Willow innocently says: "Riley?"
Riley: "Where’s Buffy?" He says directly.
Anya stops dusting and takes a chair beside Xander and they inlock arms. Dawn stares at Riley for a second and then calmly walks out of the room, not to cry but to avoid this ever so familiar conversation. Giles then takes Dawn’s seat and cleans his glasses.
Willow: "I think you need to sit down for this…"
Riley interrupts her impatiently.
Riley: "What? I don’t care if she has another guy, or she doesn’t wanna see me, I need to talk to her!"
Giles: "Riley you don’t under…"
Riley rudely interrupts again. His voice getting louder and louder.
Riley: "You guys can’t hide her forever I’m gonna find her with your help or not…"
Willow interrupting this time in a painful scream.
Willow: "She’s Dead!" she quiets down into a whisper and repeats herself like it was the first time she had actually used those words. "She’s dead."
Willow sits down in her chair and starts to cry and Tara moves next to her for comfort. A shocked Riley instantly turns and walks out of the Magic Shop slamming the door shut behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*******************************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that night at the cemetery where Buffy’s grave is, Riley is coming to the last graveyard in Sunnydale that he hadn’t already checked, he was too embarrassed to ask her friends after his little episode earlier. He was certain this had to be it and he was right.
He scans the tombstones and then spots one under the trees with beautiful flowers all around it. Riley walks closer to it, but when he spots the name Buffy Anne Summers he breaks into a jog and kneels down to read it:
Buffy Anne Summers
1981-2001
Beloved Sister
Devoted Friend
She saved the world a lot.
Finally realizing that his one true love was truly gone, he sits down with his back leaning against her tombstone, in shock once again.
Riley thinks: "It’s all my fault, if I hadn’t of left then I could’ve saved her from… however she died. I’m not even sure I want to know how she died, I want it to be because of him, I know that sounds so wrong, but I swear if he just would’ve stayed in Hell where he belongs, then Buffy would be all mine. Her heart belongs to him, not me, I know that now, I love her, he loves her, she loves him, but if those damn gypsies hadn’t of gave him a soul or if he would’ve stayed dead when she killed him then we would be together now. That is so sad, I researched him so much after I found out about her being with him, I don’t exactly know why, I guess just to find more reasons to hate him. I was and still am so jealous of him it makes my whole body ache. She’s gone, she was so strong and yet she died at the age of twenty. I came back to be with her, I didn’t even care if she loved somebody else but I need her so much and just to feel her again would be enough for me forever. Even if she broke up with me later. It would be worth it just to be with her one more time. It looks like I was a little too late for that huh."
Crying silently he gets up and looks at her grave one last time and pulls a white short stemmed rose from under his jacket and places it firmly in the ground.
Coming out of nowhere, startling Riley, Xander says: "She came after you."
Riley: "What?" now drying up his tears.
Xander: "When you left, she came to stop you from leaving, but she was too late, now it looks like you’re the one that was too late."
Riley: "Perfect." He says grimly.
Xander: "You know it was for the best."
Riley: "What the Hell is that supposed to mean?" He says with surprise and anger but not much louder than his normal tone of voice.
Xander: "What were you planning to do Riley! Come here and sweep her off her feet! Do you even know who Buffy was? She was pure hero, she put all others before herself, even if she would’ve taken you back, it wouldn’t have changed things except for the fact that you’d be getting some every other night! You would still want more and she would still want Angel. No doubt that you’d be as close to happiness with her as you can get but if you truly loved her, you would put her happiness before yours, just like Angel did. Now what kind of selfish bastered would you be to come back into her life now?"
Xander’s words cut right to the bone. Riley, looking incredibly pissed, takes a swing at Xander but he ducks and then Xander hits Riley in the face sending him to the ground and giving him a bloody nose but not knocking him out. Riley comes to his senses and comes to a sitting position on the ground once again. Xander sits next to him. Riley breaks the silence a few moments later.
Riley: "So, what are you doing here?"
Xander: "I’m on patrol."
Riley: "You patrol for her?"
Xander: "We all do, even Dawn."
Riley: "What does her mother think of that."
With just a little more pain than usual in Xander’s eyes, he stares at his shoes and speaks with difficulty.
Xander: "Joyce died a few weeks before Buffy did."
Riley: "Oh, God." He says with pain and guilt. A few more moments of silence pass.
Riley: "So, do you always patrol this cemetery?"
Xander: "All of us do, every night."
Riley: "Oh… can I help?"
Xander gives Riley an annoyed and impatient look.
Xander: "Riley! Don’t!"
Riley: "Don’t what?"
Xander: "Don’t feel guilty and even if you do, do it somewhere else!"
Riley: "Bu but I can help patrol."
Xander: "No you can’t! We don’t need your help!"
Riley gets a surprised and hurt look on his face and Xander calms down and explains things to him.
Xander: "Look, it’s been two months since she died and it’s been really hard on all of us, but we’re dealing with it. We are getting into a routine and we can’t have anything disturbing that and that means you need to go somewhere else and move on with your life."
Riley: "Why aren’t you guys doing that?"
Xander: "Because we don’t have a choice, we have to fight and fight and fight and do you know why? Because that’s what Buffy would do."
Riley: "I’m sorry."
Xander: "I have to finish patrolling now."
Xander and Riley stand up.
Xander: "So what are you planning to do?"
Riley: "I’m gonna stay here a little longer and then I’ll probably go catch up with the troops."
They shake hands.
Xander: "Goodbye Riley."
Riley: "Goodbye Xander."
Xander walks off and disappears into the night and about 5 minutes pass and Riley hears a familiar voice from behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~******************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spike: "What are you doing here?"
Riley didn’t turn around or answer or even acknowledge Spike was there. Spike, not standing for being ignored, forcefully turned Riley around and backed him against a nearby cemetery wall with his forearm against Riley’s throat.
Spike: "We’re not going to play games. Now, what the bloody hell are you doing here?"
Surprised and heavily sweating, Riley tries to pull his arm away but does not succeed, so he grabs a pocketknife from his pocket, but Spike notices it and grabs the knife and throws it to stick into a tree. Riley realizes he’s beat and tries to talk and Spike releases him. Riley coughs and holds his throat and gives Spike an incredibly dirty look.
Riley is stunned by Spike’s appearance. The usually well groomed vampire looked like he hadn’t slept or stopped crying or drinking in years but Riley didn’t think he was drunk at that moment and he wasn’t crying either but it was obvious that he had been.
Spike: "So talk."
Riley: "I came to see Buffy."
Spike: "Well, she’s dead, so you can leave now."
Spike being a smart ass as usual.
Riley: "Hey! I’m not the one out of place here!"
Spike: "Oh you’re not aye? And I suppose I am?"
Riley: "Spike! You have no right to be here!"
Spike: "You listen here soldier boy! I’m not the one who left! I stayed and helped! I didn’t leave her to die! So don’t you dare tell me I haven’t got the right."
Riley: *sighs* "So what are you doing here anyway?"
Spike: "Patrolling."
Riley: "You patrol?"
Spike: "Yeah, what of it?"
Riley: "Nothing, it’s just, you do realize that you’re still a vampire right?"
Spike gets quiet and stares at the ground and sniffs and fights back tears. (Ok Becoming part 2, Buffy says pretty much the exact same thing to him and he remembers and that’s why he does that)
Spike: "Yeah."
Riley: "What?"
Spike toughens up; he would never let Riley see him cry.
Spike: "None of your business, mate, now I got work to do so buzz off."
Spike starts to walk away but Riley stops him.
Riley: "Wait, tell me what happened."
Spike gives a sigh of frustration.
Spike: "You remember Glory? Yeah well she was a God, and she wanted the key which was Dawn, the…"
Riley interrupts him.
Riley: "What’s a key?"
Spike: "As I was saying, the key is energy and the monks needed to hide that energy so they made it human and sent it to Buffy as a sister. Glory’s goal was to go back to Hell where she came from and in order to do that she needed to bleed Dawn in a certain place at a certain time. The Key’s blood would melt the walls between the demon dimensions, giving Glory enough time to go home and also unleash Hell on earth, and only when the blood stopped would the walls come back up, meaning, when Dawn would die. That time came, Buffy fought Glory, Buffy won, unexpected demon cut Dawn instead, portal opened, the monks made Dawn out of Buffy so therefore their blood was the same, Dawn offered to jump, big sis said no and did it herself to save the world. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go kill things."
Riley: "I’m so sorry."
Spike: "Sorry for what? Sorry for leaving Buffy, sorry for not being around the one time that we needed all the help we could get, or sorry that she died!?"
Riley: "For everything."
Spike: "Yeah, well, sorry doesn’t cut it."
A few moments of silence pass. Riley’s eyes are fixing to let him down as he fights back tears.
Spike: "Look Riley, I know you just want to help, and I know that you’re sorry."
Riley: "Thanks."
Spike: "That wasn’t a compliment. Anyway you need to be out of here by 2 o’clock."
Riley: "Why 2 o’clock?"
Spike: "That’s the time he usually stops by, and I don’t want to find your bloody corpse at 3 o’clock."
It actually took Riley a minute to figure out whom Spike was referring to, but he did and it hurt him to think about it.
Riley: "Angel’s here."
Spike: "The girl he was in love with died, what do you think?"
Riley: "Did he come to the funeral?"
Spike: "Yeah and he’s been here ever since."
Damn, Riley thought, he had hoped that they would have a daytime ceremony so Angel couldn’t be there, yet another thing Angel had been through with Buffy that Riley hadn’t.
Spike: "Take my advice and get gone before Angel gets here and don’t even think about going against him, I wouldn’t put it pass him to kill you, considering I could’ve easily not 30 minutes ago."
Spike gives Riley one last stare and starts to leave again.
Riley: "Hey, wait a minute, did the chip in your brain wear off?"
Spike is officially annoyed now.
Spike: "No, why?"
Riley: "You hurt me over there, why didn’t it hurt you."
Spike gets silent and finally answers carefully.
Spike: "It doesn’t compare."
Riley: "Compare to what?"
Spike: "Nothing will ever hurt me as bad as seeing her lifeless body in that pile of rubbage."
Riley: "Oh." He says quietly.
Spike fights back tears and disappears into the bushes, leaving Riley alone again.
Riley looked at his watch. Riley Thinks *1:30am, I guess I better leave*
Riley takes one last look at Buffy’s grave and a silent tear rolls down his cheek.
Riley: "Goodbye, Buffy."
THE END