"You're early," Pete grumbled when he came in from lunch and found Graham and Riley already at the bag.

"Excellent," Riley said. "So everyone's in a good mood today."

It was meant to be a sarcastic response and yet there was a huge smile on his face as he spoke. Couldn't help it. He was thinking about Buffy. Wasn't much else to do as he leaned into the bag, holding it steady while Graham pummeled it.

"Don't want to be in a good mood," Pete replied. He threw his bag on the floor and sat down on a bench a few feet away from the punching bag. "You're too damn happy all the time. What've you got to be happy about? Four kids who'll keep you in debt 'til you're so old you can't even see 'em well enough to figure out which one's which."

The only things that got Pete this riled up were drunk kids who thought they could fight and his twenty-six year old daughter who lived in New York City. "What'd she do this time?" Riley asked.

"Got herself another acting job." Pete pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and started gnawing on it. "Which of course doesn't pay. I swear I'm gonna cut that girl off. Needs to learn how to earn a living."

Pete, of course, would never cut her off, even though he said it at least once every few weeks.

Graham stopped to catch his breath, gesturing at the punching bag. "Want a shot, Pete? Sounds like you need it as much as I do."

"Nah," Pete answered. "Let Finn at it. The kid's the one who needs it. He's slowing down in his old age."

Riley laughed. Pete was the only person who could get away with calling someone a kid, and then give them shit about their age without missing a beat. "That's all right. I'm actually o.k. right now."

"Yeah -- what's up with that?" Graham asked, resuming punching.

"What do you mean?" Riley sat down on the bench next to Pete, grabbing a bottle of water off the floor and taking a swig of it.

"I've been pissed off all day, which usually gets your back up. And Jessica gets on your nerves as much as mine." Graham punched harder. "And I'm the one that got lucky last night; I should be the one with that stupid grin on my face."

Riley sat back against the wall, trying to wipe said grin off his face. Graham was right, though; it had been there pretty much all morning.

So this appeared to be the opening Riley hadn't been looking for. The timing sucked, given the fact that Graham was already in a fighting mood, but he was the one who brought it up. Riley said, "Didn't say I didn't get lucky last night."

Graham stopped punching again and wiped the sweat off his face. "Huh?" He grabbed the towel Riley threw at him. "You said..."

"I know what I said. It wasn't Jean," Riley replied. "You might want to sit down for this one. Or better yet, start punching the bag again."

Graham looked puzzled. In a wary kind of way. "Why -- is this going to piss me off more?"

Pete's eyes were going back and forth between the two until they finally settled on Riley. "Better tell him, kid. Else he's gonna take your head off."

"Probably unavoidable at this point," Riley mumbled, half to Pete, half to himself.

Deep breath, Ri. Just say it. "All I've ever loved, Graham. Sam and Buffy."

There was a moment of silence as Graham took that in. "You have got to be shittin' me." He slowly sank down to a bench as he realized what Riley meant. "Buffy? She's alive?"

Alive and kissing. Licking. Some other incredibly satisfying '-ing's that Riley wasn't going to dwell on at the moment. "The one and only."

"Buffy's alive and you saw her last night," Graham stated flatly.

Riley nodded. "She was at the fireworks. Just moved to Boston."

There was a beat before Graham said, "Holy fucking shit."

Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.

Graham didn't say anything for a few minutes. "Well, that explains the grin," he finally muttered, standing up. He headed to the ring, not looking at Riley as he called over his shoulder, "Pete -- any of these guys ready for a few rounds?" He nodded towards a group of men that had been warming up in the corner. The punching bag apparently wasn't cutting it any more; he clearly wanted someone that could fight back.    

"Sheehan!" Pete yelled at one of the younger ones. "You're up."

Riley had to admit -- he felt for the guy. "Hope he's good."

"He's good," Pete answered. "Needs to be put in his place, though. Learn some respect. I was gonna put him up against that cocky son-of-a-bitch you guys always bring, but Graham seems in the right frame of mind just about now."

Pete winced as Sheehan went flying within minutes of climbing into the ring. He turned to Riley. "What'd that girl do to him?"

Riley looked down at the floor. "He was just a bystander."

Other than a very loaded glance, there wasn't any response from Pete. He just stood up and walked over to the ropes, leaving Riley alone.

It wasn't much of a surprise. Riley hadn't shared much about his life before Sam, but he knew there was talk. He hadn't exactly been discrete when he went about losing his shit. Though Graham had managed to keep the more sordid details under wraps, he'd never hidden the fact that he blamed Buffy as much as he did Riley. Riley figured Pete had heard a story or two.

For the next hour, Riley watched Graham tear apart one guy after another -- hadn't seen him fight like that in a good, long time.

Pete finally stopped it, yelling to Graham, "Get the hell out of there! You're killing my best guys! Shit -- give someone else a chance."

Graham only reluctantly left the ring. He grabbed a bottle of water, drinking the whole thing down before coming back to sit on the bench next to Riley. "She still as cute as she used to be?"

Oh, God, yes. "Cute doesn't even begin to describe her."

Graham just sat there, silent for a few minutes. Then -- "You always steal my thunder, you know that?" Graham seemed highly irritated as he shook his head. "I take Sarah to Hawaii for our honeymoon; you jump out of a fucking helicopter. We get pregnant with Josh; you and Sam have twins. I give Sarah the most romantic night of her life and you meet up with your college sweetheart, with fireworks going off above you. I don't even want to know how many times you and Buffy did it."

Riley concentrated on looking down at the ground while Graham was talking, trying not to smile. Because, well... true. Not intentionally, but-

"Yes," Graham said. "Yes I do. I actually want to know how many times. Because at least then I'll know there were greater forces at work here and it will make me feel better." He looked back at Riley, who was back to grinning again. "Well?"

Riley hesitated before saying, "Four." Hell -- if you couldn't tell your best friend of twenty years, who could you tell?

"Four," Graham repeated, staring at him. "Four times. Fucking inhuman. You're forty-friggin'-years-old. Guys our age don't do that."

Honestly? Riley couldn't quite believe it himself. Except for that whole eight years of celibacy thing. "Had a lot to make up for," he offered.

"Greater forces at work." Graham dropped his empty bottle into a trashcan. "You do realize that, don't you?"

Forces that were great, indeed. Greater than Riley deserved. "Yeah," he said, quietly. "I do."

Graham sat back against the wall. "I'm reserving the right to hate her, o.k.? But I won't give you any shit. I'll even act my age and be nice to her." He bent down and pulled his bag out from underneath the bench. "She's coming to dinner tonight, isn't she?"

"Might be," Riley answered. "Annie wants me to ask her to their game."

"And Kate?"

"Kate's not exactly on board with this."

Graham nodded. "I'm taking a shower." He stood and looked down at Riley. "Be careful, Ri. You've got too much to lose this time around." He walked away muttering, "Four fucking times."

"It's about time!" Dawn said when Buffy finally called. "You realize how hard it was for me not to call, don't you? I get points for that."

Buffy shut down her computer and leaned back in her chair, finally giving up on the pretense of being productive. It wasn't like she'd managed to do any work today.

"Definite points," Buffy replied. "Major, big-time poi-"

"So?" Dawn was clearly eager to get past the pleasantries. "I wasn't imagining things, right? I mean, there was definite chemistry going on."

Um, yeah. "There was chemistry."

"Details, Buffy," Dawn urged. "I want details."

Details? As in how jolting it had been to see him again? To see him with kids? To see him dealing with them so effortlessly as if this was what he'd spent his whole life doing?

Which -- duh, he kind of had. Half his life anyway. So hard to believe and yet it fit him so well. She was glad he had found that -- what she had never been able to give him. What she probably wouldn't have been able to give him, even if they had managed to stay together.

For so long, she hadn't even been sure that that was what she wanted -- the house, the kids. The big, noisy family. It wasn't until much more recently that she'd even decided she wouldn't have minded that life. She'd been o.k., though, with how things had turned out -- being "Auntie B" to Xander's kids; looking to Dawn to carry on the family name.

Yet every now and then she caught herself picturing a little girl who loved to sing and play and read Goodnight, Moon. And there were glimpses of this little girl growing up -- a toddler getting band-aids on her skinned knees, a second-grader dancing around a stage in her first recital, a teenager pouting to her father when he insisted on meeting her dates.

All dreams that had come true for Riley. He had read to and patched up and protected his little girls. Had raised this beautiful family. He had shared it with Sam, though, not her. Well, not really Sam, either. He'd had to do most of it alone. And Sam had definitely gotten the short end of the stick. No one in this story got a happy ending.

Well, no one yet, at least. Buffy was hoping that was about to change.

"Buffy..."

Oh, right. Details.

And Dawn was probably going more for the how-many-strokes-of-the-tongue report as opposed to what Riley's life was like as a family man.

Mmm... Strokes of the tongue.

Buffy was glad Dawn couldn't see the blush rising to her cheeks. "I don't kiss and tell."

Dawn snorted. "That is so untrue. You always tell me."

"Do not," Buffy snapped.

"I am so much better at this game than you," Dawn said with a completely unearned superiority. "So spill now, or else I'll make you remember how annoying I can be."

Fine, Buffy thought. It was true -- Dawn hadn't really turned on the annoyingness in quite some time. When she did, though... Giving in was the slightly better choice. "It hurts to walk. That's all you're getting out of me." Especially since she had already said more than enough to Angel.

Dawn let out a yell. "I totally knew it! Riley is such a bad liar."

"Yeah, sometimes." Buffy smiled as an ancient memory appeared and the word 'paintball' came to mind.

"What was it like?" Dawn asked, more seriously. "To be with him again? Was it nice? Or did you just boink so you wouldn't have to talk about all the bad stuff?"

Leave it to Dawn to bring the word 'boink' back into existence. "No, definitely nice. Wonderful. And just so..." Buffy stopped as her eyes teared up, thinking she couldn't even have dreamed something like this, much less expected it to come true. Was she truly getting a second chance? Getting to right what shouldn't even have been wrong in the first place?

"Stop thinking." As if she could read Buffy's mind, Dawn continued, "Just go with it. None of that ever went away. You've always loved him, I mean, please -- you know how much it pissed Spike off. And I can't imagine Riley ever stopped loving you. You weren't even old enough to drink when he left. Of course you guys made mistakes. It doesn't mean it's going to happen again. Well, not those mistakes, at least. I'm sure you'll manage some doozies."

"Gee, thanks," Buffy muttered. "Great pep talk."

"I'm just saying, don't think of this as reliving the past. Think of it as the way things were meant to be," Dawn said. "So when are you seeing him again?"

Buffy swiveled her chair so that she was looking out through the French doors. "I don't know. I was asleep when he left; we didn't get a chance to talk about it."

Dawn asked the obvious question: "Well, why don't you call him?"

"I can't."

"Please," Dawn answered, exasperated. "We're not in the dark ages. Women can call men, you know. They've been doing it for years now."

"No, I mean I really can't. I don't know his phone number and it doesn't seem to be listed." Buffy would have liked to say she hadn't spent the better part of the day making personal use of all the databases Angel Investigations had at its disposal. Unfortunately, that would have been a lie.

Not that it yielded much: an obituary for Sam from the Boston Globe. Riley's dad's retirement announcement in the Ames Tribune. Oh, and a twenty-eight-year-old article -- accompanied by the cutest picture ever -- from when Riley's little league team had won the state championship. They actually got a parade.

Sunnydale never had parades. Not of alive people, anyway.

"Oh," Dawn said. "Does he have yours?"

"No."

There was a minute of silence as Dawn considered this. "Hmm. Well, the girls have my number. He can get it from them."

Sure -- that was going to work. "Right. 'Sweetie, can I have Dawn's phone number? I need to call her sister, the woman who might become your stepmother. Who I'm sure you'll love.' That's gonna happen."

"You're going to be their stepmother?" Dawn asked excitedly. "You've already talked marriage?"

Oops. "No." Except... "Well, sort of. In a very abstract kind of way. Of course, if I can't figure out how to call him, that'll put a damper on future plans."

Always practical, Dawn said, "Well you know where he lives. If we get desperate, we can stage an invasion."

"I guess," Buffy replied, not too enthusiastically. She looked up when she heard something clink against the window. She leaned forward.

Was that...?

"Hold on." A smile came over her face when she realized that, yes, it was. "I think it might not be a problem."

She got up and opened the door leading out to her deck; leaned over the railing. Riley was standing in the street, bending down as he examined the rocks on the pavement.

Quite the nice picture, by the way. As if Buffy needed anything else to round out the happy.

"You could break a window, you know," she called out.

"Hell no," he said, straightening up and grinning. "I spent years perfecting this technique."

Her heart was actually racing. All schoolgirl-first-crush like. "You could have just rung the doorbell."

"You know how many bees there are there? I don't think so." Riley glanced up at the front door. The one covered with roses that Buffy kept meaning to cut down.

"What? I'm not worth a bee sting?" Oh, God, Buffy. Maybe you could turn the smile down just a little bit? "I'll be down in a second."

She put the phone to her ear as she went back inside. Dawn was making gagging sounds on the other end. "Cut it out," Buffy said. "I'm back."

"You know," Dawn replied, "I'm all for you and Riley getting back together again, but that doesn't mean I want to hear you flirting."

"Going now."

"Remember. Phone numbers," Dawn said before she hung up.

Buffy ran down the stairs to the basement, slightly out of breath as she pushed open the garage door.

"Hi," she said, smiling.

He was sitting back against her car, his hands in his pockets; head bowed as he stared pensively at the ground. "Hi," he answered, straightening up as he saw her; took his hands out of his pockets and gave her a look full on that made her feel like the best thing since yellow cake batter. She was pretty sure it didn't hurt that she was wearing a rather skimpy bright red halter-top that he very possibly remembered.

She leaned back against the door. It had been a long time since someone looked at her like that.

It was nice. Really nice. In a gooey, warm and gushing kind of way. "You planning on just staring at me? 'Cause if you are then there are much more comfortable places we can go."

He grinned and looked away. "Sorry. Still having a hard time believing this."

That was an issue she had no problem addressing. "Does this help?" She stepped closer to him and pulled his head down to hers, her kiss showing him exactly how real she was.

"Um, no," he said when she pulled away. "Not in the least. You'll have to try again."

She smiled and put her whole body into it this time, feeling his spring to life as she leaned against him. His hands went to her waist, lifting her and easing her legs around him, his mouth never leaving hers. She melted into him, thinking she could easily stay this way forever, and might have if not for the car full of guys in baseball caps driving by, one of them yelling, "Get a room!"

"The downside to living near all the college kids," she said, reluctantly breaking away. "I'm assuming your kids aren't with you." She couldn't imagine him kissing her like that with them in close proximity. "And that you probably didn't come here for, um, you know..."

"Yeah, although that is definitely tempting," he said, arms still around her. "But, well, how do you feel about high school soccer?"

Easy. "I can honestly say I have no feelings about it one way or another. Why?"

He put her down. "Kate and Annie play in their school's summer league. Their game starts in twenty minutes. Want to go?"

Buffy had never dated anyone with kids before; she had, however, been one. The words 'evil robot Ted' came to mind. Granted, Buffy was neither evil nor a robot. Still... "They're o.k. with that?"

Playing with her hair, he distractedly answered, "Annie's the one who brought it up. She thought it would be a good chance to get to know you better."

Hmm. "And Kate?" Who, by the way, Riley had specifically not mentioned.

"The jury's still out," he said. It was obviously a bit of a sore point. He smiled, though, adding, "But your presence was approved."

Buffy laughed. "It's a start." She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. "Come up while I change?" No way she was wearing this halter in front of his kids.

She didn't have to ask that twice. He followed her up the stairs, feeling the need to apologize despite her warm welcome. "Sorry for just barging in like this. I would have called first, but, well..."

"Yeah, me too." She smiled. "Do you realize that there's only one other Riley Finn in the whole country? That's listed at least. He lives out west. Texas." They reached her room and she gestured at the desk as she opened her closet door. "There should be a pad and pen under all those papers. Write this down." She rattled off her number. "Don't forget it. I'll be expecting phone calls."

He wrote it down and put the piece of paper in his pocket. Not that he'd need to refer to it again -- the numbers were already seared into his brain.

After writing his own number down, he shuffled the papers back into place, glancing down as he did so, trying not to watch as Buffy took off her top. He was not going to miss his daughters' game because he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

"Why do you have a map of Quetico Park?" he asked, his mind suddenly a million miles away from Buffy's lack of top as he sat down in the chair.

"You've heard of Quetico?" She didn't look up as she stripped off her shorts and pulled on a pair of khaki capris. "It's for a new client. Apparently there's some weird stuff going on and she said she doesn't trust the guys they're sending in to clean it up. I have to go up there next week."

"Really." Graham was going to love that one. "Monday? Two o'clock?"

"Yeah." She came over to the desk. "How did you-?"

He must have been wearing his annoyance on his face because Buffy took one look and said, "Oh. You're the guys."

"You just get this map?" He leaned back in the chair.

"She emailed it to me this morning."

"I'll bet." He stood up. "Sorry. Angel probably wouldn't be too happy if he knew you were talking to me about a client. We should go."

She didn't seem too concerned about Angel's happiness or lack thereof. As she headed towards the stairs, she said, "What do you know about what's going on?"

Riley hesitated for a minute. Considering Graham was the lead on this one, Riley would have preferred to talk to him about this first. But Graham wasn't here and Buffy was; and despite Graham's personal feelings one way or another, he'd always respected Buffy's Slayer status.

"Ten hikers' bodies have been found with strange markings and no identifiable cause of death." He followed after her as he spoke. "Four more have been reported missing. The native guides refuse to go past a certain point but won't say why, so now the Rangers are getting spooked. The provincial government's trying to keep it quiet because the park is a big tourist draw, but the federal government wants something done."

They had reached the basement and Riley waited for Buffy to lock the door behind her.

"Is that all classified?" Buffy asked, walking over to his car.

"Highly," Riley replied. He unlocked the door and opened it, closing it behind her.

As soon as he got in, she said, "Then why did you just tell me?"

He turned to her. "Because Jessica Cain is a nasty piece of work and I don't trust the ground she walks on. I'm not entirely sure why she hired you, but I'm guessing her intentions weren't good. And she couldn't care less if you get hurt in the process."

Buffy fidgeted a bit, looking as if she were trying to get comfortable in the seat. "What does she care about?"

"Right now?" As far as Riley could tell, "Screwing Graham. Literally and figuratively."

She seemed neither surprised by that nor bothered. In fact, she seemed completely uninterested. Her voice got real low as she leaned across the seat and grabbed Riley's hand when he reached for his seatbelt. "So do you have to go to this meeting?" Her other hand went to his leg. "Think you could get away Sunday night?"

Get away a day early? Spend the night with her?

Was she kidding?

"Um, yeah," he said, a little more hoarsely than he would have liked. He brought his hand up to her hair. "I think so."

She leaned forward, her tongue lazily tracing his lips. "Mmmm. I forgot how nice it was to be working with my boyfriend."

He pulled back, grinning. "Boyfriend? You don't even know my phone number."

She gave him one last, long kiss. "I think you'd better start the car, or else we might not make it to the game."