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Stuffing Willow and four kids into the convertible was not exactly the easiest thing to do - Buffy had not bought this car with a family in mind. And it was almost more nerve-wracking to be driving Riley's kids around in Boston traffic than it had been to face down any demon she'd ever come across. At least with the demons she'd known what she was doing.

It was a relief to finally pull up in front of Riley's house, and yet - at the same time - she was sorry to say good-bye. She had actually enjoyed their company. Each one of them reminded her of the Riley she fell in love with back in the day - his spark, his innocence; the unrelenting optimism even in the face of the slimmest of odds.

Buffy got out of the car and pushed the seat forward as, one by one, they piled out of the backseat: Jack jumping up - a bundle of barely contained energy; Liam, much smoother as he eased out, dropping his skateboard to the ground and rolling away with an easy grin that was - damn it - too much like Riley's for her to be able to take.

Annie followed Liam, giving Buffy a huge smile and a hug to match, while tactfully ignoring the tears running down Buffy's face. Kate did no such thing, openly staring as Buffy wiped her eyes.

She sighed inwardly, and steeled herself for whatever snitty thing that was about to come out of the girl's mouth. Buffy was completely caught off guard when Kate quietly said, "I used to think my dad didn't know that he wasn't supposed to look sad when he smiled." She looked down. "Thank you for helping him be happy again." She turned and walked inside the house, leaving Buffy speechless on the sidewalk.

Buffy looked at Willow as she got back in the car and pulled onto the street. "Well, what do you know?"

That Willow smiled guardedly and looked away did not go unnoticed. Buffy said, "You think this is a mistake."

No, probably not. Willow didn't have such a good track record when it came to dealing with grief.

A few minutes later, Buffy pulled into a spot and shut off the ignition. There was a heavy silence that had nothing to do with the lack of noise from the engine. And Willow was very purposefully not getting out of the car.

Willow's eyes had become very watery, and she took a minute before saying, "Sometimes you don't even get the three weeks." Before Buffy could even reach her hand out, Willow continued, "I'm just saying that you should be sure you know where this is coming from."

Buffy looked down. She wasn't actually entirely sure. How were you supposed to tell the difference? Was it just guilt? Denial? Was it something she wanted so badly to be true that she'd pick up on the slimmest of hopes? Or was it something that she'd known all along and just hadn't been able to process until now? Either way...

"I have to try, Will. I let him go - twice. This time I'm not saying good-bye until I know he's gone. Until I see it for myself." Xander may have been wrong about the once in a lifetime thing, but three times in a lifetime might be asking a bit-

Willow was clearly thinking the same thing. She sighed. "Xander. You never told him about Riley." Pointedly she added, "Despite promising me you would when you got back to Boston."

"Well..." Buffy shrugged her shoulders apologetically, remembering the phone call from Willow at the hotel in Toronto. "They're supposed to be here in two days. I'm not..." Don't cry. Do not cry. "What do I say?"

Willow looked at Buffy for what seemed like a very long time before a sly grin came over her face. "I can probably buy you a day or two." She thought for a minute. "How would you feel about your car breaking down outside of Hershey, P.A.? Close enough for the kids to smell the chocolate?"

They approached the building slowly. Buffy had never been here without Riley or Graham and she had no idea if the elevator scanny things were going to bring a team of armed men to greet her. She had to admit, she was a bit apprehensive.

He was nearly unrecognizable - a huge gash across his forehead, a black eye, and a nose that had obviously been broken. As he leaned against the back of a bench, he one-handedly - his other arm being in a sling - swung his cane like a golf club, hitting pebbles into the empty lot across the street with what seemed like an unnecessary amount of force.

Well, given that she might have taken her own ceiling down if it hadn't been for the steel beam, Buffy could understand the motivation.

He didn't acknowledge Buffy or Willow at first, smiling only after Buffy said, "Careful there - hit those too far and you could break a few win..." She couldn't quite choke out that last word, remembering she'd said almost exactly the same thing to Riley, the day after the fireworks.

Brooks didn't seem to notice. He swung the cane a few more times before looking at the ground. "Buffy, I'm so sorry. I know how much he meant to you. I'm sorry I couldn't." His voice cracked and he angrily hit the cane against bench, muttering, "Fuck. This just sucks."

By now, the sensation of sudden tears was so commonplace that Buffy barely noticed it. "Yeah," she mumbled. It truly did.

He swung the cane a few more times. "I keep thinking I should stop by the house to pay my respects in person. I'm just not sure I can look into Sam's-" He stopped abruptly to correct himself. "Kate. Kate's eyes."

Buffy looked down. So understood. Except Liam was the one that really got to Buffy. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, trying to find the optimism she'd felt back at her house. Riley is not dead, she told herself. Not dead.

She looked up to see Willow's intent gaze. Buffy decided to ignore the skepticism contained within. "Will, this is Brooks. He was at the video briefing you did before we left for Quetico. Brooks, this is-"

With an amused glance at Buffy, Willow said, "Something I distinctly remember not mentioning."

"That one I've known for years." Brooks grinned. "Sam actually told me about you."

"Brooks and Sam were..." Buffy thought this probably wasn't the best time to go into the whole Brooks-Sam-Riley thing. "...Close."

"She said she hoped you'd make it," he told Willow as he looked around for another rock to swat at. "Looks like you did."

Buffy thought she heard a trace of bitterness in that last statement - presumably not because Willow had made it, but because Sam hadn't. And despite Willow having come to terms with her dark phase, Buffy thought she probably had no interest in discussing it. Changing to a bright and cheery new subject, Buffy asked Brooks, "You escaped the Boston hospital, too?"

"Barely - they transferred me there last night," Brooks answered. "Brady talked them into releasing me." He shrugged. "It looks worse than it is."

There was a hint of a smile in his eyes. "Maybe I've got my own healing thing going on."

Buffy decided not to respond to that. She'd done enough avoiding of the subject. Quietly, she asked, "What happened?"

Brooks paused for a minute before responding. "Morris tells me we got thrown against the rocks - I don't actually remember. They said I drowned. I'd be dead if it weren't for Joe dragging me out of the water and doing the whole CPR thing."

Vaguely remembering Graham mentioning it, Buffy said, "Joe? Didn't we send him away?"

"He decided to follow us." Brooks gave her a crooked smile. "Lucky for me, I guess."

Yes. 'Lucky' was probably the word. Hopefully it wasn't mistakenly being used in place of 'deliberately kept the team in sight in order to view his handiwork.' "Has anyone talked to Joe since then?"

Brooks winced as he tried to hold up his bad arm. "Kinda unconscious at the time."

Of course, Buffy thought. Nice way with the sensitive. However, now that he'd mentioned it... "Should you be here right now? Don't you Army guys get workers' comp?"

"Graham did mention something about staying home for the next few days, but... I just can't." He gave her a sad smile. "I thought it would be better to be around everyone. Until I got here that is." He started swinging his cane again. "Did they call you in for a debriefing?"

"No, I..." Buffy stopped. Now that she'd jumped on the 'Riley's not dead' train, the 'you stupid idiot - of course he is' voice had begun taking prominence. "Something's come up. I needed to talk to Graham."

Brooks stopped the cane in mid-air, giving Buffy a shrewd look. "Something's come up?"

She shrugged. It was going to be hard enough to talk to Graham about this; she wasn't about to verbalize it before then.

"Wait," Buffy said as Brooks started to walk - well, limp - forward. "The elevator. Riley said."

Now it was Buffy's turn to be surprised - more because of the part about Sam knowing about it than the one about her mentioning it to Brooks. "Riley told Sam about all that?"

She'd always assumed that it was just too shameful for him to talk about the bites; that that's why he had kept it from her, coming clean only because he had no choice. It had never occurred to her that he would have shared it with Sam - with Sam and not Buffy.

This should not come as a shock, Buffy told herself. Sam was his wife. If he'd been honest with her about why he'd left Sunnydale, of course he would tell her the reason he'd taken to such a nasty little habit. Still...

Stop it, Buffy. This does not matter. Not one bit. Not any more. Riley loves you. Present tense.

She suddenly noticed that both Brooks and Willow were staring at her - Brooks seeming a bit confused; Willow not at all so. Buffy did her best to erase any doubt that might be lingering on her face. She looked at the front doors, asking Brooks, "Can you get us inside?"

Brooks looked from Buffy to Willow, and then back again. Confused maybe; not, however, stupid. He clearly decided to let it go, nodding towards an alley that ran alongside the building. "Follow me."

They walked down the alley, stopping when they came to one of the nastiest looking dumpsters Buffy could ever recall seeing - and that was saying something. Brooks slid the panel door open, reaching in and pulling out a couple of trash bags.

Buffy watched him stick his hand in again and feel around for something. Blech. She was not at all happy when he gave up, saying, "A little help?"

Brooks said, "There should be a keypad somewhere in there. I'm not sure where, though. I've never actually seen this in use."

Shaking his head, Brooks answered, "Riley had it put in when the unit took over the building - I guess he didn't totally trust the guys in D.C. It's self-contained; all the data from the scanners bypasses Security and goes directly to him and Graham."

Buffy was deliberately trying not to react to the odor. She was a Slayer - those things weren't supposed to bother her. "I thought you said you never used this. How do you know so much about it?" She held up her hand as Brooks started to explain. "No, don't even say it. Sam told you. Was there anything she kept a secret?"

Brooks smiled and ignored that last question, stepping aside so that Buffy could pull herself into the dumpster and root around. She could hear him telling Willow that the keypad should also open up another entryway, one that would allow Willow to avoid the whole garbage thing.

Lovely, Buffy thought, looking down at whatever disgusting mushy thing she had just put her hand into. The whole Chosen One thing really sucked at times.

After a few minutes of kicking around trash bags, she was beginning to think that being confronted with fully armed Security people wasn't sounding so bad after all. Come on, Riley - where would you put this top secret keypad? "Brooks, I can't-"

Wait a minute. She looked up. Being six feet tall, it made more sense for Riley to go up, not down. And, yep - there it was, right along the lip of the dumpster's wall. She could tell only because it was a slightly different color; if she hadn't been looking for it, she never would have noticed it was there.

Pushing a couple of trash bags over, she climbed up and called out, "Please tell me you know the code to get in."

Brooks' head appeared in the dumpster's opening and he rattled off some numbers.

"You're sure about that, right?" Buffy asked, the whole point being to avoid Security. "There's no chance you're off by a number or two."

Buffy tried not to pout. Of course it would have something to do with Sam. She supposed she should be grateful it wasn't any more personal, like Sam's measurements.

Punching in the code, Buffy muttered, "Doesn't he know you're not supposed to use things like that for passwords?"

She put her hand against the wall as the trash bags shifted aside, a trapdoor appearing in the floor. At the same time, the whole back end of the dumpster slid open and a path was cleared. As Willow walked in, the trapdoor dropped, revealing a staircase leading down, presumably into the building.

Buffy couldn't deny she thought so, too. She wiped her hands off on her jeans. "Let's go." She started down the stairs and then turned back when she realized Brooks hadn't followed. "You're not coming with us?"

Lifting his cane, he said, "I think I'll stick with the elevator. I'm not sure I'm up for climbing six flights of stairs."

A few minutes later, he met them as they emerged from the staircase. As grimy as she now was, the trash had actually been a good thing, taking Buffy's mind off of the real reason they were here. Now that they were walking through the halls, however, the 'Riley is dead' mantra began running through her head again.

This was clearly a place of mourning, with people going about their business grimly, all of them subdued; a heavy silence replaced the normal buzz of activity that Buffy associated with the place. Even the phones seemed to have stopped ringing.

Some of the men from the team were there, and they approached slowly, giving her awkward hugs. Most looked at Willow with recognition, but Buffy didn't offer any official introductions, re- or otherwise. They'd remember her face from last week's briefing if they didn't already, and right now, Buffy was just busy trying to breathe.

The whispered mantra had become a proclamation - an unending loop blaring in her brain; as though everyone else knew the truth, and they were crowding around her reciting - no screaming - the words over and over again: Riley is dead, Riley is dead, Riley is dead; each utterance louder than the one before. The hope she'd felt when talking to Riley's kids seemed to be fading, having a hard time standing up to the brick wall of reality that threatened to come crashing down on her head.

Let him rest in peace, Buffy, the voices were saying. Bury him once and for all and let him rest in peace.

"Huh?" Buffy looked up. She had completely zoned out, and hadn't realized that Brooks and Willow had begun walking again. "Yes."

Riley's office was on the way to Graham's, and Buffy couldn't help but look in as they walked by. She stopped suddenly and her heart leapt as she saw a small, yellow ball fly up in the air. Riley? Could it possibly-? The surge of relief was so strong that she couldn't move for a second, couldn't speak.

Recovering, she pushed the door open and saw the ball fall to the ground. Her heart crashed right along with it when she realized it was Graham, not Riley, who was bending down to pick it up; it was Graham who didn't straighten up entirely, whose elbows were resting on his knees as his hand went to his eyes and his shoulders started shaking.

"Graham." She didn't realize she was crying herself until she opened her mouth and tasted the salty tears.

Graham looked up slowly. "I thought I'd deal with this better," he said, softly. "But every time I come in here." He shook his head. "Sarah said I should have someone else do this."

Buffy looked around the room. There was an empty box on the floor, a few more stacked against the wall. "Isn't this kind of soon?" Buffy asked. Three days. Riley had only been gone for three days.

"Buffy," Graham said, speaking to her as though she were a child who had just said the stupidest thing ever, "when most people die, they don't come back."

She bit back the retort that came to her lips, keeping it to herself as she thought, You know what, Graham? In case you hadn't noticed, Slayers can hurt, too.

Damn it. Walking over to the window, she angrily wiped her eyes. This was already not going well, and she hadn't even gotten to the hard part. It certainly wouldn't help to become a blubbering mess. Especially because the 'Riley is dead' theme had begun playing again.

No, he's not, she told herself, fighting the rising doubt. Is. Not. Regaining control, she turned back just as Graham saw Willow and Brooks standing in the doorway. He gave Brooks a hard stare. "God - you look like shit. I thought I told you to stay home."

"Yeah," Graham answered dully, "well, it's not much better here." He turned to Buffy. "So, what's up?"

Graham sounded completely and utterly defeated. And with the voices raging in her own head, Buffy did not feel at all able to persuade him otherwise. "What makes you think something's up?"

He leaned back in the chair. "You haven't returned any of my calls or emails which gives me the distinct impression you've been avoiding me. Then you suddenly appear in my doorway?"

Right. Of course he would - the man had a point. If she could just get rid of the chorus in her brain, maybe she could think clearly enough to make a coherent argument.

Buffy glanced around the room. Willow looked slightly skeptical, but she smiled encouragingly. Next to her, Brooks looked tired, leaning against the doorjamb. And Graham. Graham's eyes defined the word 'wary.'

Did you not promise Riley that you wouldn't let him go? she chastised herself. What could Graham possibly say that would make this any worse than it already was? Just do this, Buffy. For heaven's sake, just do it.

As if to emphasize the point, the picture of Riley's kids came into view as Graham shifted. With renewed resolve, she said to Graham, "I want to see him."

Now that it was out there, she was undeterred. "I know. I don't care. I want to-"

Buffy leaned forward. "Take away the ring and what do you have? A body that you said was unrecognizable; a body conveniently found in the middle of a forest fire. On some protected burial ground, no less, so there's no way of actually running a simple DNA test. Don't you think that's all just a little too perfect?" And considering they could turn a dumpster into a full-fledged invisible entrance... "Don't you have some hi-tech way of telling for sure? With all those chips you guys have, I'd think that-"

"The chips are unreadable," Graham said, cutting her off. A veil came over Graham's eyes and he leaned back slowly in the chair.

Buffy had the feeling there was something he wanted to say, but was holding back. She could feel the fire rise up as it occurred to her, "You don't trust me, do you? You still don't trust me."

She stood up straight and started pacing. "Because I didn't save him. I didn't back in Sunnydale and I didn't up in Quetico. Because I let him down." The Buffy and Riley story, in its short and not-so-sweet condensed form.

No, she thought angrily. This was not going to happen again. She stopped in front of Graham, all of the doubts beaten back into submission.

Though she spoke quietly, her tone clearly conveyed how strongly she felt. "I love him, Graham. I didn't know it was possible to feel this way after such a short time." She glared at him, daring him to say anything about how it wouldn't have been such a short time if she'd handled things differently in Sunnydale. That was neither here nor there at the moment. "I want him back."

Graham didn't say anything. He just sat there with his arms folded against his chest and looked at her.

She asked, "Is this because I didn't call you back right away? Or because. Because of Ang-?"

Brooks nodded his head at Graham who had turned away from Buffy and was turning on the computer. "You had him at hello."

Her mouth dropped open as she looked at Graham. "Was that an interrogation?" No wonder Sarah hadn't fallen for the silent treatment thing. Oldest trick in the book. Geez. He really was good at that.

Graham looked at her, a smile in his eyes as he waited for the computer to boot up. "The kids got to you, didn't they?"

Buffy glanced at Willow. No help there. "I. uh. No. I just." Nice with the unequivocal denial there.

Graham answered his own question. ""Yeah, me too. Made me think that maybe I wasn't just looking for excuses because I didn't want to believe he was really gone. Of course, basing this on the dreams of a fourteen-year-old girl doesn't exactly qualify as the best reason..." He turned back to the computer, shrugging and saying, "Rationalization isn't always a bad thing."

Buffy was having a very hard time switching gears. "But." Was this the same Graham of two minutes ago? The same one who had been nearly overcome by grief as she'd walked into the room? The same one who had been very clear that there was no chance of Riley being alive?

Well, o.k. - that grief thing had nothing to do with logic. After all, Buffy had spent most of the last hour and a half believing that Riley was still alive and yet she could probably still fill a bucket with the tears she'd managed to shed. And, come to think of it, Graham had only been throwing statements at her - the way she might have done if she'd been playing devil's advocate and wanted to make sure that everyone was truly behind her.

Which was kind of what he was muttering as he clicked on various icons as the desktop came up: "I watched Sam die with my own two eyes and I still couldn't believe she was actually gone. You think I'm going to believe the load of crap they fed us? About my best friend? Sacred burial ground, my ass." He moved aside so that Buffy could see the image on the monitor.

She came to the desk and leaned in, a smile coming over her face. They were going to do it. They were going to get him back.

The monitor showed an image of a shrine of some kind. The body, or what Buffy assumed to be a body - the blanket draped over it made it hard to tell for sure - was laid out on a large flat rock overlooking a lake. There was a ring of small stones surrounding the rock; the stones, in turn, were encircled by a grove of trees.

"A satellite?" Willow asked as she and Brooks joined Graham and Buffy at the monitor. "You have your own satellite?"

"Several. We have a healthy budget," Graham said, nodding as he zoomed in on the image. "I've got two men whose only job is to watch this around the clock. If anything happens - if they move the body, remove the shroud; hell, if anyone even comes near it, I'll know. No one's gone in or out of that circle since we've been watching."

"Aren't they worried about animals?" Buffy asked. If a bear could come after her because of a piece of gum, actual flesh would probably seem like an all you can eat buffet.

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Graham pointed to one of the smaller rocks. "Last night two wolves sat right there for about three hours. Howled like crazy and paced around a bit, but they didn't even make a move to touch the body."

Willow shook her head. "They can't." She pointed to the stones. "The circle is like a force field. The animals won't cross it."

"So that's why we couldn't read the chips," Graham murmured, looking at Brooks. "Too much interference. We couldn't do dental or skeletal scans either."

"Can people get in?" Buffy couldn't quite keep the excitement out of her voice. This was how things were supposed to work. Scoobies and Slayers and, heck, throw in as many soldiers as you can and we'll have ourselves a party.

Willow nodded. "Probably. Not without permission from the tribe's spiritual leader, however."

"So we get permission," Graham countered in the tone of someone used to getting his way. "What's the big deal?"

"I don't think it will be quite that easy," Willow answered. "This is all part of some ritual, an offering of sorts. They're not just going to break the circle because you asked nicely."

Buffy pulled away from the computer and began pacing again. "Then what will it take?"

Willow turned to Buffy. "There would be a test of some kind. You'd have to prove you're worthy of disrupting the spell."

"A test?" Whatever it was, Buffy could do it. She had no doubt. "What kind of test?"

"Give me a hint, here, Will," Buffy said. "Are we talking baking cookies? Or fighting an army of those Maymaygwayshi guys?" Honestly? With the energy surging through her right now, she was hoping it was the army.

No matter - Buffy's eyes were still gleaming as she looked at Graham. "So you really believe it? That Riley's alive?"

Graham looked down at the floor. "I have to. I'm not sure I can." He didn't finish the sentence. Glancing up at the others, the shadow left his face almost as quickly as it had appeared. He had clearly come to a decision. Reaching for the phone, he picked it up and said, "Wendy - can you schedule a coffee break? Anyone who can come. At Pete's in two hours."

Riley woke up gasping for air. His lungs were on fire and every breath he took hurt like hell, but it sure beat not breathing.

He opened his eyes, shifting his head to look around him. Even just that one slight movement sent tremors of pain throughout his entire body. Anything more than blinking clearly seemed to be out of the question.

Nothing seemed to be permanently damaged or even broken, however, so just give it a few minutes. Be patient.

When breathing could actually happen without the bombs-going-off-in-his-chest feeling, Riley decided to give the looking around thing another try.

The result was hardly worth the effort - the room he was lying in - yes, lying, he could figure that much out - was pitch dark. Not a window or a door or a lamp to be seen. That eliminated the whole visual cue thing. Moving on then.

Other than his still labored breaths, slience seemed to be the prevailing sound. Excellent. 0 for 2.

Smell? Dank and musty; nothing really helpful there. And he wasn't about to start tasting things - not before he could see them at least. That left touch. Touch he could do.

He seemed to be lying on something fairly soft, if a little scratchy. A blanket? On a bed? A scratchy wool blanket that was not at all comfortable against his bare skin?

Bare skin. Because he wasn't wearing any clothes. That was disconcerting. Dealing with that should probably be the first order of business.

Unfortunately, however, sitting up took a lot longer than it should have. A good five minutes with his muscles screaming every inch of the way. And not just the normal aches and pains of a forty-year-old man; no - this was an extra special kind of hurt that ranked about 18 on a scale of 1 to 10. The more awake he felt, the more pain he realized there was.

Fuck. It felt like his body had been torn apart and carelessly sewn back together again, with the added effect of nothing working the way it should; his brain was sending signals out but the messages were getting lost along the way.

He was still pretty sure, though, that nothing had been broken. He didn't even seem to be unusually bruised or scratched up.

O.k., he thought. Pain inventory not helping. The pain is happening to someone else. Just concentrate on the motor skills. Left leg over, right leg over, feet on the floor. Let's go.

Easier said than done, however, and words alone could not describe the sensation of every muscle being shredded, pulled apart thread by thread, or of every nerve ending being exposed and dragged back and forth across a bed of hot coals studded with glass. Words simply could not describe...

He fought the temptation to collapse back on the bed - having come this far, he was not about to cede one bit of territory. Hey - give him a day or two and he might actually be able to walk across the room.

With a great deal of concentration - and a fair amount of tears stinging his eyes at every spasm of pain - Riley raised his head.

Well, check that out. He had actually discovered something. There on the far wall was a faint flicker of orange light. A flame? Meaning somewhere outside of this room there was someone else alive and moving around? He hoped that was a good thing.

Think, Ri, think. The where, what and how. Start with how did he get here and what was the last thing he could remember.

How could he have forgotten about Buffy? How was that humanly possible? Although now that he was thinking of her, it was almost too overwhelming - a flood of sensation colliding with nerves that were already raw.

Mind over matter. Disassociate the body and mind; move away from the feelings, even if they did happen to be about Buffy. Right now the key is to-

Damn. Unless he was delusional, he was pretty sure someone had just come into the room - it looked like a shadow had fallen across the wall with the flickering light, and there was the faint feeling of the air shifting as someone walked around.

Buffy? God, he hoped so. If it wasn't her, he was pretty much screwed. At this point the only advantage he had was that whoever was with him didn't seem to know he was awake.

He made every effort not to make a sound, holding his breath even, as he sat perfectly still, tracking the figure moving about as his eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness.

A woman - taller than Buffy. Gathering supplies of some sort and heading back over to him. Well, that was no good. If this was the Princess chick, he wasn't exactly in a state where he could ward off unwanted advances. And given his state of undress...

"You're up," she said as she approached, somehow bringing the light with her. "Good. I've been waiting."

Her voice registered at the same moment she emerged from the darkness, and he suddenly understood what it must feel like to be hit by a truck. The only part of his body that seemed to be working seamlessly at the moment was his mouth as it dropped open.

He was so stunned that he barely felt it as she pushed him onto his back, her cool hands caressing his chest, lifting his hand to her lips.

She smiled. "I've been waiting for so long." Her hair brushed his face and fell across his shoulder as she leaned down.

There was no way this could be real. It was a hallucination. It had to be. Except he didn't think you could feel a hallucination.

He looked up at her fingers entwined with his, resting on her lips. He wasn't sure if he hadn't pulled away yet because he couldn't or because he didn't want to.

"Don't be scared." She brought his hand up to her cheek and leaned into it. Easing her body down so that she was lying next to him, she looked up with her big, wide eyes. "Please - say something."

He shifted his head and raised himself to his elbow, forgetting that only seconds before he hadn't been able to move. Looking at the silhouette of her body in wonder, he brushed his fingers through her hair, almost crying as the silky tendrils fell to the bed. There was only one thing he could think of to say: her name.

Buffy looked around as they got out of the car in front of O'Hara's. "This is the coffee break?"

She could see now why Graham insisted on driving rather than having her follow him - a Mercedes convertible would have lasted about two seconds in this neighborhood. "I was kind of hoping for a cheese danish," she mumbled. "A doughnut would have worked, too..."

Graham checked to make sure his car was locked. "You'll have to settle for a keg of McCaffrey's. I'll bet you just about anything that Pete's got one set up in the back."

The buzz that had been missing back at the office was alive here, though it had gone to the other extreme. Buffy recognized all too well their need to lash out. Luckily, punching bags and free weights were replaceable. She turned as an old man approached them.

Looking around, Pete said, "It's been like this since we heard. They don't like losing one of their own."

"One of their own?" Graham smiled sadly as his eyes scanned the room. "Riley would be happy to hear that." He introduced Buffy and Willow.

Pete nodded and looked at Buffy, clearly having a sense of who she was. "Too sad a story for such a pretty young thing."

Damn it. With these new developments, she'd actually thought that crying was a thing of the past. No such luck.

As Willow's arm went around her, she heard Pete gruffly say to Graham, "I set up the back for you. Take as long as you need."

As promised, there was a keg sitting in the corner. Most of the team was already there, telling stories about Riley and laughing as they drank their beer from red plastic cups. They looked up and then guiltily away from Buffy as she walked in with Willow and Graham.

"Don't stop." Buffy tried to smile as Brady pulled out a folding chair for her. "Please - I..." Three weeks and one long ago year just weren't enough to populate her memories. "It's nice to hear."

She spent most of the next couple of hours laughing through her tears, listening to the things Riley had done over the years and telling herself that this wasn't the end, that there would be more stories to come. She was actually thinking that this hadn't been as bad as she'd expected when they started talking about how angry - "fucking batshit crazy" as one of the men called it - Riley had been at some bureaucratic screw-up years ago. No one escaped Riley's wrath that day - Why the hell hadn't anyone told him about the letters?

He'd found out from his mother who, upon returning home after four weeks away, had found a letter waiting for her - one she had dreaded receiving for years - telling her that Riley was missing in action and presumed dead.

Except that she knew he wasn't, having just spent the month with her very alive son and his family helping out with the new baby. She'd dismissed it at first, but had called him early one morning a week later with the sudden realization that other families may have received the same letter. Which they had. Without exception.

After numerous phone calls, Riley had finally gotten to the bottom of it: the general in charge of the division had decided that deep undercover wasn't enough and that the team should become a shadow unit that would cease to exist in any official context. Without discussing it with anyone, the general had had an aide send out letters to each family saying their son or daughter was missing in action and presumed dead.

As it turned out, there were other things he'd done without discussing with anyone, including declaring war on the Republic of Romania, and it wasn't long before he was no longer in charge of the division, much less anything else.

The deed had already been done, however, and after a quick damage control trip to Bucharest, Riley was determined to personally call the family of every member of the squad with profuse apologies and assurances that it would never happen again.

"I started working for him right around then," Wendy said, smiling. "I almost quit on the spot when I found out about how angry he'd gotten. Then I decided that someone who'd take the time to make all those phone calls couldn't be all bad."

It had been a while later when Riley found out it wasn't only the next of kin who had gotten the letter - someone's uncle had gotten one; another guy's tenth grade English teacher. Anyone who had been noted in someone's file for whatever reason - references, background checks - anything. Riley was still working his way through the red tape, trying to get the complete list of names from D.C. when Sam died.

Buffy was glad she hadn't eaten anything in almost two days because she was suddenly feeling quite ill. And, given that she'd recently spent a fair amount of flashing back to the day she received that very letter, well...

She abruptly stood up, movement being the only thing she could think of that would ward off a complete breakdown. She strode out of the room and headed right towards the boxing ring, looking for a fight.

Brady followed her out, which turned out to be a good thing because - young and strapping as these guys were, they stood no chance against an unhappy Slayer. Brady at least had a sense of what he was in for and could mostly give it back. Plus he kept a running commentary that left little room for aimless angsty mind-wandering and even, occasionally, made her smile.

After about twenty minutes, Brady fell back against the ropes and yelled, "Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!" grinning all the while.

By the time they returned to the back room, the mood had turned somber and Graham decided it was time to move on to the reason they were really here. With a glance at Buffy, he said, "So here's the deal - I'm not entirely convinced Riley's dead."

That got their attention. Though there was a little skepticism in response to Graham's words, it wasn't as much as she'd expected. Everyone here had seen enough to know that things weren't always what they seemed.

Graham continued, "I'm fully aware that this may be an extreme case of denial talking and if anyone feels strongly the other way, I'm all ears." He waited for responses. When none came, he said, "O.k. Then we need a plan."

"No permission necessary." Graham's answer was directed at everyone in the room. "This is about as unofficial as we get. Anything you want to say gets put on the table."

Turning to her, Graham said, "There's an answer. Not that good." He looked back at the others. "I've already been asked to be Division Director. Sprague would be promoted into my job. If he weren't still in Quetico, he'd already be moved into Riley's office. The General isn't sure why we haven't already moved on."

Graham nodded curtly. "He wants us to start working on other cases - the Canadian government is having second thoughts about using us on this. Jessica said they weren't too confident in our abilities to keep the public safe if we couldn't protect our lead man in the field."

"Jessica?" Buffy could feel her blood boil, although it shouldn't have surprised her in the least given that Jessica had fired Angel Investigations by the time Buffy returned to her house from Riley's that first night back in Boston.

"The one who set us up?" She was seething as she looked at Graham. "Jessica's got to be involved. She's the one who had Riley go in; who practically had your General order him to go."

"And there's the root of the problem," Graham said to the rest of the group. "It's highly likely that once the General catches wind of anything we're discussing here, there will be a direct order to leave it alone. Disobeying that order will have serious consequences. You all need to know that straight out."

A-ha, Buffy thought. Codespeak for 'get the hell out of Dodge while Big Brother's listening.' "None of you can do this with me?"

"I didn't say that." Graham put his drink down on the floor. "I just want the people going to know what they're getting into. And I want everyone else to know why these 'people' are limited to Brooks, Brady, Sprague and Lourdes." Over everyone's protests, he continued, "I need the rest of you on active cases - Wendy will give you your assignments."

"No." Graham shook his head. "You can't. Riley put a lot into getting this division back on track. There's a very good chance we could lose our most experienced people either to court martials or, well, whatever this thing is. I'm counting on you guys to pick up the slack."

He was clearly uninterested in any further discussion on the matter as he turned to Buffy. "O.k. So what happened out there?"

With a quick look at Brooks and Morris, Buffy described how the shockwave had moved across the lake, taking only a minute to reach them, whipping up the waves and-

"Before that," Brady cut in. "What happened to Riley? It sounded like he blacked out."

Of course, Buffy thought, remembering how she'd heard Brooks ask Riley if he was o.k., how she'd turned to see him already doubled over. "I don't know. I didn't see it happen." She looked at Brooks.

"He said he felt something - like a shock; then he said it was more like pins and needles." Brooks smiled a bit ruefully and glanced at Morris. "I was about to tell him I was getting kind of a tingly feeling myself, but when I turned to him he..." Brooks paused. "It looked as if he got the wind knocked out of him; like he'd been hit. I asked how he was. That's when Buffy turned around, and then the storm came. I didn't get a chance to ask anything else."

Graham tipped his chair back and thought for a minute. "Yeah. I guess I do. You?"

"Butterflies?" As if to emphasize his annoyance, the front of Graham's chair made a sharp noise as he leaned forward again. "There really were butterflies? You didn't think that was important to mention?"

Didn't think...? Of all the... "Well, maybe if I hadn't been figuring out how to convince you that Riley wasn't dead when it turned out you'd already decided that and just hadn't actually-"

Willow cleared her throat loudly, interrupting what could easily become a full-force blowout.

Obviously aware that Buffy wasn't the only one being reprimanded, Graham seemed to make an effort to calmly ask, "How many?"

"Millions wouldn't be an exaggeration," Buffy said, barely containing her huff. "Think drowning. Butterfly kisses of the invasive kind."

Graham turned to Brady. "Did you see any?" When Brady shook his head, Graham switched his gaze to Brooks and Morris, the same question in his eyes.

Brooks shook his head as well. "We were concentrating on not hitting the rocks."

"Nice job," Brady said, earning himself a deathly look from the very battered Brooks. Everyone else pretty much ignored him.

"Well, at the very least, it sounds like we're in the right nightmare." Graham looked at Willow. "Moving on. The Butterfly Princess - where are we with that? Did you get any further?"

"This isn't for publication, Will." Unlike Graham, Buffy didn't even try to mask the irritation in her voice. "What's the source?"

"Barney?" Graham asked as if he hadn't heard her right the first time. "As in big, purple dinosaur Barney? As in the-only-people-who-can-stand-me-are-three-year-olds Barney?"

"See what I mean?" Willow said. "I found it on the Web - in some transcript from the show. From almost fifteen years ago. The only actual mention of 'Butterfly Queen' anywhere. And it did seem relevant."

"That she'll dance for eternity," she replied, deliberately not looking at Buffy.

Willow took a sip from her cup before answering, "Because she dances for her lost love, and will until she finds him again."

"The 'true love' thing?" Brady asked. "'Would you die for her'? What Joe said the other day?"

Buffy sat back in her chair. She'd been so focused on the widower thing - on Riley fitting the profile - that it hadn't really occurred to her why it was important.

Or maybe it was that she didn't want to think about it. There'd actually been a moment when she'd wondered about where the wives fit in; she'd even wondered if that whole 'butterflies equals souls' thing meant the wives were coming back for their husbands.

She hadn't said anything to Riley, though, because that wasn't a conversation she'd been ready to have, especially so soon after that whole stupid breaking-up-with-her thing that he almost did. It was one thing to have him be intrigued by this phantom princess; it was a whole other story entirely to even think about competing with a back from the dead Sam, the one woman in the history of the world that Buffy had no chance against.

Buffy looked up to see Graham watching her. But instead of bringing that topic to its logical conclusion, he turned back to Willow. "The markings on the rock - did you figure them out?"

Willow didn't seem at all eager to move on to the next subject, which didn't seem to Buffy to be a very good sign, especially given how reluctantly Willow had approached this part of the conversation.

"Some of the symbols are identical to the ones on the bodies. I'm sure that doesn't surprise anyone." As Willow spoke, she reached into her bag and pulled out a notepad and a Palm. "Here's what I'm pretty sure about - some things about spirits, some things about being lost, all of which ties in to what I sent you last week about the butterfly myths."

Yes, Buffy thought, watching Willow closely. There was definitely more, definitely something important, and most likely something Buffy would not like, otherwise Willow wouldn't have stopped talking. She fixed her stare on Willow. "Keep going."

Willow's gaze was just as unyielding, focused on Buffy as though there were no one else in the room. "The rest of this is just a guess. You need to keep that in mind."

"Well there's the 'in the beginning' symbol, the one that shows up just about everywhere - the one I told you about at the briefing." Willow reached into her bag a second time, this time pulling out a pair of glasses that Buffy was pretty sure she didn't need.

No, make that absolutely sure. And that glasses stalling device was such a Giles rip-off that Willow should be embarrassed to be using it. Buffy glared at Willow.

Buffy sat back as Willow finally began reading her notes, saying things like 'an eternal search' and 'you are a part of me' and 'your blood runs through me.' There was also a mumbled 'devour' and 'consume' that Willow tried to slip in under her breath.

Buffy shrugged her shoulders as nonchalantly as possible. Go ahead. I can take it.

Looking back down, Willow finished, "'For that moment the stars smiled. The wind sang; the sky danced. They will sing and dance again. When daylight comes, we will be one.'"

Will be one? As in, um, one? Buffy thought, her heart sinking. She folded her arms in front of her chest, very specifically trying not to react.

The silence in the room was broken by Brady. "That's pretty specific for a guess."

Buffy kept her eyes on Willow. "Willow's 'guesses' tend to be pretty solid." Oh, this princess was toast. Of the toastiest kind.

Brady crumpled up his cup and tossed it into the trash can. "So where does that leave us?"

That was a dumb question. Buffy gave him a scorching look. "Where it leaves us is that Riley was targeted and that we have to figure out a way to get him back."

Brady raised his eyebrows. "That's all well and good, but where do you propose we start?"

"With Joe," she replied. "There's more to this and he knows it." She turned to Graham. "Besides, Joe's tribe has a body-"

Did the man not understand that he was treading on thin ice? Had she not beaten him up enough already? "A body..." - emphasis on the very non-identity-specific 'A,' thank you very much - "...sitting in a circle of magic stones as an offering of some type."

"I say we try and identify the body." Brady finally seemed to sense that his life was in serious danger. He held his hands up to Buffy and hurriedly added, "Not that I want them to be right about him being dead, I just think we should make sure he's not before we go off on some fruitless rescue mission."

Graham looked at Brady and then at Buffy. "I say we do both. Buffy, Brady, and Brooks - we leave first thing tomorrow. Ana and Sprague are already up at Quetico - they've been holding the fort in case anything came up. We'll drop off Brady and Brooks, then head down to Lac La Croix. Pay a visit to the Tribe." He looked around the room. "Does anyone have anything else to add?"

Buffy turned to see him staring at her. His eyes seemed so sad. That didn't bode well. "O-kay," Graham said slowly. When Brooks didn't continue, Graham prodded, "Go ahead."

Brooks looked down at the ground and spoke softly. "That day on the lake... I thought I heard something. The last few days I just assumed I was imagining things, but after hearing everything Willow just said. Well, now I'm not so sure."

Buffy was getting restless. She wanted to get home, pack; anything that would make tomorrow come faster so they could get Riley out of there before, well, daylight. "What was it?" she asked impatiently. "What did you hear?"

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised - not after everything that Willow had said. And she had to admit, she even had an inkling it was coming.

Still, it was as though Brooks had punched her - just rammed his fist into her gut and taken the air right out - when he looked Buffy in the eye and said, "Sam."

Buffy looked out the car window, barely registering the conversation in the front seat, and very specifically not noticing Graham's periodic glances at her in the rear view mirror.

He hadn't said more than two words after Brooks' revelation, and Buffy figured it had, by now, occurred to him that Joe's 'would you die for her' hadn't meant what they'd originally thought, i.e., do you love her enough that you would sacrifice yourself to save her? Instead, Joe had meant: would you give up this life to be with her?

And yes, Graham had been right - Joe had been talking about Sam, not about Buffy.

Buffy could feel Graham's eyes on her again, and she finally looked up, her eyes daring him to say something. He was probably thinking that if this really were Sam, then they should just let Riley be; that as much as Graham wanted his friend back, there was no way he was taking Riley away from Sam. A similar thought may have flitted through Buffy's head, but she wasn't going to mention it. She was a Slayer, not a saint.

Graham pulled to a stop alongside Buffy's car. She almost didn't respond when she heard him say her name as she got out. Looking up reluctantly, she could see the conflict written all over his face, and she was certain he was going to tell her that he'd decided to call the whole Riley retrieval thing off.

So what? She could do it herself. And she was about to tell him that in a heated voice when he surprised her by saying to meet at the Air Force base at four the next morning, and if Willow was serious about coming, they could probably pick up some gear at a place on Comm Ave.

Buffy had already begun to close the car door when she heard Graham quietly add, "I'm not honestly sure that what we're doing is the right thing."

Looking down quickly, Buffy thought, Maybe not. However, she really wasn't willing to consider other options. If that did mean a showdown with Sam, then a showdown with Sam was what would be.

Which was what she was about to say when Graham continued, "But if this really is Sam? She's gonna know we're coming for him." He grinned in the way that only demon-hunters and people with really sick senses of humor tended to grin. "This could get interesting."

On the other hand, the person whose support Buffy had expected - i.e., Willow - didn't seem quite as gung-ho. Very possibly because of her own experiences with the Beyond, especially the big Buffy one.

Buffy's defenses came back in full force. Or, actually, probably more than full force, given that Willow also intimately knew every insecurity Buffy had ever had when it came to men, something that unfortunately tied in here quite strongly.

Unlocking the car, Buffy got in. She slammed the door shut. "I don't want to talk about it."

Willow seemed to have no interest in pushing. "Didn't say a word." She reached for her seatbelt.

Good, Buffy thought. End of story. Except it probably wouldn't hurt to mention, "The odds that Sam is truly somehow behind all of this are, well, not much."

She pulled into traffic, totally oblivious to the car horns blaring at her until she noticed Willow squeeze her eyes shut. "That's how they drive in Boston. When in Rome."

A few minutes later, minutes during which Buffy had to admit a few snarky Sam thoughts crossed her mind, she added, "I mean, why would she start with all the others? If she just wanted Riley, why not just take him? Talk to him through Kate or something. Lord knows, Kate would have been happy to-"

"I saw him. Just wanted to scare him a little." Buffy shouted out the window, "It's called a crosswalk! The thing with big, white lines! It's there for a reason!" The tires squealed as she started driving again.

"Jerk," she muttered before continuing, "even if it were Sam, what kind of life could he possibly have with her? She's dead. And not the kind of dead where you can go to the movies and have dinner and things. Really dead. Can't even take her out in public dead."

"And - honestly?" Buffy said, her eyes on the road. "When you're up in Heaven? You're not really thinking about things like that."

"You don't really think at all. It's more like a state of being. Total contentment. Not - 'I can't wait for my husband to come join me and why don't I just hurry him along.'" Oops. There goes that snarky thing again.

Buffy sped through a yellow light. "Of course, if it's not Sam, it's someone who's apparently doing a pretty good job impersonating her. Brooks said it was her voice dead on. How would whatever this thing is know how to do that?"

"Magic." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Of course it's magic - some special Warrior Princess kind of magic. If she can kill men without leaving a mark on them and make them disappear into a sea of butterflies, then impersonating Sam would be absolutely no problem."

"But does Riley know that? Do you think he knows that it's not really her? After all this time..." Buffy couldn't speak for a minute. She'd been away from Angel for less than a month - after spending nearly every day in and day out with him for eight years - and the pull to, um, have him had been beyond incredible.

How could Riley not feel that for Sam? And even if it were someone who just looked like Sam, would he know the difference? Would he want to?

No, she tried to tell herself. He wouldn't fall for it. He would know something was wrong - how could he not? Unlike Buffy and Angel, one half of the Riley and Sam equation was dead, which should be a pretty a big indicator.

Well, o.k. One half of the Buffy/Angel equation was also dead if you wanted to be technical about it. And, considering the other half had spent a summer behind the Pearly Gates...

Buffy gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to keep herself from crying yet another time today. So much for that line of thinking. Especially since she could now easily see that even if Riley knew something was off, he'd just figure it was the Sam's-supposed-to-be-dead thing and wouldn't bother to look for another explanation.

Why should he? After all, making love to the wife you'd mourned for most of the last decade was pretty much a have-your-guilt-free-cake-and-eat-it-too situation. Could he really be blamed for giving in?

"I'm not..." Buffy's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Willow. "I'm not sure I can do this again with him."

"Will..." Buffy concentrated very hard on the cars in front of her, so much so that she almost missed the blaring sign saying, 'Get your hiking gear here!' Or something to that effect. She pulled into a parking spot.

Because of course there was the one question that was pretty much unspeakable. Not that that stopped her from turning to Willow and quietly asking, "What if it really is her?"

There were very few things that Buffy had qualms about fighting. Riley's dead wife - the mother of his possibly newly-orphaned children - was one of them.

Willow waited for Buffy to turn off the engine before saying, "Well, for what it's worth, I don't think it's Sam."

"You don't?" Buffy was surprised at how much of a relief it was to hear Willow say the words out loud.

Willow shrugged. "It's like you said - it doesn't make sense. Especially when you factor in all the others, including the ones who weren't widowers." She opened her door and stepped out of the car.

"Do you ever read your email?" Willow sighed as they walked into the store, ignoring the annoyed glances of the salespeople who were obviously ready to close up.

With a death glare towards anyone who dared approach them before the fifteen minutes until closing time were up, Buffy began looking through a rack, almost jumping when Willow said, "Nine out of fourteen were widowed. Remember?"

"Oh." Buffy pulled a shirt off the rack and held it up against Willow. "Right. I was kind of focused on the whole widower thing."

Buffy smiled her thanks. "I think I'm done needing perfect friend for the moment. Now I just need perfect friend's brain."

"O.k." Willow leaned forward, all business. "Remember how back at that briefing I asked Graham to find out if the other victims had lost someone close?"

"Well, they did," Willow continued. "All of them - a fiancée, a high school sweetheart. And what better way to lure your victim, than speaking to him in the voice of someone he's just lost?"

"Luring wasn't exactly what I'd call it." That made it sound too peaceful. "It was more the making them disappear into thin air thing. Or, rather, into air filled with millions of butterflies."

"Fine. Whatever." Willow was not deterred. "So maybe there's another purpose for the voice. But I'd bet you anything that every one of those men heard the voice of the person they lost. And I'm highly doubting that they all lost Sam."

"Then why couldn't I hear it? Or Morris?" Buffy asked. "And if it was only meant for Riley, why did Brooks hear it, too?"

Willow adamantly shook her head. "I don't think he was supposed to. Doesn't this thing usually strike when these guys are alone?"

Yes. Even if it did, though, "That still doesn't answer why Morris and I didn't hear it."

Willow took her time looking through a pile of t-shirts. She finally said, "Back in front of the office you said they were close. How close?"

Buffy's voice was quiet. "I think he was in love with her. Maybe still is a little bit."

"So," Willow asked, "what are the odds that two men, who were in love with the same woman, would both be willingly heading into the butterfly storm?"

Buffy pulled a vest off a hanger and tried it on. "Someone screwed up. They didn't know about Brooks - didn't know that he'd hear the voice, too." Her eyes connected with Willow's in the mirror. "Riley really was targeted - someone tagged him as the one to take. It wasn't a random act of nature that our boats got separated; someone did that on purpose."

Buffy nodded. She didn't say anything else until they had paid for their clothes and were out on the street again. As she got into the car, she looked at Willow. "If it's not Sam, then it has to be magic of some kind - right? It has to be a spell."

Willow pulled her door shut. "If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck... I'm thinking things are about to start quacking."

Starting up the car, Buffy hesitated for a minute and then said, "The other night - with Angel." She turned to Willow. "I kept thinking that it was like the way things were back in high school. That we got transported back in time."

"'For that moment,'" Willow said, echoing the phrase she had just recently translated. She raised her eyebrows. "Although I'm not sure I'd call you and Angel a 'moment.'"

"It depends on your perspective," Buffy answered, shaking her head. "Say you're a princess who's lived for millions of years and you just want to get back to that moment - to those years - you spent with the man who could very well be your soul mate."

Willow turned to Buffy. "You and Angel got caught up in the Riley and Sam spell. You weren't supposed to be in the boat any more than Brooks was supposed to be there to hear Sam's voice." She nodded slowly. "Good show, Watson."

Buffy pulled out into the line of cars streaming by, much less recklessly this time. She tried not to sound too eager. "It could happen, right?"

Talking had been the last thing on her mind. Buffy could feel the heat rising to her cheeks. "No."

"Well, maybe you should," Willow said, very tactfully avoided mentioning Buffy's blush.

The pain was back, and with it came an overwhelming need for sleep. He devoted every iota of willpower to staying awake. He'd spent far too long without her; he wasn't about to let his body rest right now. Especially when there was so much he wanted to tell her, so much to ask. All he could manage, though, was, "The kids."

Sam smiled and leaned her head against his chest, her cheek so cool against his skin. "Tell me about our children," she questioned softly.

About our children? Where could he possibly begin? Especially since he was having a hard time processing any thought beyond, Sam is here.

He watched as Sam got up and walked across the room, coming back moments later and sitting down next to him.

Pushing aside the pain, Riley turned his head as Sam took his hand. He tried to lift it to see. "What are you.?"

Whatever she was doing to his arm tickled, which, yes, was preferable to the my-skin-is-on-fire feeling of moments earlier. Still, he thought it was worth the shock to his system to pull himself up and see what she was doing. As soon as he shifted, though, she leaned over and kissed him.

Her lips covered his mouth and everything else fell away. She tasted exactly as he remembered - sweet and warm, with the faintest hint of raspberry thanks to the lip gloss she always wore. Inspired by Kate and Annie's collection, she used to say.

"You were saying." Leaving a slow trail of kisses down his arm, she said, "Kate... And Annie."

Even as a sliver of his brain registered those thoughts, the rest of it was being overtaken by a series of images - vivid dreams of Kate diving for a goal, of Annie eating her hot fudge sundaes. Of Liam skateboarding down the hallway and of Jack sitting at the kitchen table, playing the ever present Gameboy.

Going backwards in time: Kate's broken arm from skiing when she was ten, Jack's first t-ball game, Liam learning to swim, the twins' first steps.

From finding out Sam was pregnant for the first time, fifteen years ago, to the Red Sox game with Liam only weeks earlier. And everything in between.

It seemed like days had passed - years even - by the time Riley woke up again, alone. He sat up slowly, glad that the pain had faded away, although it seemed to have been replaced by a thick fog, making all attempts at focusing nearly impossible.

Though thinking seemed unusually difficult, movement had become much better; or so he thought until he took his first stab at walking and nearly collapsed onto the floor beside the bed. It was pure instinct to put a hand out as he fell; dumb luck that he connected with something solid, something to lean against as he tried to stop his head from swimming.

He had no idea how long it took for his mind to clear. In fact, all sense of time was gone. It was dark out, which he assumed meant that it was still nighttime - whether the same night as when he had first woken up and seen Sam, or an entirely different one, Riley had no idea. The fire was flickering again, and he was reminded that the whole point was to get out of this room. Maybe if he could figure out where the fire was coming from...

He decided to try getting to the doorway, making painfully slow progress as he inched his way along the wall, spending what seemed to be more time resting than actually gaining any ground. Some progress was made, however, and he was nearly overcome with joy when he realized he had come across his clothes hanging from a peg on the wall.

They looked as though they'd been cleaned, although they did smell a bit musty. Still, he'd never been partial to parading around naked, even when Sam had been...

Riley closed his eyes. Sam. She was here. Had he really just forgotten? Was that possible?

God - what was wrong with him? And why was it impossible to actually have a thought and carry it through? For example, he was holding his shirt in his hand. He had no idea why, although it was highly likely he'd intended to put it on.

He looked at the shirt for a few minutes, trying to remember what he was supposed to do first.

O.k. Pull it over his head, then put an arm through each sleeve. Head. Arm. Other arm.

As he stretched his arm out, it seemed to be moving in ultra-slow motion, hovering just within the range of his vision, looking unusually dark, even in this room without light. He brought it closer to his face.

Very few things were clear right now. Hell - even remembering that his name was Riley Finn seemed an impressive feat at the moment. One thing he knew with the utmost of certainty, however, was that those markings were not good. Not good at all.

He pulled on the rest of his clothes with what seemed to be lightning speed in relation to everything else he'd done so far. His mind was preoccupied with the symbols that covered his arm, symbols that he knew were important, though he couldn't figure out why if his life depended on it.

She took a few steps into the room, coming to a stop only inches away, although she clearly hadn't noticed him. "Where-?"

He reached his arm out, amazed that it actually worked the way it was supposed to.

Well, not entirely. It did kind of clumsily knock her shoulder, making her jump. "Sam."

Her eyes were wild - angry - as she turned to him. "How...?" She snapped her mouth shut and seemed to be making a concerted effort to smile. "You scared me. You shouldn't be out of bed - you're not strong enough yet."

Tell me about it. "Sam..." He looked down at his arm and saw the markings again. Not good, Ri. Remember - not good. "Sam - we need to get out of here. This place isn't safe."

"Oh, Honey." The smile reached her eyes and she put her arms around him. "I've been here a long time. Trust me - there's nothing out there you need to worry about."

Riley couldn't finish the thought - the effort of walking across the room had taken too much out of him. And he'd actually spoken two whole sentences in a row just a few seconds ago, which, apparently was his allotment for now.

He leaned against Sam, not sure how she managed to get them both back to the bed. Despite collapsing gratefully, he made one more attempt. "Sam."

"Shhh." She brushed her fingers through his hair. Leaning down to kiss him one more time, she said, "Rest. I'll see you when you wake up."

Buffy took the stairs to her bedroom two at a time, annoyed that she'd left her cell phone sitting on her desk as she'd discovered in the car when she'd tried to find it, her intention being to call Angel immediately. She threw her keys on her desk and dialed the phone as she sat down.

Not bothering with 'hello,' she barely even waited for Angel to finish saying his name before launching into, "That night in Riley's kitchen - what were you thinking?"

Angel was quiet, and she could picture the look on his face, a cross between concern, especially given the circumstances under which he had left Boston, and reticence, not wanting to verbalize what he had been feeling since, it was far beyond the boundaries of appropriate mourning behavior; especially if it were anything like what she'd been thinking.

Still, it was important that she know; she needed it as confirmation that whatever was going on was magic-assisted. "Angel..."

Sighing, he gave in, though sounding very uncomfortable. "I was thinking it would probably be a really bad idea for me to throw you down on the floor and tear your clothes off right about then."

Now we're getting somewhere, she thought, though there was still a little further she needed to go. She asked, "Why did you come?"

If she'd been sitting in the same room with him, she knew she'd be seeing him shrug - an attempt to avoid showing how unsettling it had been to be brought back to those years, so easily reminded of that inflammable, unsustainable, and, as often as not, miserable intensity.

She sat back in her chair, satisfied. Exactly. "Like there was a voice in your head, telling you to? The same way that voice was telling you to, um."

Buffy tried to keep from getting her hopes up. Just because it was a spell didn't mean she was any closer to finding Riley. Still, it was hard to keep the excitement out of her voice. "Doesn't that seem strange? I mean, a while ago - yes, that's the way things were. But that's not how we are now."

She took a deep breath. He might think it was quite a leap to go from that to: "I think maybe Riley's not dead."

"O.k." Angel answered, without a shred of emotion, and in the most matter-of-fact tone ever.

"O.k.? That's all?" She'd expected a pause at least, maybe even some debate. "You're not going to try and talk me out of it?"

No - that was the most matter-of-fact tone ever. With a little exasperation thrown in. "Because," she said, "that night in the kitchen. You said he was dead."

"I.? What?" He sounded surprised. And emphatic. As if the emotionless tone from a minute ago had been very deliberately achieved and maintained - so well, in fact, that she hadn't noticed. "No, I didn't."

Now it was her turn to be exasperated. "It was in the way you looked at me. The way you held me."

"The way I.?" He laughed. "This was right before I didn't ravage you?" His voice got all gravelly at the end there, and she was glad he was sitting on the exact other end of the country. She felt a sudden flush in her cheeks as the room seemed to grow warmer. The spell still seemed to be having a bit of an effect.

Reaching behind her to turn the air conditioner up, she almost dropped the phone, catching it just in time to hear Angel say, "Honestly? I wasn't really thinking about Riley right around then."

"You weren't?" So, bad in one sort of way, but good in another. "Does that mean you think he's alive?"

"How would I know?" he answered tersely. Probably because of that whole unreleased sexual tension thing.

Very funny. She was quiet for a minute - escalation wouldn't do anyone a bit of good.

This had to be hard for him - though he may have always wanted her to have the kind of life Riley could give her, she knew it stung that he couldn't be the one to provide it; and there would always be a part of her that would regret that, too. She quietly said, "I'm going back for him."

"Yeah," he responded, so softly she could barely hear him. "I figured as much." It clearly wasn't a surprise. "You're sure about this."

He shifted into business mode. "You were out cold for almost an entire day after this happened - how do you get around that?"

She'd been paying enough attention to Willow's and Graham's conversation in the car that she was able to answer, "Willow thinks the translation of the markings was used to make up a spell. She said she can tweak it." Leaning forward in her chair, she was beginning to feel the buzz she always got when they sat in his office, going through the plan.

Buffy nodded, forgetting that she wasn't actually sitting across from him. "Graham put a team together. Him, Brady, Ana and Sprague. Brooks will be the home base guy."

Angel didn't respond. Buffy knew what he was thinking: it was pretty risky for four non-superpowered human types to confront something that had taken a Slayer down for a full twenty-four hours, especially when they were still essentially dealing with a complete unknown. He'd done more than enough that could be considered equally risky, though, as had every member of his own mostly human team on countless occasions.

Speaking of redheads who had just walked into Buffy's room... "Willow said it's been a long time since she got her hands dirty. She managed to convince Graham to let her come with us."

"Very possibly." She still wasn't sure exactly how Willow had managed to get Graham to concede. Even he had seemed surprised.

Angel said something muffled, presumably to someone else, before coming back on the line. "Gunn says he'll come out there if you need him. Even if it means spending a week in the middle of fucking nowhere." He paused. "That last part was a direct quote."

Angel seemed about to hang up, saying at the last possible minute, "Buffy, if it weren't for the whole outdoors thing."

"I know," she said quietly, knowing how much it meant for him to offer. "Thank you. But L.A. needs you. And I need you to stay safe. I couldn't handle losing you, too."

While they were saying their goodbyes, the doorbell rang. A quick glance at the clock confirmed it was well past ten p.m. Buffy wasn't surprised that it was Dawn who appeared behind Willow.

Dawn wasted no time getting to her point, snapping, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Um, hi, Dawn." Buffy looked over at the answering machine that was blinking furiously, probably, as she was now realizing, due to messages from Dawn. "I'm guessing you talked to-"

"How could you do that to them?" Dawn's eyes were flashing. "How could you get their hopes up like that?"

Riley's kids? Get their hopes up? Taken aback at Dawn's anger, Buffy mumbled, "It was kind of the other way."

Dawn whirled around to Willow. "And you of all people - how could you possibly be supportive of this? Do you guys even remember? When Mom died?" She glared at Buffy. "When you did?"

"To them it's not," Dawn spat out. "They think you're going to bring their daddy back to them."

"Why, Buffy?" Dawn asked, advancing into the room. "Do you feel it? Feel in your heart that he's alive?" Each word was spoken more harshly than the one before. "Or do you think that might just be the guilt talking - guilt about what you did to him way back when?"

"O.k." Willow was trying to be the peacekeeper, stepping between them with her hands held out. "Down, girls."

"I hope you're sure about this," Dawn said, her voice overflowing with anger. "Because there are a lot more hearts that stand to be broken this time around. It's not just you that's going to get hurt. It's never just you."

Buffy walked forward, stopping only when she was close enough that Dawn was forced to take a step back. "What is this really about, Dawnie?" She used the childhood nickname deliberately. "Are you worried about them? Or are you still angry at me?" She folded her arms across her chest. "And if that's what this is? Get over it."

"For your whole life you've just rushed right in, not caring who else it affected." Though Dawn's anger was still there, it was tempered by pain. "Well, you're a grown-up now, and whether you like it or not, those kids are looking up to you, and you had better damn well come through for them."

Dawn started to leave, turning back as she said, "They've lost everything, Buffy. I really hope you have a good reason for going back again, a good chance of finding him. If this is all because you can't stand to let him go..." She paused before practically snarling, "Again."

As Dawn shook her head, the anger seemed to slip away, leaving in its place sadness; an unbearable, overwhelming sadness. "No one deserves that." She turned and left the room; they could hear her run down the stairs.

Willow started after her, calling out, "Dawn!" Her voice wavered between reprimand and empathy.

"No." Buffy closed her eyes against what promised to be another watershed of tears with an extra special dose of guilt and doubt on the side. It wasn't as though Dawn's reaction was unjustified. "Let her go." Buffy flinched when she heard the door slam.

Willow came back into the room and perched on the edge of Buffy's bed. "Do I detect a little repressed anger?"

"Not exactly repressed, was it?" Buffy sighed, finally opening her eyes. "Do you think she's right?"

Buffy groaned and leaned back against the desk. Please don't do this to me, Will, she thought. I need you on my side.

"About him still being alive, though?" Willow kicked off her shoes and curled her legs underneath her. "There's something weird going on up there. I think you've got a shot. A small one, maybe. Still."

Buffy came over to Willow and collapsed onto the bed next to her. "I didn't ask for them to trust me. And even if I had come up with this on my own, I never would have said anything to them without being sure."

"I know." Willow's hand traced a pattern on Buffy's quilt. "Dawn probably knows that, too. She's just. I don't know." Willow shrugged. "Ain't motherhood a bitch?"

The next time Riley woke up, the pain had receded to a distant ache - nothing he couldn't handle; and the fog that had completely taken over his brain last time he was awake seemed to have lifted. The fact that he'd been able to sleep soundly - not a dream to be had - probably hadn't hurt.

He leaned forward, instinctively brushing Buffy's hair away and kissing the curve of her shoulder, just as he'd done almost every morning for the past week or so. Except, as he was realizing, her hair was much darker than he'd expected it to be.

Unwrapping his arms from around the body next to him, he was thinking it had been a very long time since he'd woken up next to a woman without any recollection of how he'd gotten there. A very long time. Not since those first few months after he'd left Buffy.

Sitting up, he tried to remember where he was and how he'd gotten here, feeling a vague sense that he had already considered these questions once before.

He glanced around the room, looked down at the clothes he was wearing, the markings on his arm, and it all began to come back to him: the butterflies, the warrior princess, Buffy, and...

His hand operated independently of his brain, reaching out and tracing a line past her shoulder, down her arm; jumping to her waist, to her hip...

She sighed and rolled over, smiling in her sleep as her arm went around his waist and she snuggled her head against his thigh.

This was inconceivable, absolutely inconceivable. And yet it was Sam's chest rising and falling with each breath; Sam's heart he could hear pounding. Or was that his?

Every inch of him screamed for her, and he wanted more than anything to gather her up into his arms and never let go. Something held him back, though. A tiny sliver of doubt that resonated in his head, screaming: she's dead. Dead and buried. You've held your children tightly as they cried themselves to sleep, missing her so badly; you've done it yourself, sitting by her gravestone more times than you can count.

Riley chased that voice out of his head. Logic - or the lack thereof - didn't matter. And, anyway, right now, the only voice he wanted to hear was hers. He wanted her to talk to him, to convince him that she really was his wife, because this...

"Hey." He gently shook her, not minding that he was waking her up. It wasn't as though that had ever bothered her before.

She mumbled something and turned her head away; jerked it back when he said, "Sam."

Sitting up quickly, she looked around the room, her eyes wide. "You're awake." She did not sound at all happy about it.

"Sorry." Riley pulled his hand away as his doubts re-announced themselves, front and center. "I shouldn't have woken you. I just ." He paused, realizing that his voice wasn't coming close to placating her. Just the opposite in fact.

She seemed bewildered, and a little frightened. Also defiant, though, as she asked, "Don't you want her?"

Damn it, he thought, his head starting to cloud again with what seemed like an inordinate amount of pounding. Not now. Do not zone out now.

Riley turned his back to Sam and swung his feet to the floor, standing up as he tried to stop the fog from rolling back in, to no avail. It was intent on coming, intent on taking over his head.

He put his hands to his head in hopes of blocking it out. Too late, though: the scene around him had already changed and he found himself in the middle of a memory, sitting on a bed in an Officers' Barracks somewhere in southern California, only hours after they'd left Sunnydale.

He sat on the rock-hard mattress - gotta love those military accommodations - and, after what seemed like forever, put his watch on the bedside table, very aware that Sam had not acknowledged his presence since they'd gotten back from the debriefing.

She had walked in the room, kicked off her shoes, and disappeared into the bathroom, emerging five minutes later in an oversized t-shirt, her hair wrapped in a towel and her skin scrubbed clean. Grabbing a magazine off the dresser, she'd brought it to the bed, where she had now been sitting - staring at it without turning a page - for the last ten minutes or so.

What exactly were you thinking? he thought. Bringing her to Sunnydale. Idiotic move.

Sure, she'd put up a good front - had even had him fooled for a while there, laughing and joking as she said good-bye to Xander and Willow... Until the chopper touched down at the Base and he saw something he'd never seen in her eyes before - vulnerability. And hurt. A whole lot of hurt.

The worst part of it was that he had no clue what to say to her. There was absolutely nothing he could say that would make this better. Which was why it had taken a good five minutes for him to take off his watch and set it down. God, Ri. Just say something. Anything.

She beat him to it, softly asking, "You couldn't quite bring yourself to hug her, could you?" She tried to pass it off lightly, almost as a joke, but the tears gave her away.

He didn't think he'd ever made a woman cry before, not like that; didn't even know he was capable of it. Didn't know Sam was capable of it. "Sam..." He couldn't tear his eyes from her face.

"You wanted to, though, didn't you?" She didn't look up at him. "You wanted her."

It was the only time Sam had ever spoken to him like that, a mix of anger tinged with hurt, disgust tempered by insecurity. He reached out to touch her only to have her recoil.

"Don't," she whispered in what would have been a hiss if she hadn't been crying. She stretched herself on the bed and lay down, her back to him as she turned off the light. "I don't want you here tonight."

Flash forward to a military hospital in Okinawa: Sam sitting on the bed as the doctor left the room.

"Twins?" Riley asked weakly, sinking back against the wall. "But we barely even..."

"That night you got me drunk." Sam smiled the way she used to. Before Sunnydale. Confident and cocky; not a care in the world. "You took advantage."

He could feel his face flush as he looked up quickly, distinctly remembering asking her about a billion times if she was sure she wanted to be with him that night - to the point where she'd finally slammed her gun on the bedside table, threatening to shoot him if he said another word. "I didn't-"

"No." She looked him in the eye for the first time in what seemed like months. In what was, actually, months. "Not of me." She grinned. "Of the situation. Of me forgetting that I wasn't talking to you."

Despite her smile, a tear rolled down her cheek as she held her hand out to him. Forgiving him. Letting him in again.

"Get over here, Finn." She didn't bother to try and keep it in; she was crying openly. Because of the hormones, he could hear her say, laughing as she bowed her head and wiped her eyes, murmuring, "I'm thinking life's about to get really complicated." The laughter was gone and her voice was strong when she added, "And I want my husband back."

Riley didn't need to be told twice. There was no memory of crossing the room or gathering him into his arms. He was suddenly just holding her; just breathing her in. "Sam - I'm so sor-"

"Don't." She pulled back and put her finger to his lips. "This isn't about her any more. Buffy is what you were. Now you're about me." Looking down, she put her hands flat against her stomach. "And them."

When she looked up again, her eyes were hard; and yet, at the same time, soft. Warm. "I understand how much you loved her and that a part of you always will. Someday you'll love me like that, too." Her hand went to the back of his neck and she drew him close. "Someday starts now."

He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, realizing she was right; knowing that he'd never loved anyone as deeply as he did at this very moment.

"I've missed you so-" Her voice broke and she shook her head, burrowing her face into his chest, her whole body trembling.

"Sam..." He tipped her chin up and leaned in. He had already tasted the salty tears on her lips when she pulled back.

It isn't right? he wanted to shout. Of course it's right. You were right. We made it, Sam. We made it through Buffy, through Annie and Kate. Liam, Jack. We got all the way to-

And that was where he came up short. That was where he opened his eyes and realized that he wasn't in that room in Okinawa; he hadn't just spent the last few months in the mountains of Nepal. That had all happened a long time ago. A very long time ago. And he had no doubt that they would have made it.

Sam couldn't be sitting here on this bed because she was dead and buried, ashes and dust. Her hand couldn't be running down his shirt, her eyes couldn't be looking so sad, so heart-breakingly sad...

He wanted to believe it, though; wanted to believe that Sam was here so much that he didn't resist when she hooked her fingers around his waistband and pulled him down to the bed; when her hands went to his waist and her mouth to his neck. Not until her tongue neared the scars did he have the presence of mind to finally pull away.

For a minute, everything stopped. Sam sat completely still, her hands frozen in place, her breath hot on his neck. Then she let go and the connection snapped when she severed all contact.

She looked at him intently, the spark completely gone from her eyes. Abruptly swinging her feet to the floor, she asked, "What do you want?"

He was speechless. Completely unable to answer her question at first, not at all sure what had just happened. She repeated herself and his body stepped up to the plate, stomach growling as he realized he could very possibly be on the verge of collapsing from hunger. "Food would be good." And, come to think of it, "A bathroom wouldn't hurt."

She looked puzzled, then a look of comprehension came over her face and she nodded as she stood. Turning, she began to walk across the room, coming to a sudden halt only a few feet from the bed. "Daylight is coming." Her voice was full of wonder.

"Yeah." The room did seem a bit lighter. It didn't seem like such a big deal to him, but, hey - he was standing here having a conversation with his dead wife. Who was he to bring logic into this situation? "Looks like the sun's coming up." That fact seemed to make her uneasy. "Are you o-"

"You're hungry," she said. "I'll be right back." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Stay here."

"Nice, Ri," he muttered, falling back on the bed. "You always did have a way with the ladies."

What was the problem here? he thought angrily, sitting up. What exactly was going on? Was she the one playing the head games, or was he doing it to himself?

Reliving those moments, hearing her voice, and now, feeling her so strongly - so incredibly strongly - in a way he hadn't felt in ages. Not since those early years, in fact: a strong and confident silent presence as she covered his back. He used to feel an attachment so fierce that he could tell when she entered a room, moments before he could see or even hear her. He had no idea, though, why her presence was so much stronger when she wasn't actually in the room with him, almost as though the physical embodiment of her was merely a figment of his imagination.

He got up from the bed gingerly, happy to see that he was, actually, stronger. That, at least, hadn't been imagined. If it weren't for the tricks his mind was playing, he'd even venture to say he felt back to normal, all parts of his body working the way they should. Although, he thought, stretching out some kinks, maybe a bit stiffer than usual.

Time to get the brain working on something that might actually helpful. Like where he was at the moment rather than where he'd been and what he'd been doing fifteen years ago.

His eyes slowly scanned the room. Now that dawn was approaching, he could see that the space he was in was maybe thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide. The bed was tucked back in the corner, opposite what seemed to be the doorway, or at least an opening in the wall, which, for reasons he couldn't understand, he had no interest in exploring at the moment; instead he walked over to the table across from it.

There were three small clay bowls sitting on the table, each filled with dark liquid. He lifted one to his nose - inhaled the sweet smell. He was about to dip his finger in to taste it, when Sam re-entered the room and snapped, "Don't touch that."

"You shouldn't be out of bed." She was carrying a dish, which she set down on the table, and a large bowl, which she placed in the far corner of the room while giving him a pointed look.

He looked at it, wondering what it was for. Oh. Duh. "Seems too pretty for a pot to piss in."

Alrighty, then. And anyway, as chamber pots went, this one certainly was up there. He walked over to it and turned his back to her, all the while feeling incredibly uncomfortable as he could feel her eyes boring into his back; uncomfortable enough that he was relieved when she left the room again.

It wasn't as though he'd never done this in front of her before - working together in some of the globe's finest hellholes tended to rid you of those kinds of hang-ups fairly quickly. In fact, you got to know people pretty well - their quirks, their habits; the things that bugged them and the things that made them tick. Plus, when you were married to someone for seven years, it was hard not to come to the obvious conclusion: this wasn't Sam. Or, at least, not the version of her that he remembered.

It looked like her and sounded like her, but there was definitely something off. Flashing red light number one was the fact that his wife was dead - had been for eight and a half years.

He zipped his fly and turned back to see her re-enter the room, carrying another bowl, this one filled with water. She handed him powdered soap and a towel when he came back to the table. As he washed his hands, he heard her go over to the pot he had just filled. Realizing what she was doing, he called out, "Sam, you don't have to..." But it was too late, she'd already taken it out of the room.

Flashing red light number two: this was some weird geisha-type behavior that Sam would never have gone for. Her normal response would have been more along the lines of, Who the hell do you think I am? You're a big boy, Finn. Clean up after yourself.

Not to mention that if this were really Sam, and she really had spent the last eight years here - she would never settle for using chamber pots on a regular basis. Even if there were no such thing as indoor plumbing here, she'd have constructed a system that put the ancient Romans to shame.

He sat down at the table, in front of the plate that contained a substantial portion of what looked like incredibly unappetizing soggy straw. Picking up the spoon, he tentatively took a bite, not expecting it to be at all palatable. Surprised when it actually tasted good, he took a few more bites.

And possibly the biggest flashing red light of them all - Sam couldn't cook worth a damn. She'd always said that she had far too many other things to do with her time. Why on earth would God have invented the phone if it weren't for ordering take-out?

Looking up, he examined her face as she came back into the room and sat down across from him. Well, let's just get the obvious out of the way first. "You're not Faith by any chance, are you?"

Sam knew all about Faith. He'd told her that one early on - back when he'd wanted nothing to do with her - thinking it would scare her off: You want to know what you're getting into? You think the vampire thing is messed up? Nah. I can even screw up the good things. I can look a woman in the eye and tell her that I love her and have absolutely no clue that it's not even her. If that's the kind of man you want in your bed, then you're even more twisted than I am.

'Don't you worry,' Sam had said, peering at him over her bottle of beer. 'When you tell me you love me?' A slow, knowing smile had come over her face as a twinkle appeared in her eye. 'Which you will, by the way, I guarantee that.' She'd tipped back the bottle, knowing he couldn't take his eyes off the curve of her neck as she finished off her beer. 'Honey - you're gonna know it's me you're talking to.'

O.k. That one, he knew, was all memory. Mem-or-y. Not some weird insert yourself into a moment from the past kind of deal. No - that had been a flashback of the regular kind. What he also knew, however, was that she'd been right; he wouldn't be making that mistake twice.

He forced himself to concentrate on the woman in front of him rather than the one in his head. This woman - this Sam - was watching him watch her. She pointed to the dish and asked, "Your meal - it's not right?"

"Oh." He'd gotten caught up in the what-was-going-on-here thing and had completely forgotten that he was starving. He picked up the wooden spoon lying next to the dish. "Sorry."

Famished as he was, it took him all of a minute to wolf down what she'd given him. She smiled, looking truly happy for the first time since they'd woken up, maybe even for the first time since he'd gotten here. "It was the way you like it?"

The smile lit up her face, and he had to close his eyes for a minute; had to just put that image on instant replay.

Things here were not as they seemed - that was undeniable. But that smile... It had been so long since he'd seen that smile break. Cameras had never captured it, and he wasn't going to let that one get away again.

He opened his eyes to see her watching him again, intently. The smile was gone and her eyes had become guarded; distant. "You're different," she said.

Yeah? he thought, unable to keep a laugh from escaping. No shit. "So are you." Of course, she had the excuse of being dead for eight years.

Unlike him, who had no excuse whatsoever. Being in the business of preternatural things - especially now that his head was clearing up - he could even come up with about a dozen explanations of how this could be happening. And that was without cracking a single book.

Yet he had this need to touch her; his body wanted so badly what his mind knew couldn't be. And right now, his body seemed to be winning. He leaned forward and reached across the table, taking her hand.

This was dangerous - so dangerous. There was no telling what could happen if he let his guard down. Once he had her hand, it would be so easy to run his fingers up her arm, and over her shoulder... It did not at all help that the tank top she wore was the one she'd been wearing that day in Okinawa. The day he'd handed over his heart.

A drop of water fell to his skin, and he looked up to see tears rolling down her face as she stared at their hands. She shook her head and yanked her arm away, standing up quickly. "I need to." She backed away from him, almost stumbling as she left the room.

With another woman, he might have followed her, he would have made sure she was o.k. Not with Sam, though. His wife had never been the dramatic exit type - if she left the room like that, it was because she wanted to leave the room. Alone. She didn't want anyone to come with her, especially him.

God - who was this woman? So much about her was Sam, so much beyond her appearance: the way she smiled, the way her eyes sparkled, the way she looked at him, always on the verge of a grin even when she was so angry that she couldn't speak. Almost always at least; with that one three-month exception.

Was it a different incarnation? Did Joe's warrior princess have something to do with this? The Butterfly Queen? Corrupting Sam's spirit, capturing her soul? It was almost as if she'd been brainwashed of everything except a few key details - the lip gloss, the tank top; the things that he'd never told anyone else, things that only Sam would know.

Or maybe it was the other way around; maybe they'd only taken certain things from her, things like knowing who Faith was. Things like, well, o.k., that was the only one he could think of at the moment, though he was sure there were more.

Which made this even worse: it wasn't her, and yet it was. A shadow of the woman he had loved. Parts of her that he never thought he'd get back, yet somehow still a stranger. Would his kids care? Would they want her back, even if it were just this shell of who Sam had been?

Could he love her - the way he had loved Sam? Could he sacrifice all the ground he had gained and convince himself she was his wife? For Kate, who had felt Sam's loss most acutely; for Jack, who had never known her...

Riley leaned forward and buried his head in his hands, thinking about the one major humongous factor that hadn't even come up yet: Buffy. God, Buffy. How could he do that to her? How could he betray her yet again?

Sorry, Buff - I know I said I play for keeps, but I didn't factor in the Sam returning from the dead thing. I'm sure you understand.

Talk about an impossible choice: a few weeks with Buffy versus years with Sam... A college romance with unexpected new life versus a marriage, four kids, a history... A moment versus a life...

The voice came back - Sam's voice, ringing loudly in his head: You're gonna have to do it, Finn. The choice has to be made. It's the only way.

Riley pushed back from the table, hoping the sudden movement would shake her from his head. He didn't want to choose. Things weren't that simple. Buffy wasn't just his past; this wasn't just some random fling. There was a future there, something strong and promising. Something he wanted more of. Not something he was sure he was willing to give up.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to concede that the voice was right; that a choice would actually have to be made. By him.

He'd felt so much guilt that night on the rooftop - talking about Sam, but kissing Buffy; and it wasn't as though the guilt was completely gone. Even as it had receded, there was still that nagging feeling that every step he took that got him closer to Buffy was a step he took away from Sam.

A choice, he thought, shaking his head. Weren't choices supposed to be a good thing?

Despite the absolute knowledge that there was something very wrong with this picture, that this wasn't Sam, his need for her - to touch her skin, to hold her in his arms - was almost unbearable in its intensity. And now that he was awake and fully functional, he was afraid that need would only grow; that the physical desire would overtake rational thought. That his mind might start playing tricks on him again, working to convince himself that there was a way to have her, that this really was Sam.

His body seemed more than willing to buy into that. The ache for her was overwhelming, something he was having a hard time pushing aside, despite knowing this was all a lie.

A month ago, there wouldn't have been a moment's hesitation. This would have been bliss. A gift from above that he would have accepted gratefully and without pause, even with the knowledge that there was something fundamentally wrong. He had no doubt that he would have happily spent as long as she wanted in that bed.

If that actually happened? Well, forget the choosing. As difficult as it may seem at the moment, at least there was a choice. If he let himself give in? He and Buffy wouldn't survive that. She wouldn't forgive him. Not again. Even if it were with Sam.

There was too much at stake. He wasn't ready to let Buffy go. If a choice had to be made, he couldn't honestly say that it would be Sam. Especially this one.

Riley looked up guiltily as he heard her come back into the room, smiling as though nothing had happened earlier; as though she hadn't practically run from him in her haste to leave the room.

She smiled. "So many questions..." She took his hand and pulled him up, leading him back to the bed. His body was on autopilot, perfectly happy to follow her there without any concern for the consequences he had just moments ago been considering.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he forced himself to keep his arms to his sides and his hands away from her skin; he closed his eyes, though, as she ran her fingers through his hair. "Justified, I'd say," he said. "I mean, this isn't your average turn of events." He grabbed her wrist and stopped her just before she lifted up his shirt, leaning down for what he knew would be another kiss.

He didn't want to kiss her, didn't want to get lost again - because he had no doubt he would; she was home. It didn't matter that this wasn't Sam - when whatever it was looked like her and felt like her and tasted like her...

The lip-gloss was peppermint this time, and her scent was intoxicating as her hair brushed his face. "Sam," he mumbled into her lips, already feeling drowsy. "We need to talk about this. We need to..." Stay awake. Do not even think about falling asleep again. "We need to get out..."

She pouted, although, unlike before, it seemed more flirty than angry, especially when accompanied by a hand slipping up under his shirt. "Why are you in such a hurry to leave? Isn't it enough just to be with me?"

"Hush," she said, putting a finger to his lips and straddling his waist as she pushed him back on the bed. "I never meant to leave you alone. But I'm here now. With you." She eased down on top of him, covering his body with hers, and gave him a wicked smile. "And I have somewhere I need to take you."