"This is o.k. -- what I'm wearing, right?" Buffy said.

She looked down at the bright pink top she was wearing. She seemed to think that was why they were attracting obvious attention from some of the parents sitting and standing on the sidelines. Although she was definitely the kind of woman who would stir up some stares regardless of the color of her shirt, Riley knew that had very little to do with it. It was more along the lines of: Kate and Annie's dad brought someone to the game? Kate and Annie's dad brought someone to the game who looks like that? There'd always been far too much interest in his annoyingly public love life.

Screw 'em. "I liked what you were wearing before better, but yeah, that's fine."

Buffy smiled and murmured, "I was hoping you'd notice."

Right, Riley thought, looking away. Like he wouldn't notice that particular halter-top. The one Walsh hadn't wanted Buffy to patrol in. The one that consisted of a red scrap of fabric in the front and laces that criss-crossed up the back. The one Buffy had no business looking so damn good in all these years later.

Stop it, Ri. Put a damper on it. You're here to watch your kids play soccer -- not to think about how soft Buffy's skin was as the laces from that top fell away.

His eyes surveyed the available sitting spots. "Sun or shade?" He spotted Beth and Charlie who were sitting across the field and waved.

"Sun," she answered without hesitation. "I hang out with too many vampires. I take the sun when I can get it."

Riley was glad she had chosen the sun -- it was the closest they'd get to being alone together in this crowd, most of whom clearly preferred the shade on this blazing hot day.

"How many vampires do you hang out with?" he asked as he spread the blanket out on the ground and they sat down.

She kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet underneath her. "Well, I guess only Angel now. But he's around all of the time -- when I was in L.A., I mean. I did live with him after all."

"You lived with Angel?" Riley asked. "Like as in with Angel?" She hadn't mentioned that part.

"Dad!" Annie yelled. "Heads!"

Riley reached up and grabbed the ball that was soaring over his head as Annie came running up to them. Her eyes brightened as she saw Buffy.

"Hi, Buffy," she said. "I'm glad you could come to the game."

"Thanks for inviting me," Buffy replied.

"Sure." Annie smiled. "You're coming to dinner, too, right? At Aunt Sarah and Uncle Graham's?"

Buffy looked at Riley. "What does Graham have to say about that?"

Something about the way she said it gave Riley the distinct impression he was in trouble. No clue why. He answered, "I'm not sure I'd eat anything he serves you, but he's pretty much o.k. with it."

She stared at him for a moment before turning back to Annie. "Yes, I'd love to. Thank you."

Annie nodded and grinned, drop-kicking the ball as she ran across the field towards the ref, who was about to start the game.

There was more heavy silence before Buffy guardedly asked, "Any particular reason you didn't say something about dinner?"

Riley answered slowly, "I had approval for the game, not dinner."

"So why is it o.k. now?" Her voice sounded small. Also hard, though. Kind of cold.

"Annie wouldn't have said anything if she hadn't cleared it with Kate first." It was how the twins worked.

"And you?" Buffy asked, eyes still on the ground. "You should have mentioned it."

Riley looked away. "Yeah, I probably should have." He hadn't meant to hurt her, but clearly he had. "I'm sorry." God, relationships.

Relationship. With Buffy. He'd forgotten how many minefields there were. How bad he'd been at negotiating them. And that had been when there were only two people involved.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to do this," he said quietly. "This is all so new for me."

The look on her face softened. "I guess I'm just not used to coming in second," she mumbled. "Especially with you," she added, although she looked like she wished she hadn't. It wasn't as though it was a topic they'd discussed a lot. There hadn't been any reason to; it was pretty much a given. Until the whole vampire whore thing, of course.

She drew her knees up to her chest. "It's o.k. I can deal."

Unh-uh. That wasn't at all what he'd been saying. "You're not second-"

"Just not first," she said with an air of complete, albeit resigned, acceptance. "Riley, I understand -- they're your kids. I'm just your... I don't know. Whatever I am."

"Buffy, you're not just anything." He grabbed her hand, putting out of his head that it would be duly noted by his kids and their friends, possibly their parents. "You're..." Stopping, he realized he had no idea of what to call her either. "Well, woman-I've-loved-for-almost-longer-than-I-can-remember-but-who-my-kids-didn't-even-know-existed-until-yesterday is just too damn hard to say."

For a second it looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Although a few tears did escape, the laugh won out. "You still love me?" she asked quietly.

How could she even say that? She made no sense to him sometimes. That was something that clearly hadn't changed. "More than I thought possible after all this time." He brushed a tear off her cheek with his free hand. "I told you I play for keeps."

Buffy looked away and wiped her eyes with her wrist. "O.k.," she said. "I'm a little out of practice on the whole being in love thing."

There she was again, throwing that "L" word around. He'd be an idiot not to go with it. "Tell me about it," he answered. "Plus there's the whole kids factor."

He watched as Annie drove a ball down the field and kicked it into the opposing team's goal. "With them... Some days work and some days don't. They're fourteen and it's all so... fragile. I can't mess with that. They need to be able to trust me."

She nodded. "Yeah. That's pretty important at this age," she said, sounding far away as she focused on the game. "But you'll have to bear with me for a little while. I got used to having you to myself last time around. Too used to it. That's how I lost you, isn't it?" she asked sadly.

He wasn't sure how to answer that. He'd never held her to blame for what had happened -- how could he? To say he hadn't felt a bit taken-for-granted, however, would have been a lie.

That had been a long time ago, though. A lot of lessons had been learned since then on both of their parts. Which is what he would have said, except that she beat him to the punch, saying, "Don't worry. I'll adjust. We'll figure this out." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "Just don't hold things back, o.k.? I have my own issues with the trust thing."

Yeah. He hadn't exactly done anything to help her out on that front. The hours since he had seen her had been such a whirlwind that the guilt had fallen by the wayside. Until now that is. "Buffy, I am so-"

"Don't," she said, cutting him off. "That was such a long time ago." She obviously didn't want to have that talk. "You never have to say that to me." She turned back to him and smiled sadly. "Didn't you tell me that once?"

He remembered that night -- that moment -- clearly. The urge to take her in his arms and make it all up to her. Every single bit of it. Back then there had been so many reasons not to give in to that urge; right now the only one was that they were surrounded by a hundred other people.

O.k. So maybe it was a pretty good reason -- her presence alone had already provided enough fodder for the gossip mill. Still... "If we weren't in the middle of all these people, I'd be kissing you right now," he said gruffly, as her eyes locked on his. The kids, the parents, the soccer field -- everything -- ceased to exist.

"Just kissing?" She sounded a little breathless. After a few seconds, she broke their intense stare, seemingly forcing herself to turn back to the game as her smile turned evil. "If I have to imagine something, it's gonna be a lot more involved than kissing."

Riley stifled the groan that had risen to his throat. He put his hands out on the ground behind him and leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him, trying to act a lot more casually than he felt at the moment. "Like what exactly?"

Her gaze very deliberately traveled from his eyes, down his chest, his waist, coming to rest somewhere below the belt before looking up at him again. "You may not want to be quite so exposed when I tell you."

So much for acting casually. He leaned forward. Two could play at this game. "Then as long as we're imagining, I'm picturing you wearing that top you had on earlier."

A twinkle appeared in her eye as she seemed to realize he was more than happy to play this game. "Me wearing it? Or you taking it off?"

Graham gave them until well into the second half before coming over and sitting on the blanket next to Buffy. "Sorry to be interrupting, but I can't take any more of their questions." He nodded his head towards the group of parents clustered along the midfield line. "The moms all want to know who you are and where you came from and the dads are all very deliberately not checking you out." He smiled at Buffy. "So, hi. Welcome to Boston."

"Thank you, Graham," she replied, moving a little closer to Riley so that Graham had plenty of room. "It's kind of nice to see you."

"Yeah. It's kind of nice to see you, too." Graham laughed because it was, in an odd way. Seeing her with Riley -- with a Riley who looked happier than he had looked for about as far back as Graham could remember -- made Graham feel like he was back in school again. Sitting at the Bronze, kicking back with Forrest, hassling Riley for yet another night (afternoon, morning) of hearing him and Buffy through the thin walls of Lowell House. "What do you think of the game so far?"

As games went, she preferred the one she and Riley had been playing in the first half, but this soccer thing wasn't so bad. "I like that it's co-ed. Makes things interesting."

"Mmmm. You're in the minority on that one." Graham cocked his head towards the crowd. "Most of the parents weren't too happy about it; the kids made it happen, though. Well, mostly Annie and Kate. They take after their mom -- anyone in authority had better watch out."

"Hey," Riley protested, "that's my wife you're talking about. And my daughters. They're not exactly troublemakers. A little backbone isn't a bad thing."

His wife, Buffy thought to herself, feeling a stirring of jealousy. Which, by the way, was completely uncalled for: of course Riley and Graham should talk about Sam. In fact, Buffy wanted them to. "Backbone?"

Graham smiled as he turned back to Buffy. "They almost didn't get the school to agree -- until they pulled the sympathy card. Kate actually cried. Then Annie put her arms around Kate and said -- in the saddest voice you can imagine, 'It's what our mom would have wanted if she were alive.' She had the whole school board crying."

Buffy looked at Riley and then back at Graham. Who were laughing. Which didn't seem at all appropriate, considering. "That doesn't seem like it would be funny."

Riley replied, "They practiced that routine in front of the mirror for a week before the meeting. Even practiced a reserved, thankful response for when the Board gave in. Now that is something Sam would have liked to see."

"Wow," Buffy said, looking back at the field. It was hard not to notice that Riley pulled away a bit when he mentioned Sam's name. "That's what I'm up against?"

"Well, Annie's mostly on your side," Riley answered. "That should help. They're much worse when they gang up."

"Great," Buffy mumbled. "Makes me feel so much better,"

She followed his gaze to the field. His attention was grimly focused on a kid charging at Kate, who was the team's goalie.

The kid was twice Kate's size, and Buffy recognized him from earlier in the game when he had practically tackled Kate twice, earning a penalty the first time, getting away with it the second. "Who is he?" she asked.

"A total brute," Graham answered. "He put three goalies in the hospital last year -- plays really rough. Shouldn't even be playing in this league but he's headed to some big school on scholarship next year and they like to show him off."    

Buffy watched as Kate appeared to brace herself for the impending impact. Instead of getting the brunt of the boy's force, however, she jumped in the air right as he reached the goal. He had also jumped and was clearly trying to use his bulk to intimidate her as he tried to head butt the ball in. Kate's jump was higher, though, and as she punched the ball away from the goal, she twisted and brought her elbow into the kid's jaw. Her shoulder and hip slammed against him, knocking him backwards to the ground.

That move looked incredibly familiar. Suspiciously like a move Buffy herself had used on Riley once upon a time. Until he wised up and started ducking, at least. That and throwing his shoulder into her gut, which, in turn, would send them both sprawling.

More often than not, they'd end up entangled on the floor, panting for breath in a rather compromising position. Their clothes would be off so fast that Buffy was surprised there hadn't been burns involved.

She smiled and turned to Riley. "You taught that to her."

The suddenness with which he blushed when he looked up made her think he might have forgotten the clothes coming off part. Or blocked it out. He was probably a lot more comfortable teaching his daughter to defend herself against unruly soccer players than he was thinking of her with some guy who was doing the things he himself had been doing to Buffy on the floor of that gym.

Yes, well... Buffy cleared the huskiness out of her throat. "Is Kate allowed to do that?"

Riley grinned and shrugged, his eyes back on Kate and the boy, now both in the middle of an argument with the referee over whether a penalty should have been called on the play.

"She's still a little green -- most goalies hide it better," he answered, "but this ref has a strong sense of justice. He hates that other kid."

They watched as the referee shook his head and started to walk away. The boy chased after him, yelling something, infuriated when the ref turned back and threw him out of the game. Kate just stood in the goal, attention focused squarely on the ground, looking contrite while visibly shaking. Buffy wasn't sure if Kate was scared or crying. She realized neither guess was right when she saw Kate look up and catch Riley's eye, flashing him a broad grin that was gone in an instant as Kate crouched again, ready for play to resume.

Kate had been laughing.

Now this was a girl Buffy could come to love. Too bad the feeling wasn't mutual.

Yet.

Buffy felt like she was starting to get a sense of the twins from meeting them the night before and watching them during the game. Riley's sons, though, were still total unknowns. "What are Jack and Liam like?"

"Well Jack's already planning on calling you 'Mom,'" Riley said. "Unless you're a computer game or a comic book, though, you probably won't get much attention from him."

"'Mom'?" It was one thing in the abstract...

Luckily Riley smiled when he saw the deer-in-headlights look Buffy was sure had just come over her face. He continued on with, "And Liam's, well... Liam's hard to describe. Kind of focused, more perceptive than you'd think, although he can definitely still be a smart-ass. Sometimes he's a little too serious, doesn't always seem to be having as much fun as a kid should have."

"Remind you of anyone?" Graham muttered. It earned him a glare from Riley.

"Not all the time, though," Riley continued. "Give him a skateboard and he turns into a different person." He shrugged. "He's eleven. He's just starting to try and figure everything out."

"What do they remember about Sam?" Buffy asked, wanting to take it back as soon as she saw Riley's face fall. She glanced at Graham, but he just shook his head and looked away.

After a few minutes, Riley finally responded. "Sometimes I think Kate is channeling her." He smiled, probably because he knew how that sounded, especially coming from him, Mr. Military Man. "There are things she says that, I swear, she could only get from Sam. Everything about her..." He shook his head. "My mother-in-law says that Kate is Sam at fourteen. Looks the same, acts the same... It can be pretty brutal." His eyes had suddenly become very red.

"Sorry," Buffy murmured. "I didn't mean to..."

Riley shook his head at her apology. He watched Kate at the goal for a few minutes before speaking again. "That didn't really answer your question, did it? I guess I don't really know how much the girls actually remember, or how much is because of stories we've told them. They're very protective of her, though-"

"School board meetings notwithstanding," Buffy added.

Riley smiled. "They thought she would be proud of how creative they were being. I think they were right."

Graham said, "I swear Sam was there, urging them on..." He laughed. "You think I'm kidding."

He must have seen the look on Buffy's face. The one that was finding it funny to hear the Army guys -- even if it was these particular Army guys -- talking about communications from beyond-the-grave. "And the boys?" she asked.

"Liam was just three, Jack only six months. Liam might have a glimpse or two, but Jack?" Riley shook his head and looked at Buffy. "That's why he wanted to call you 'Mom.' Said he never got to have one."

"Oh," was all Buffy could say, sorry for her earlier reaction.

"Ouch," said Graham at the same time, his eyes still on Riley. "That must have been fun."

"Well, that and because he thought Buffy was a weird name," Riley added.

"Which it is," Graham ever-so-helpfully agreed.

Their attention was back on the game as they watched Josh and Annie dribble the ball down the field, Josh dropping back as he kicked the ball towards the corner of the goal, in the perfect position for Annie to knock it in. "Poetry," Graham said in between cheers. "Those two have been doing that since they were seven years old. They're unbeatable."

The ref blew his whistle signaling the end of the game.

"What happens now?" Buffy asked.

Taking advantage of the commotion -- and of Kate and Annie being engaged in a team huddle -- Riley leaned forward, his mouth lightly brushing Buffy's lips. He smiled as he answered her question. "Now all the parents wait around for our kids to acknowledge us, something they only do because otherwise they wouldn't have a ride home."

"Which actually happens with most kids but is total bullshit when it comes to Riley and his girls." Graham stood up and offered his hand to Buffy. "We'd better get out of here before we get caught in the crossfire. Let me introduce you around."

"You o.k. with that? This is kind of a thing." Riley seemed unsure of how Buffy would react. Unsurprising given how well she'd handled the whole dinner at Graham's thing. Nice way to give him a little leeway, Buff.

She looked to where the team had just broken from their huddle. Annie and Kate were on the other side of the field looking towards the blanket.

Buffy only just barely stopped herself from running her hand down his cheek. "Of course."

Getting to her feet, Buffy let Graham lead her away. She glanced back to see the twins running across the field and collapsing down on the blanket, one on either side of Riley, talking excitedly about the game.

Graham had clearly noticed Buffy's look back. "I don't know what they'd do if anything ever happened to him. Jack and Liam, too. Hell, if it hadn't been for him, I'd probably be a divorced, bitter drunk who sat in a wheelchair all day. There's no one else like him."

Buffy looked down. She supposed she deserved that.   Still, it irritated her that Graham even mentioned it. If he hadn't been so quick to pull Riley out of Sunnydale, things might have turned out differently.

No. This wasn't meant as a challenge. He was just protecting his friend. He probably had as many issues with her as she had with him.

Actually, it was really just that one issue, his side of it being that because of her, his best friend took up a habit that could have gotten him killed. Which, well, wasn't entirely wrong. Give the guy a break. "Yeah," she said, "I... I've missed him."

Graham stopped walking and turned to her. "I know I'm out of line, here, but..."

Break so over. "I know what's riding on this, Graham," Buffy snapped, partly because she wasn't happy Graham was even bringing this up and partly because there was more guilt involved than she was comfortable with. "You think this is just some roll in the hay for me?" Well of course he did. He wouldn't be saying anything if he felt otherwise. "I've spent the last fifteen years..." Damn it. She furiously wiped tears away from her eyes. If she was going to cry, she didn't want it to be in front of him. "Since when did you become all chatty anyway? Aren't you supposed to be the strong, silent type?"

Looking away, Graham tried to hide his grin. Because, despite the bitterness she was sure he had, she also knew that he'd been the only one of Riley's friends who ever really liked her -- before everything went bad, that is.

He asked, "How about I choose now to be silent?"

Buffy smiled, even though she made every effort not to. Except for the hating him for taking Riley away thing, she'd always kind of liked him, too. "Well, not right now because these people seem to want to say hi."

Graham turned around to the couple that had just come up behind him. "Patty, Dave, hi. This is Buffy..."