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Chapter Fourteen

Riley woke to Buffy in his arms. She had snuggled in against him so that her back was to him; she held his hands against her stomach. He kissed the back of her neck and she sighed. He moved his hands down the front of her legs, closing his eyes as he felt the incredibly soft skin on the inside of her thighs. That spot was one of the things he thought about during those long, long days. He had gone to the jungle to get away from her, but the vision of her, the memory of her scent, the taste of her lips – those were the things that kept him sane. Masochistic maybe, but sane. The demons had their brand of torture; he had imposed his own.

Buffy sighed and shifted her legs, guiding his hands up further. He breathed her in. For a moment, he had forgotten she was real. How was that possible? Memories of Belize were flooding his brain and the present seemed foggier than the past. He tried to shake it off and focus on her as he swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat…

She turned to him and brought one leg up between his knees, rubbed up against him. “Morning.” She kissed his chest.

He smiled into her eyes. Waking up with her body on his. Another vision from Belize. The thing was on top of him. Pulling at him. Cutting into him. Exploring his body. He closed his eyes against the image, pushed her away.

“Riley?” His reaction caught her off guard. He seemed unfocused, bewildered. She grabbed his head in her hands and looked into his eyes.

“Riley!”

Her sharp tone brought him back to her. Flashbacks – it was only a flashback. “Buffy.” He pulled her to him again. Hugged her so tightly she thought she would break. The blanket had fallen away and she felt his body stiffen. “That shirt…” That smell – like in the jungle… “Take it off.”

His voice sounded odd, tense. “Are you sure… Do you want to…?”

“Take it off.” It was an order.

Ice cold. She wouldn’t have recognized it as his voice if she hadn’t seen him speak the words. No, this was not an invitation. She took off the shirt and threw it aside. He was looking at her body but not seeing her. She grabbed her top from off the floor and put it on quickly. She felt uncomfortable…like she was naked in front of a stranger.

She stood up and found her pants and his. Threw them to him; put hers on. She couldn’t figure this out; things were still wrong. Even after last night. It used to be one touch could make things right again. Or maybe that was their problem – should have had more talk, less touch.

She could hear him pulling on his jeans. She turned to him as he was picking up the blanket. Something fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up and froze. His look was haunted as he raised his eyes to hers, sank down against the wall until he was sitting on the floor. She crossed to him in two steps and took him into her arms just as the tears came. His grief was palpable. She held him tightly as he cried.

“What?!” Graham asked sharply as Riley’s heart rate started to rise. Graham watched it climb as he strained to hear the voices coming from the computer across the room. He saw Giles and Angel each look away from the screen; Xander jumped to his feet and walked away.

Anya tenderly touched her hand to the screen. She turned her head to Graham. “He’s crying,” she said softly. Graham started to get up but he caught the look in Xander’s eyes.

No. Don’t watch this. Xander watched Graham sit back down. Xander didn’t like seeing Buffy and Riley like this. It was worse then he had bargained for. Unnatural. He hadn’t liked watching them implode the first time around; this was really going to suck.

Giles squeezed Anya’s shoulder and turned to Willow and Graham. They were watching the levels on the screen.

“He’s doing o.k., Graham. He’s o.k.” Willow’s voice was reassuring. Riley’s heart rate had returned to a normal level. “What’s happening, Giles?”

Riley’s breath had steadied. His eyes were red and he trembled slightly. He reached out to pick up the stones, then leaned back against the wall. He picked through them one by one. She sat against the wall next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder, her hand on his thigh.

“You read what I wrote, didn’t you?” Riley felt her nod her head. He should have known. She couldn’t just let things be. She always had to ask her questions.

“Riley, please tell me.”

She had no right to ask; not after closing herself off to him so many years ago. He looked her in the eye. His voice was cold. “Are you sure you’re ready for that? Sure you’re ready to let me in?”

Buffy cringed at the harshness of his tone. “Of course. I want to help.”

Just another victim that needed helping, thought Riley. “Fine. You want to know? You want to know how they opened me up? Over and over again. They were studying me, studying humans. The caves were a lab; to study how our bodies work. How the human body reacts to stress and pain. Except they didn’t have machines to monitor you, they liked to taste it in your blood – peel your skin back and drain you almost dry.” He saw the look pass through her eyes; brief, but it was there. “What I deserve. You think?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak; she was numb. Filled with regret for so many things: That he could think even a part of her thought what happened to him was justice of some sort. That she had been so harsh the night he left. That she hadn’t been there for him when his world crumbled, hadn’t told him she understood the horror and helplessness of normalcy. That she hadn’t seen past her pain to his, but instead forced him into a choice between black and white after showing him a world full of gray.

He stood up and walked away from her, disgusted with himself for expecting a reaction. Hadn’t he learned this lesson already? He didn’t want to be touching her. “They also liked to see how humans reacted to watching other humans die. For some reason they particularly liked to see how I reacted.” He turned back to her. “Can you help, Buffy? How exactly can you help me deal with this?” He was pacing, the chain still in his hands, stones clinking together.

If only she could turn back time. Be there for him the way he had always been there for her. “What do you need from me?” Please let me fix this.

“I don’t -need anything from you. I just wanted you to love me. All I wanted was for you to love me.”

The ultimate regret – that she could never just say the words. Why was it so hard for her to tell him that? “Do they know? Does the Army know what happened to you there?” Buffy asked, hating herself for changing the subject.

“Do you know what happened down there?” Giles asked Graham.

Graham had tried to forget what Riley looked like when they brought him out of the jungle. “He was in really bad shape when we found him. It wasn’t your normal demon brand of carnage; the injuries were too extensive, too methodical. Clinical.”

“We did kill Adam, right?” Xander asked. “He didn’t have time to set up his army of dissecting demons, did he? Freaky. Way too freaky. You think the Initiative knew?”

Until Xander mentioned Adam, Graham hadn’t thought of it that way, but Xander was right: the demons hadn’t just been attacking, they had been studying the way they fought and, apparently, how their bodies worked. Had the Initiative – or whatever was left of it – known? Graham had been told by Ellis that their mission was to destroy the demon caves; Dixon’s orders had been more specific, but no more enlightening. That’s not the kind of information they usually held back, but after seeing Dixon play with Riley’s life, Graham couldn’t help but wonder. He refocused his attention on the computer screen.

“Of course they…” Riley stopped. He thought back to his last communication with Dixon. Dixon said they had uncovered some information about the demons, that there had been some connection with the Initiative. Dixon was planning to pull the team out in light of this new information; he said Ellis would officially call in the order later that day. Riley had been so focused on his own concerns, that he hadn’t had a chance to ask Graham or Taggart if they had ever seen these demons before. Then Ellis’ order came and things got out of control soon after.

Had he talked to Graham about it since then? He had no memory of doing so. Maybe that was the whole point of this report he had to write for the training program. He glanced down at his arm, trying to remember how he had explained the scars. But there was nothing there. His chest…? Where were the scars? His mind was playing tricks again. The scars had to be there. There had been too much damage for his body to have healed completely, even after all this time.

Buffy sat there, watching Riley; he seemed able to move on – he had long ago gotten good at brushing off her avoidance of the subject – but that just made it worse. The images in her brain were so vivid: Riley’s descent into hell on earth, Angel’s look as she thrust the sword through him, Dawn atop the tower with drops of blood at her feet. How was it that she deserved heaven after sending so many of those she loved into hell? Her voice was quiet, “I’m sorry, Riley. So sorry.”

He could barely hear her. He came toward her. “Why are you sorry? Why, Buffy? It was my choice; I knew what I was doing. Or did you think I couldn’t handle that either?”

She had started to shake. She was mumbling. Her head had sunk into her hands and he could barely hear what she was saying. “But I did love you. I do. I don’t know how to make you understand that.”

She wasn’t making sense. He had never seen her lose control over anything and now it was twice in one night. He wanted to comfort her but he knew if he held her, he would fall all over again and he couldn’t do that. He was afraid he might believe that this crying was for him, for them. That would have changed everything. But this needed to be over. His voice was harsh when he spoke. “Meeting the chopper would have helped…”

Oh, Riley. She looked up at him. “But I did. I did. You never looked down.”

No. Not that. Please don’t say that. His knees gave way and he sank to the floor. He closed his eyes. The world was spinning. Could he have been that wrong? Messed up his life in such a total, complete way? Or was this all some weird dream? No, not a dream – a nightmare.

“So much for the memory implants.”

Green glared at Brown. “Just a little marriage spat.”

Ellis didn’t hear them; he was lost in thought. Dixon and Ward hadn’t said anything about the Initiative, nor had Miller or Taggart. Ellis was thinking of Riley’s words, his scars. The medical team in Belize had been in triage mode, but once they got to Sunnydale, the doctors had had to reopen the wounds in order to put him back together again. Humpty Dumpty in flesh and blood. They attributed his ability to heal to residual drugs from the Initiative; there was no other explanation. Riley’s condition had been so severe that there was no discussion of how precisely he had gotten that way.

Ellis watched the monitor as Riley looked down at his arms. Could Finn have radioed Dixon after the others left? He never responded when they tried to contact him, but it was a radio transmission that had set off this whole salvage operation. “Su amigo está vivo.” Your friend is alive. So yes, the radios were still working. Did Dixon know the demons were studying anatomy? Performing experiments? It all sounded very Walsh-like. Ellis walked over to the General.

Now it was Buffy’s turn to be surprised. She knew he had never turned to look down, but she had always believed that he knew she had come. That he had sensed it somehow. But by that point, their bond was too fragile, their connection had already been broken. “Couldn’t you hear me? I shouted for you. Until my voice was gone.”

Riley closed his eyes. This was too much to process; too many truths had been shaken. She didn’t love him; but she did. He should be dead and buried in some shallow grave in the jungle; but he was here in this house, with her and this beautiful baby. A dream; but not.

He felt her hands in his hair, her mouth on his. Tried to push her away. Not now, he couldn’t do this now. He needed to think, to get his bearings, but she wouldn’t let him go. Her arms were around him, holding him tightly. He looked at her, shaking his head, “Buffy…”

“Hush. No talk.” She knew if he started talking that she might lose him again and she wasn’t going to let that happen.

Graham watched as Riley’s heart rate started to climb again. “What’s happening, Xander?”

Xander was uncharacteristically quiet.

Giles spoke. “Anya, Willow. Now would be a good time.”

Willow’s hands started tapping at the keyboard. Graham watched as Anya and Angel moved to the circle and began the spell. He wanted to believe that Ellis and Green would be fighting for Riley, but with Dixon around, Graham couldn’t trust anything Army right now. The Scoobies were Riley’s best shot.

~~ End of Chapter 14 ~~

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