’s concerned he’ll kill himself, Buffy won’t want Spike in her dorm room for a whole evening. She’d probably end up staking him."

"She doesn’t have to know… Odds are, she’ll be out anyway." The evil grin returned on Anya’s face. "Unless you don’t *want* Spike to go away for an evening…" she trailed off, reminding him of her earlier threats.

Xander knew he had no choice. "Fine, let me call Willow," he said, sealing the fate on everyone’s following Saturday night.

"Will, have you seen my black sweater?" Buffy’s voice came muffled through the pile of clothing she’d buried herself under while looking for her patrolling gear.

Willow was sitting at her computer, putting the finishing touch to her term paper for Ethnomusicology. When Xander had begged her to take care of Spike on the following evening, she’d realized that she’d better have her homework done by then, considering that the vampire would probably request her full attention. "Have you checked under your bed?" she answered her blond friend, not turning around.

"Forget it, I’ve found it!" Buffy happily exclaimed, pushing her closet door closed after frowning at the mess she’d created. "Are you nearly done? If you want, we could stop for coffee while patrolling…" the Slayer trailed off, practically begging the redhead to come on patrol with her. Buffy needed some girl-talk in the worst way.

Her best friend caught her hidden question and hastily turned her laptop off. "Coffee sounds good," Willow agreed, picking up her coat and following Buffy out of the room. She would finally learn what had been bothering the Slayer all week.

Down in the Initiative complex, Agent Finn was *not* having the best day of his life. It had started out alright, and after a helpful pep talk from Forrest and Graham, he’d really been looking forward to seeing Buffy and talking to her. But then, Graham had come barging into his room, telling him that there was a situation with a hostile that requested their immediate presence downstairs.

It had gone downhill from there.

Said situation had taken twice the time to settle than it should have taken, and by then, there was just no point in showing up for class. Furthermore, Riley realized he had lost his chance to catch Buffy during her free period, and he knew she had classes non-stop until late afternoon.

That’s when he made his first mistake: he decided to stay in the complex and get some paperwork done. That’s where Professor Walsh found him half an hour later, jumping on the occasion to go through his last report in much detail, something Riley would have really liked to avoid until he talked to Buffy.

With no such luck, he had to go through two hours of the Evil Bitch Monster of Death at her best grilling him on how the civilian had reacted to the demons, what exact role the civilian had held in defeating them, and exactly how everything had happened. Interestingly, Professor Walsh had never asked who the civilian was – and Riley wasn’t about to tell before he saw Buffy – but she *had* asked, at the very end of their talk – almost as if she only wanted to confirm something she already knew – if the civilian was female.

That’s when Riley made his second mistake: he tried to lie. For some reason, revealing even this small clue made him feel as if he would betray a secret. So he tried to avoid the issue, coming up with the lamest excuses, such as "it was so dark, I really couldn’t tell", but Walsh was nowhere near fooled.

She let it drop however, and switched to a more pressing matter, one that would guarantee that Riley’s day would not get any better.

The sighting of Hostile 17 in the downtown area.

Riley and his team had failed to recapture the escapee, and that wasn’t something Walsh was likely to forget anytime soon. They had completely lost his trace at Thanksgiving, and everybody was pretty sure the vampire had left town, never to return. They just had to hope that the implant would lead him to his death one way or another before he could tell anyone (or any*thing*) about them.

Then, three nights ago, an operative on his free night had seen the hostile exiting the local seedy bar – the one that nobody really ever frequented, for some reason. By the time the Initiative agent had found a phone and placed a call to base though, the hostile had left with an unidentified individual – presumed vampire.

That was the last time anyone had seen the escapee, and Walsh had now decided to put Riley back on the case, as a way to redeem himself. And thus the young man’s plans for the evening went to Hell. He was then left alone with the night’s patrol planning and a large stack of reports to study, only to be graced with Professor Walsh’s inquisitive presence again a few hours later. That’s when he found out that hiding anything from her was an exercise in futility and could only lead to the very thing that had earned her the nickname: one of her cold calculated lectures behind which you could literally feel her anger.

The only good thing that came out of it was that Professor Walsh told Riley everything about the Slayer, which she made him confess was very probably the civilian he had fought the demons with. Again, she didn’t ask if Riley knew her, nor did she ask for a description, much to his relief. However, by the way she requested him to "please invite her over so we can offer our services" the next time he saw her, Riley was pretty sure she had guessed everything – from Buffy’s identity to his feeling for the Freshman, leading to his reluctance to provide the full information on that mission.

In other words, he was in trouble.

‘Trouble’ was actually a quite accurate word to describe the situation Buffy and Willow were in. They had very briefly patrolled the campus, not finding any lurking evil, and had then moved to town, stopping as promised for coffee on the way. As soon as they had reached Weatherly Park, the aforementioned trouble had manifested itself in the form of five vampires and a Hak’rilarr demon.

Which were less than happy to be disturbed during their little reviving ritual.

Whatever they were trying to revive – it looked vaguely like a great big purple blob set on a makeshift pedestal – was obviously not a threat, but the seven-foot tall blue demon looked menacing enough. So did the vampires when they turned as one and attacked the two girls.

The two mochas the girls had just bought went flying towards the charging vampires, burning two of them and putting them out of commission temporarily. Buffy pushed Willow behind her while the redhead opened their backpacks and flung garlic, holy water, and crosses at their foes, trying to reach the stakes at the bottom. Meanwhile, the Slayer was keeping the vampires at bay with well placed kicks and punches, wishing she had brought her crossbow after all.

The luck turned a bit in their favor when one of the vampires, enraged and blinded by the bottle of holy water that had broken on his face, unknowingly pushed one of his friends onto a broken branch before losing his balance and impaling himself as well.

Good guys: 2, bad guys: 4.

Willow finally reached the stakes, throwing three to Buffy while she kept two and prayed that she wouldn’t really have to use them. The Slayer made quick work of the youngest-looking vampire, but the last two finally realized that simple brute force was not going to do it, and they pulled back a bit and took matching fighting stances.

Through all of this and the ensuing fight that rivaled some of the best Bruce Lee movies, the Hak’rillar demon stayed behind, silently watching the Slayer steadily take the advantage over the vampires. It was leaning back against a tree, keeping an eye on the purple blob, but not making any move indicating that he would run or join the fight.

It took a while, but Buffy finally managed to knock one of her opponents out and flip him over her in the same smooth movement. The unconscious vampire landed at Willow’s feet, and the redhead only had to crouch down and push the stake through its heart, while Buffy did the same to the last vampire.

Slayer and Slayerette: 2, Forces of Darkness: 1.

The big blue demon didn’t wait for the dust to settle: he grabbed the mass of purple flesh and cradled it in its arms, then charged towards the two girls, obviously hoping to reach the park’s gates behind them. It unfortunately hadn’t taken in consideration the Slayer’s quick reflexes.

Survival instinct taking over, Buffy threw her last stake straight at the charging demon. The wooden piece lodged itself between the demon’s eyes, stopping it dead in its tracks. Before the dead body hit the ground, it dissolved – purple blob included – into a shower of glimmering little stars before a surprised Buffy and a stunned Willow.

Home team: 2, demons: vanquished!

Riley, Graham and Forrest had been stunned speechless – a rare occasion for Agent Gates – and still weren’t completely sure they hadn’t been dreaming.

The three commandos had been patrolling in town, the previous night, trying to find any clue as to Hostile 17’s whereabouts, when they had heard a struggle coming from the park they were passing by. They had stealthily made their way towards the sounds, hiding behind trees and bushes – not willing to announce their presence until they knew what they were up against – only to freeze in their tracks and stare open-mouthed at the scene before them.

Buffy Summers had been beating the living Hell out of two vampires.

Even twenty hours, a good night’s sleep, and a thorough debriefing later, Forrest still couldn’t erase the image of the small Freshman girl fighting so gracefully those hostiles. Even after hearing Walsh’s explanation on the Slayer, it was a concept he wasn’t quite ready to accept.

Riley had thought nothing could surprise him after learning from Professor Walsh that Buffy was the Slayer. As far as he was concerned, nothing could ever beat the shock of finding himself face-to-face with the blonde little Freshman in the clocktower.

He had been wrong.

He’d been impressed by the whole fight, but oddly enough, it was the two girls’ conversation while they gathered their stuff and prepared to continue their way that had floored him.

Buffy thought he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.

She’d been complaining to Willow – obviously continuing a discussion the hostiles had interrupted – about how sooner or later, all the guys she met got driven away somehow. Willow had tried to comfort her, but it clearly hadn’t worked. At that moment, Buffy had looked every bit like the

18-year-old Freshman everybody thought she was, and not at all like the Slayer who’d just defeated several opponents.

That image had stayed with Riley all night and was actually what had given him the courage to plan what he hoped would be a very nice evening.

"I hope you realize this is not my idea of a fun Saturday night!" Buffy said through clenched teeth, barely restraining herself from throttling the cause of her misery. It didn’t affect him at all.

Spike was actually not having the crappy evening he thought he would have.

Barely five minutes after he’d shown up at the girls’ dorm room, Willow had suddenly remembered "the thing" she had to do and fled from the Slayer’s fury. The blond vampire had then proceeded to make himself comfortable on Buffy’s bed, surrounded by her pillows and stuffed animals. He was pretty sure part of her anger was fueled by the smug grin he was showing, and he was savoring it fully.

"Getting baby-sat isn’t my idea of fun either, you know. But I might as well take advantage of the situation… Annoying you has always been one of my favorite activities," Spike declared, quite proud of the way his comments made her even more angry. She had taken to pacing back and forth, and was actually growling under her breath.

Spike was enjoying himself immensely.

He was about to make another comment, willing to see just how far he could push her before she got the stakes out, when a knock on the door interrupted him. Buffy’s pacing had brought her right in front of the door, so she violently opened it before the knocking had even finished.

"What now?" the angry Slayer barked, only to soften her tone considerably when she registered who was there. "Riley?"

Riley was taken aback by her angry tone to say the least. He’d seen Willow come out about ten minutes earlier and had waited to make sure she wasn’t coming back before making his move. Seeing Buffy’s mood, he had to wonder what had happened. He wasn’t willing to let it foil his plan though, so he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

"We need to talk. Really, this time." As soon as he said the words, he registered the vampire lounging on Buffy’s bed, and once again, found himself speechless.

Seeing him staring at her annoying nemesis, Buffy ground her teeth. "Riley, meet the absolute pain in the ass Spike. Spike, Riley," she said, gesturing between the two.

That made Riley come out of his stupor. "Wait. What? Spike? As in ‘I’m marrying a guy named Spike?"

That got a laugh out of the vampire. "You told him that?" he asked the blonde – obviously embarrassed – girl.

"I was still under the spell!" she replied in a small voice, sitting heavily on Willow’s bed. Spike’s laughter only increased, as did Riley’s confusion. "Spike, shut up," the blonde angrily said, not willing to give him the

satisfaction of seeing her embarrassment. "You’re the one who proposed in the first place," she reminded him.

Spike only looked more smug, if possible. "Yeah, but you’re the one who said yes and jumped in my arms in happiness!"

"Please!" Buffy exclaimed, the memories putting a disgusted look on her face. "I’m trying to repress here!"

"Sure you are, luv!" The leer Spike gave Buffy would have been hilarious in any other situation. As it was, it only made Buffy groan and hide her face in her hands, and Riley truly hate the bleached-blond moron who was so obviously enjoying making Buffy uncomfortable. Cautiously, the tall man tried to get a grab on the situation. "Humm, Buffy, care to explain what a vampire is doing in your room, and what that whole wedding thing is really about?"

Buffy whimpered.

An hour later, it was Spike’s turn to whimper. At first, he had found it extremely funny – not to mention entertaining – to watch the Slayer fidget and stutter as she basically laid out her life in front of the big oaf.

His laughter had died however, when said wanker had shared *his* story, and had explained what his group had done to Spike. He could only hurt demons and vampires.

Much to the bleached-blond dismay, Buffy had jumped on the occasion to offer him an honorific membership to the Scooby Gang. He had been quick to refuse, of course, but then she’d gotten the Watcher on the phone…

They were shamelessly blackmailing him. So there it was. Spike would be helping out or they’d let the Initiative take him back, Riley would explain the situation to his superior, and everybody would be happy.

Except Spike.

"Bloody Hell!" he vehemently exclaimed, storming out of the room when he got sick of watching the two lovebirds "make up for lost time."

Time to find some sort of demon and vent through some therapeutic violence.

The End

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