"Move the bed," Riley repeated bluntly, not sure he had heard her correctly.

She nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"To over by the window." He looked pointedly at the loveseat and two chairs that stood in the way.

"Yup." She smiled prettily, obviously knowing she was about to get her way.

He muttered, "How come I'm the one that has to move the bed when you're the one with super-human strength?"

"Because," Buffy replied, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. "I have to change into something a little more comfortable."

He glanced down at her. "That kind of thing is only going to work so many times."

"Yeah, but I'm still within the grace period." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek then grabbed her bag and headed to the bathroom.

Smiling as he turned back to the window, he shook his head and started moving furniture, glad that they had a room big enough to accommodate redecoration.

She wanted to make love in the sunlight.

They had gone out for lunch after a quick -- o.k., maybe not so quick -- shower. The room service menu just wasn't cutting it. Surprisingly enough, it didn't have the avocado-strawberry-mango salad she required. (More surprisingly, a restaurant a few blocks down did.)

As they walked back to the hotel, she opened her arms to the sun, throwing her head back and saying how she couldn't get enough of it. That for years with Spike and Angel she had wanted so much to just go out for a walk on the beach as the sun rose and the rays kissed the sand. Or at high noon, to sit on the edge of a fountain, feet dangling in the cold water while the sun warmed her back.

Not that she couldn't do those things alone, which he was sure she often did. Too often, in fact. Not being able to share that would probably take its toll, a constant reminder that there were two different worlds, and very few people lived in both. At least not successfully.

She seemed irritated - more so as she talked about it. Or, rather, as she stopped talking about it which, he had to admit, was not unexpected. He'd actually been kind of shocked that she'd let out as much as she did, going as far as to say, 'Once upon a time,' when she lived in the light. When she shared her bed with a man who didn't turn to ash when the curtains blew open in a soft breeze.

Riley hadn't even been sure she was talking about him until she'd looked up at him and smiled kind of wistfully, asking, 'Do you remember Mexico?'

As if he could forget.

A place where the patio doors opened up to the ocean. Where the bedroom had no walls, only shades. Where they had spent an incredible weekend, bathed in warmth and sun and pure contentment. Ages ago.

How she had found that place, Riley had no idea. Hadn't thought much about it at the time, just thought it was the best birthday present he'd ever had. In years of traveling to the world's most exotic locales, he had yet to find anywhere as magical as that had been. In his memories, it was paradise - an oasis of light. Thinking back on it now, though, it seemed more a sign of the times. A reflection of that carefree summer. A time when anything seemed possible, even Heaven on earth.

Sam had never quite gotten the sunlight thing. She'd never needed it as proof that she hadn't succumbed to the darkness. Hadn't let the evil seep too far in. Riley did. He understood why Buffy saw daylight as a haven, one of the few places she could go that they couldn't. And somehow, even though the demons could roam freely 24/7, they were never quite as harrowing. It was the vampires that set your heart on edge. They were the ones that got under your skin, into your blood. But even they couldn't touch you in the sun.

Which, of course, also went for Angel and Spike. They had never been able to see her outside of the dark. Never been able to touch a strand of her hair, set on fire at sunset. Never traced the dancing shadows on her back as the leaves shifted on a cool spring morning. Or, for that matter, as the waves washed the sand off her golden skin. Did they remember what the sun felt like? Did they know what it was like to have this angel hovering above you, framed by celestial light, whispering your name?

If you could live forever, but not have that? Wouldn't be worth it.

"I don't hear furniture moving," came Buffy's voice from the bathroom.

"Were you always this bossy?" he yelled back as he pushed the bed against the wall.

He pulled the drapes away from the window, glad that on this Sunday afternoon, not too many people would be in the high-rise office buildings across the street. It was one thing to be on a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere; totally another to be putting on a show for the office workers of Toronto.

The bathroom door opened. "Can we at least keep this one closed?" he asked, holding the sheer curtain up in front of his face as he turned around. "See? Sunlight gets through but no one else can..."

Holy shit.

The curtain dropped out of his hand completely unnoticed, as he sat down - dropped down, rather - on the bed. What the hell was it about black lingerie? And stiletto heels. Which should look ridiculous when paired with what was, essentially, a nightgown, but instead just looked like...

Holy shit.

"You like?" she asked, her arms going over her head as she did a little twirl before slowly walking towards him.

"Uh-huh." Funny. He never really thought about the fact that there were words it was possible to say without closing your mouth.

"Oh, I hate these things." She stopped halfway across the room so she could reach down and pull off the shoes, muttering, "I used to be so much better at the seductive thing."

He laughed and shook his head. "Yeah, because with all the sex we've had in the last week I really needed seducing." Certainly didn't hurt, though.

"Thank you for moving the bed," she said, climbing onto his lap and giving him a nice, long drawn out kiss before shifting to the side.

"Anytime." He watched as she lay back, a smile dawning as the sun hit her face.

She held her hand out to him, pulling him towards her. "Don't you love the way it feels?"

God, yes, he thought, kissing her, loving the way her hands felt running through his hair. Down his back, to his waist. Pulling his shirt up over his head and twisting so that she was covering his body as he lay on his back.

She pushed herself up so that she was sitting over him. Tracing her finger down the scar over his eyebrow, she asked, "How'd you get this one?"

"I show you mine if you show me yours?" He tried to sit up.

She pushed him back down. "I only have the one - I don't really scar." Not on the outside at least. "So?"

"Bar fight. Do we really have to do this now?" Now, when she was straddling his waist and biting down on her lip in an incredibly maddening way?

"Shhh. This is the first chance I've had to really look at you." She sat back on his legs, her eyes stopping briefly at the cluster of scars on his neck - which she seemed to be deliberately ignoring for the moment - before roaming over his chest. "Where'd this one come from?" She pointed to a jagged mark that dipped down below his waistband.   

"Africa," he said. "The Serengeti."

"Demon?"

He shook his head. "Lion. Stumbled on her cubs while we were tracking something." A streak of gold darting out of the tall grass.

"What were you tracking?" Buffy asked.

"Don't know." Smaller than you'd think when seeing her up close, but there was no denying her strength once she had you in her grasp. "Lions got to it first."

She made a face. "Ick."

"Yeah." Could have been worse.

He could still remember the struggle to free himself as the animal's claws dug into his side. Literally looking into the jaws of death; feeling the impact as the darts struck her body, lifting it up off of his.

Graham's hands, roughly yanking him up into the jeep. Sam tearing what was left of his shirt away as she tried to stop the bleeding, holding him still as he swore - What the hell was Murphy thinking? Always taking his Goddamn time. Firing the tranq gun after the lion was already drawing blood instead of while she was pouncing. Could have fucking gotten Riley killed.

'But he didn't get you killed,' Sam had said, her smile and lightly spoken words betrayed by the concern in her eyes. 'He saved your life. You barely even lost any blood, Finn. I've seen worse nosebleeds.'

How was it possible that he still missed her so much?

"You still with me, soldier?"

"What?" The image of Sam disappeared, replaced by Buffy's worried face above him. "Sorry."

Her eyes were on his as he looked away. "You o.k.?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She ran her finger along the scar. "Want to talk about it?"

"No," he said, turning back to her.

She stared at him for a minute and then looked down at the tattoo on his shoulder. An eagle with its wings spread in flight, four tears falling from its eye. Tiny, nearly illegible letters formed the feathers on the underside of the wings. "Why an eagle?" she asked.

"It's an Army thing," Riley said, watching her try to decipher the words. It seemed like she needed a little help. "'I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.' Or something along those lines."

A pensive look came over her face. "As in 'Yea, though I walk through...'?"

He nodded.

"Do you believe it?" she asked quietly. "That Sam is still with you? That someone is watching over us?"

Considering the position he was in at the moment and what Buffy was wearing, he was hoping that if Sam had been watching over him, she'd decided to go out for a walk.

How exactly had they gotten from black lace to the existence of God and the afterlife? "You tell me," he said. "You're the one who was there." He took her hand as she shook her head.

He couldn't blame her for not wanting to talk about it - it was inconceivable to him that she had actually been dead. For months, apparently. Part of him wanted to know everything - every single detail of what it was like: if she could see the earth below her. If she'd dispatched angels to the Sunnydale graveyards, protecting her friends from the evil things they had to now face alone. Or if her mother had been waiting for her; if there really was someone on the other side.

But despite his curiosity, he wasn't sure he really wanted any answers. What if this was it? If once you were gone, you were really gone? He'd always had this vision of Sam protecting them from above; of joining her there someday. Watching over their kids and grandkids and somehow being a presence in their lives even after he was long gone. Looking out for them. Being the invisible hand that kept the darkness at bay.

That had to be the way it worked, there had to be something out there. How else to explain the things he had seen? Alternate universes and demon dimensions. Vampires who had lived for thousands of years. Spirits that came alive in the wind. So much evil.

There had to be something good balancing it all, keeping the world livable. Something that gave him the strength to lift his weapon when there was no way he should even be standing. Something that kept Buffy alive all those years, kept him alive.

"Yeah, I believe." He pulled her down and kissed her. "How else would it be possible to have you here with me?"

She pulled away, sitting up again. "How else would it be possible for you to still be alive with the beating you've taken over the years?" Her hand made a path from his neck to his waist, lingering at the places where his skin had never quite healed. "Someday you'll have to tell me about the others."

"Someday," he said, his breath catching as her fingers found the button of his pants and she bent down to kiss his chest.

Her mouth moved down to his waist, lips caressing the scars she passed. "I like the way you look in the light,"

Yeah, well... "It's not fair that after all this time you barely have a mark on you and I look like, well, this." Not that he spent a lot of time looking in the mirror and thinking the Elephant Man looked better, but he certainly wouldn't be winning any beauty contests.

He could feel her mouth form into a smile as she said, "This is good."

She had his pants and boxers off now, and he could feel her hands graze the scars on his legs. Ones that were much less noticeable, but easily seen if you were really searching. Working her way back to his chest, she said, "Any more chips in there that I should know about?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." I.d. chips embedded in his hip, the back of his hand, and the base of his skull - his unit had been the guinea pigs for what was now standard issue throughout the military. "You know," he said, "if you keep talking, the sunlight's gonna be gone."

She raised her eyebrows. "A little impatient, aren't we?"

"Maybe if you hadn't had me pinned to the bed this whole time..."

"Mmm," she said, lifting the short black skirt over her hips and settling back so that he was almost inside her, but not quite. "That probably wasn't very nice of me."

Not very nice at all - she was obviously enjoying driving him crazy. Easing him inside for a second or two at a time; watching him grab at the sheets and clench his jaw and close his eyes while he tried to breathe. Letting him lift his hips but not allowing him to touch.

"God, Buffy..."

"Shhhh," she said. She held his shoulders down, brushing his lips with hers. A light kiss to the base of his neck, but not stopping at the scar. She clearly wanted this to be all him.

Which it was. Fuck, yes, it was. He could barely control himself even when she didn't touch the places where he'd been marked by the vampires. Especially after she had been sitting on what had to be the biggest erection ever for the past fifteen minutes. He pushed himself up, startling her and toppling her onto her back. Spreading her legs and lowering himself down and groaning as he slid in.

"Riley...wait. You... No." She lifted her hips and... Damn. It did not help at all that she was rocking back and forth, clutching at his shoulders.

"Riley..." She stopped suddenly. Pulled herself away as her head turned to the side. "We can't," she gasped. "You can't."

Right. God, she had to get on the Pill. It was getting too easy to get carried away.

He reached past her to his pants on the floor, grabbed for the wallet that was still in the back pocket.

"Let me," she said, reaching down. Rolling the condom down slowly, letting her fingers roam, she was making him think that condoms weren't so bad after all.

She pushed him back on the bed. Sinking down onto him and rolling her hips as she placed his hands on her waist. Grabbing onto his hand as his fingers traced circles on her stomach and up her chest.

He pulled himself up to sitting, shifting her position slightly as he bent down, his mouth closing over her breast. Smooth, satiny silk; rough, scratchy lace; and her rock hard nipple under his tongue. The cool fabric shimmered against his body as she moved slowly. He fought the urge to speed things up, wanting to take her hard and fast and not wait a minute longer.

Instead, he eased himself down, lying back on the bed, watching her get lost in the sensation. Bringing his hands down to her legs and trying to keep his eyes open so he could see her sitting over him. Not always managing - it felt too damn good. And the sounds she was making weren't exactly helping him with his control.

She leaned back and grabbed at his hand, pulling it between her legs. Her hands went behind her to his thighs as she thrust her hips forward. Crying out as his free hand went to her breast, playing with her there and down below. She became more frenzied, and he tried to just watch. Tried not to follow her there because he wanted to see that look come over her face. Pure abandonment and pleasure. A vulnerability that she rarely let surface.

"Riley, please..."

She was practically purring, moaning his name. Writhing above him, a vision of black lace and golden skin. His hands went back to her waist, thumbs applying pressure; pulling her down as he arched up into her, matching her pace.

"Yes... Oh..." Her legs began to tremble and he could feel her muscles clenching around him. So tight it was almost painful. Almost. She was suddenly leaning forward, pulling him up, her hand behind his neck. Burrowing her head in his chest, her arms wrapping around him. "I... Don't... Oh, God..." Melding her body to his.

He pulled her closer and kissed her neck, harder as her whole body started shaking. She clutched at him as she came, making sounds that might have been his name, but he wasn't really sure. Breathing heavily on the way down, she put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him. Gently at first, and then attacking him with her tongue. Pressing against his chest, her hands in his hair.

"Open... your eyes," she said, gasping, holding his gaze as she rocked and trembled again, for a second time.

That was it. Over the edge. He pushed her on her back and climbed on top. Drove into her until he couldn't take it any more, and he was the one screaming. Thanked God that she had the strength to still be going, because her shaking and moaning beneath him sent him so high that he was afraid he would break when he came back down.

Oh, shit. Holy fucking mother of God shit.

"How do you do that?" he finally asked, feeling the sweat stream down his neck as he fell back to the bed.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," she said, laughing as she kissed him again. She reluctantly released him from her hold so he could get up.

Breathe, Ri. For Heaven's sake. "When is that doctor's appointment?" Whoever invented the Pill should be a candidate for sainthood. Except for that thing about the Church not going for birth control of course.

She smiled. "Thursday."

"Can't come soon enough," he muttered, settling back into the bed. His shoulder already felt sore where she had been grabbing him. "Did you get stronger?" he asked, rubbing the raw skin.

"Had to make my own mark." She rolled over so that her back was to his chest. Basking in the warmth as the sun shone over them and his body surrounded her. "I love you, Riley."

He put his arms around her and pulled her closer, closing his eyes and letting the moment sear itself on his brain. "I love you, too." He kissed the back of her neck, and smiled as she settled into him, drifting off to sleep.