"You sure you want to do this?" Riley asked Buffy as they pulled into Graham's driveway.

Probably because she looked a little shell-shocked -- she hadn't exactly been prepared for the experience of a car full of victorious, screaming teenagers. Not to mention the butterflies that were fluttering away in her gut thanks to the gauntlet she was about to run. And here Buffy thought she'd experienced pretty much everything.

She nodded and took a deep breath, desperately trying to keep from sounding, well, desperate. "Dinner. A few kids. Graham's wife who keeps trying to set you up..."

"The ride was really the worst part." Riley laughed as the kids poured out of the back of the Suburban. "From here on in? All downhill."

Now that they were alone in the car and the kids were disappearing around the side of the house, he put his hand on her knee; let it trail up her leg as he kissed her. Only briefly, though; the kids could come back at any time.

"Right," although the kiss had definitely helped in the stirring up courage department. She climbed out of the car and followed him up the front walk and into the house.

"Hey, Sarah," Riley called as they headed to the kitchen. "I see you got the message about Annie inviting the whole team for dinner."

"I had a feeling that might happen." The woman Buffy assumed was Sarah was looking into the backyard where all the kids had gathered around a picnic table. "This time I'm prepared." She turned to Riley to give him a hug, obviously noticing for the first time that he wasn't alone. "Hi," she said, throwing a look of surprise at Riley before holding her hand out to Buffy. "I'm Sarah."

She wasn't at all what Buffy expected Graham's wife to be, which, for some reason, had been blonde hair, blue eyes; all height and harsh angels. Sarah was the complete opposite: the build of Mrs. Shrek, the prettiness of Princess Finoa. Her hair was almost black; her eyes a cross between hazel and green, depending on the way the light hit. And she certainly wasn't towering over Buffy; at most she was a few inches taller.

"Um, hi." Buffy shook Sarah's hand. "I'm Buffy. It's nice to meet you."

"Buffy?" Sarah asked incredulously. She turned to Riley. "As in the Buffy? Before Sam Buffy? 'I've only ever loved two...'"

"Um, yeah," Riley replied sheepishly. Kind of adorably. "Leave me a little dignity, o.k.?"

Buffy smiled -- maybe a little too happily -- as she turned to Riley. 'The' Buffy? In a good kind of way? That was the kind of thing a girl liked to hear.

"So you two have already met," Graham said, walking in and giving Sarah a kiss. "What's for dinner and what do I need to do?"

Sarah wordlessly handed Graham a bowl of marinating chicken.

"Let's go," he said to Riley, nodding towards the backyard where Josh and three other kids had joined the group at the picnic table. "They're waiting for us."

Riley looked at Buffy. "I thought I'd stay in-"

"It's o.k.," Buffy responded with a smile. "Go. Do whatever you guys do." She could handle this. It seemed much less scary now.

"You sure?" Riley asked. "I can..."

Laughing, Buffy pushed him towards the door. "Go. Really."

"O.k.," Riley said, though he clearly didn't mean it, given that he was still lingering.

"Come on," Graham muttered as he opened the screen door to the back patio. "She'll be here when you come back."

Riley glanced out to the yard -- making sure the kids were well occupied? It looked like, because he grinned at Buffy when he turned back, then pulled her into his arms, surprising her with a heated kiss before following Graham outside.

"Wow," Sarah said, not bothering to hide her shock. "I didn't know he could still do that. Haven't seen that in a long time." She turned to pull vegetables out of the refrigerator.

"Haven't felt that in a long time," Buffy murmured. Looking out the back window, she watched Riley snatch a Nerf football out of the air and throw it back at Josh. Soon Graham was involved, too, as were most of the kids and two dogs. "Are they always this sporty?"

Sarah laughed. "Pretty much. Tiring, isn't it?"

Buffy nodded, her gaze moving across the yard to where the driveway ended. An overwhelming amount of people -- kids and parents -- were coming into the backyard. "There are more." So much for just dinner and a few kids.

"You want to join them? I'm fine in here." Sarah looked at Buffy with what appeared to be concern.

The deer-in-headlights had returned. Sarah must have seen it. "No, that's o.k. I don't think I have that much energy," Buffy replied, turning back to Sarah. She wasn't entirely willing to admit that she found Riley's daughters -- and their friends; and their friends' parents -- intimidating. She had faced a lot of things in her life. A boyfriend's family, however, had never been one of them. "Chopping carrots is about where I am right now."

Sarah handed Buffy a cutting board and knife. "You o.k.?"

No, Sarah. Not o.k. at all. The opposite, in fact. K.O. Knocked out on the floor and down for the count. But thanks for asking.

Yesterday morning she had woken up reasonably happy and content, not having anyone else to answer to, or that she had to share things with, or that she was responsible for -- any more than usual at least. As much in control of her life as anyone could be.

Here she was, though, one day later -- with the taste of Riley Finn on her lips and the no longer distant memory of his body against hers. Here she was, fifteen years after she had last laid eyes on him, smack dab in the middle of suburbia, seriously contemplating the distant -- and yet apparently very real -- possibility of becoming his wife and the mother to his four children.

She took the knife and board from Sarah and started cutting up the peppers that were in front of her. Deep breaths. No need for panic. As long as Buffy didn't think about how it wasn't just his two teenage daughters, or Graham's wife, or this very large group of people who would no doubt be passing judgment on her the second she stepped out into that backyard; as long as she didn't think about the fact that she was trespassing on a dead woman's memory.

Not that there was anything to be done about that, of course. Still, Buffy couldn't help but feel her presence was just an awful reminder to everyone of the hole Sam had left behind.

Shake it off, Buffy. Concentrate on whatever it is that Sarah is saying.

"For a few weeks, it was only three or four kids after the games." Sarah sat down across the table from Buffy and started tearing leaves off the heads of lettuce. "Then Annie decided everyone should be involved, as she usually does, so I'll probably be feeding the team dinner until the end of the summer."

Sending a silent thank you to Sarah for not pushing the whole 'are you o.k.' issue, Buffy said, "You don't mind? Playing hostess for Riley's kids?"

Smiling, Sarah shook her head. "We all take turns; Riley definitely takes on his share. But even if we didn't, it would be worth it to see those two happy." She nodded at Riley and Graham who were doing a ridiculously juvenile dance in the makeshift end zone. "It took a while to get there."

Good. Much better topic. This was the kind of stuff Buffy needed to know. "Riley said it was a tough few years after Sam..."

"Yeah. Pretty tough," Sarah agreed as she moved on to peeling cucumbers. "Your name came up a few times back then, in fact. For a little while there, I couldn't get Graham to talk about anything else."

Buffy looked up, surprised.

Her eyes on the table, Sarah didn't seem to notice. "He would go through these, I don't know, cycles. Most of the time he wouldn't talk to any of us, even Riley. Especially Riley. Couldn't bear to face him after watching Sam..." She stopped herself from finishing the sentence. "After the crash. He'd get these things he'd focus on for days on end. And one time he got it in his head that he was going to find you and somehow that would make Riley's pain go away."

"Graham said that?" Buffy asked.

Sarah nodded her head. "I know. Seems hard to believe." She knew all too well the depths Riley had sunken to after leaving California, and she knew that Graham had spent a lot of time blaming Buffy.

It was only recently that he had finally admitted to himself, and only reluctantly to Sarah, that he blamed Buffy because it was a lot easier than accepting the guilt he felt for letting his best friend down. Said he should have realized how bad things were; it was just that it was too easy to accept Riley's word when he said things were fine. Especially since Graham's guilt was compounded by the fact that his and Sarah's relationship had been taking off as Riley's and Buffy's was crashing.

"But he didn't," Buffy said, head down. "Try and find me."

"No, Graham didn't follow through on much of anything those days," Sarah said, remembering the aftermath of the accident: Graham's near-catatonia, Riley's surreal calm in the first few months and then total breakdown soon after, not to mention trying to deal with her own ups and downs while struggling to essentially be a single parent to six young kids -- her own two, who to this day, got annoyed with Graham because he had never seen his wheelchair as the great new toy it could have been; and Riley and Sam's four, who had lost their mother in the crash and their father to shock and grief. The arrival of Riley's mom had been a Godsend for everyone.

"What was Sam like?" Buffy asked softly, feeling a need to know more about the woman who had been such a big part of Riley's life.

"You never met?" Sarah was obviously surprised. "I always assumed you knew each other."

"Only once," Buffy replied. "For a few hours." Hours in which she had run through almost every emotion known to humankind -- surprise, happiness, and hope, giving way to shock, regret, shame and despair. Seeing in Sam not the woman she was, but instead the woman Buffy wasn't.

"What was Sam like," Sarah repeated, reaching for memories from long ago. "Well, let's see, the way I remember describing her to my sister was tall, athletic, gorgeous, and rich, all things I'm obviously not." She laughed. "I spent much too much time dwelling on all that when she and Graham partnered up."

Buffy stopped cutting her carrots, knife poised in mid-air. "She and Graham were partners? I thought Sam worked with Riley."

"Not after the twins were born." Sarah shook her head. "They decided that in case of an..." She stopped abruptly, and a shadow came over her face.

Buffy figured there'd been more than one conversation before that decision had been made. Sarah seemed close enough to Riley and Sam that she would have been part of those talks. They might even have happened here, at this very table -- Sam sitting back in her chair, happily patting her stomach, saying to Sarah, If I go down in glory, you just keep feeding Riley dinners like this and he'll be o.k.

"That in case of an accident," Sarah continued after a minute, "it would be better for the kids if at least one of them was around. It made it hard, though; they didn't get to see each other much. I think that's why Riley agreed to take the job setting up the office here in Boston. It was only supposed to be for a year, but, well, things have a way of changing, don't they?"

They certainly do, Buffy thought. So that was why they had moved to Boston; why Riley had spent the last ten years behind a desk instead of out in the field. "What did they do when Sam was pregnant?"

"Getting right to the heart of the matter?" Sarah asked, a twinkle in her eyes. Answering Buffy's question, she said, "I didn't know her very well when she was pregnant with the girls. Although I do remember Graham saying she was furious with him when he ordered her to see a doctor, and with the doctor when he wouldn't send her back to Nepal with-" Sarah looked up as Buffy's knife slipped. "Do you need a band-aid for that?"

"No, that's o.k.," Buffy said, getting up to run her finger under cold water. "I heal pretty fast. You were saying -- Nepal?" As in the place Riley and Sam had been heading directly after Sunnydale? Which would make the timing just about perfect, given the fourteen-year-old-ness of the twins. Buffy wasn't sure how that point had escaped her until now. Or why it cut deeper than any knife could.

"Right," Sarah answered. "They were on some mission in the mountains and she fainted a few times. They thought it was because of the altitude but Graham ordered her to the Base in Japan to get it checked out. So, well, diagnosis: pregnant with twins." Sarah was back to busily peeling cucumbers, not at all noticing that Buffy was still in a little bit of shock. "She was on leave until she had the babies. Graham said if it weren't for the fact that she loved Japan so much, she probably would have killed either him, Riley, or both. Which I can totally believe because she threatened to do that more than once when she was pregnant with Liam. She seemed a little happier by the time Jack came along -- they were living in Boston by then; she still had her moments, though."

Of all the techniques Angel had taught Buffy during their training, the hardest for her to learn had been the art of interrogation. Her instinct was to keep firing questions or to start throwing punches, whereas usually it helped to just remain silent. Eventually the other person would get so uncomfortable that they would just keep talking. She turned the water off and looked at Sarah expectantly.

Sarah looked up. "Honey," she said, her own fiery spirit shining in her eyes, "I've been married to Graham for fifteen years. If there's one thing I've learned in all that time, it's how to deal with silence. You may as well ask me whatever it is you want to know."

Taken aback for a moment, Buffy started to deny that she had any more questions. It didn't take too long to realize that was a bad idea. She sat down across from Sarah and picked up the knife again, slicing the cucumbers Sarah had finally finished peeling. "You don't feel you're betraying Riley's confidence?"

"If I felt like I were betraying him, I wouldn't be telling you," Sarah responded, keeping her eyes on the table in front of her. "Trust me, that wide-eyed look may work wonders on Riley or even Graham, but it does nothing for me."

They both looked up at the same time, guarded at first, and then smiling broadly.

"You people sure are tough," Buffy said, thinking that she liked this group that was part of Riley's life.

"I suppose it's a requirement when you're dealing with the Slayer," Sarah answered. "What?" she said to Buffy's look of surprise. "You think I wouldn't use my own wily ways to find out who this Buffy person was?"

Buffy's mouth dropped open. She would have been stammering if any sound were coming out. Eventually, she managed, "You know what we do."

Sarah politely ignored the stammering thing. Or, rather, not-stammering thing. "Graham actually tried to hide it from me for the first couple years we were married. It might have worked if it had occurred to him to do his own laundry. You know how hard it is to get some of those demon guts out of a pair of pants? Tide just doesn't do it."

Grinning, Buffy said, "Vinegar. The clear kind."

"You've got to be kidding me." Sarah shook her head. "The amount of clothes I have thrown away..." She got up and grabbed a huge salad bowl off the counter, dumping everything into it. "You ready to greet the crowd?"

Buffy looked out the window and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Sure. I can do this." There were more teenagers out there than she knew when she was in high school. "Are they going to make us play football, too?" It was one thing playing catch with your boyfriend on a So-Cal beach. With teams, though? And actual rules?

"Unfortunately, yes." Sarah smiled. She obviously wasn't loving the football thing, either. "Not 'til after we eat, though."

Buffy picked up the salad and headed to the door. "I bet Sam loved football. She was probably great at it, too."