Year In, Year Out Series:
Old Flames
by KNS

"Just a moment," Giles called as he approached the door. He turned on a light, finished tying closed his bath robe, then entered the security code for the front door. "Buffy?" he said, quite surprised to see her standing on the doorstep in the early dawn hours.

"I'm sorry to bother you," she said, smiling sheepishly.

Giles squinted at her and shook his head, noticing that she was wearing the same dress from the night before. "Come in," he said, motioning for her to enter. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Can't a woman just drop by her friend's apartment now and then?" she returned as she stepped inside.

Giles turned to give her a disbelieving look.

"We had an argument," Angel explained, settling on the couch.

"You guys had a fight?" Willow asked doubtfully.

"Must have been one hell of a fight," Xander guessed, taking a seat across from him in an easychair.

"What happened?" pressed Willow. She handed Angel a glass of ice water.

Angel accepted the glass but shrugged away the question. "I need to ask you two a question," he said, cradling the glass in his hands.

Xander and Willow exchanged glances. "Alright," Xander answered warily.

Angel took a deep breath, then met their gazes squarely. "How much does Buffy love Riley?"

Willow unsteadily sat down and looked away. "She didn't come home last night, did she?" Xander said, only half asking. "Dammit, Riley, where were you before now?" Angel's grip tightened around the cold glass. "That much, huh?' he asked, his voice oddly calm. "I see."

"No no no," Willow denied. She moved to sit beside Angel on the couch and pried the glass from his white-knuckled grasp. "What did she say, Angel? Did she say she was going back to him? Did she say she didn't want to be with you anymore? Did she say that?"

Reluctantly Angel answered, "No..."

Willow laughed nervously. "Then there's no problem! Geez, Angel, you would have thought -"

"She spent the night with him, Willow," he interrupted quietly.

"O-oh," she said, shocked. "Buffy wouldn't do that..."

"Buffy might if the man was Riley," Xander said grimly.

"Xander," the red haired woman protested.

"She does love him, Angel. A lot. When you left her, she went through some hard times, and Riley was there to help her," Xander told him, a little of the old anger in his voice.

"She doesn't care for him half as much as she does for Angel," Willow snarled at him. "She made Riley have the wedding at night, for god's sake!" She clapped a hand over her mouth, instantly sorry for what she'd said. "I'm sorry," she breathed.

Angel turned his head. Even when marrying another man, she had thought of him. Had she taken off the claddagh ring for the ceremony? Had she looked towards the doors one last time before saying ‘I do'?

You're breaking my heart all over again, she'd told him, and now he realized what that really meant.

"I see," Giles said slowly. He leaned back in his chair and stared into his half-empty mug of tea. After a moment he sipped from it, then turned his gaze back on the stressed-out Slayer seated across the table. "What are you going to do?"

Buffy pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "I don't know," she answered dully. "Riley wants me to go back to D.C. with him. Angel was so mad, I never got around to telling him *that*. Maybe I should just go with him. I don't know. It's just - dammit, where the hell was he when I needed him? Where were either of them?" She dropped her hands to the table. "I have such bad luck with men."

Giles nodded and tipped his mug in acknowledgment. "No argument here."

Buffy made a face at him. "What do you think I should do?"

"I can't answer that," Giles said, no longer smiling. "You've always lived your own life, made your on choices - I can't start telling you what to do now."

"I don't want to lose her," Angel said, pacing around the room. "I just don't know how to hold her...."

Willow and Xander looked at each other. It had taken Angel almost an hour to say those words - now that he had, they didn't know how to respond.

"Well, try courting her," Willow offered hesitantly.

The two men looked at her. "What?"

Willow rolled her eyes. "You two know what courting is. I know it's been a long time, Xander, but think hard." She lost her bantering note when Angel continued to look at her with confusion. "You never courted her, Angel. I had to have a spaz attack before you'd even take her out for coffee. She was always your girl - you never had to work at it. Riley, on the other hand, had to really go a ways before she'd even give him the time of day. If you really, really want to hang on to this relationship, act like it's a brand new one. Bring her flowers. Ask her where she wants to go, what she wants to do. Trust me, it'll work."

Xander shook his head. "I say go to Riley and tell him to keep his hands - and other things - off your woman or you'll kill him."

"You can't just threaten to kill a CIA agent," Willow argued.

"Sure he can," Xander said. "It's very easy. All he has to do is go up to him and say, ‘Hey, Riley, get out of town or I'll suck you dry.'"

"I'm not a vampire any more," Angel reminded him.

Xander's face fell. "Oh. Right. Well, be creative. You can still do that, right?"

Buffy leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. "I don't know what I'm going to do. But I do know that I can't live without Angel. I just can't. Is that a good place to start?" she asked, looking to Giles.

Giles nodded. It had taken her almost an hour to admit that. "That's a good place to start."

"I don't know why I let you come," Angel complained as Helen reached for the radio buttons again.

"Because you can't resist my winning smile and magnetic charm?" the young Slayer suggested, surfing through stations.

"I don't think that was it," he said with a short laugh. The girl did remind him of Faith sometimes.

"How about because you're hoping Buffy will forgive you if you have a witness to put a guilt trip on her? Oh yay, the Silver Moons," she cried, turning up the volume.

That suggestion hit a little too close to home. Stubbornly he shook his head as he turned the corner onto the street where Riley was staying. By his best guess Buffy was with him.

Helen threw up her hands. "Alright, fine, you let me come because I begged to go back to a place without snoring kids. Happy now?"

Angel suddenly pulled into a side alley and turned off the engine. "Stay here."

"What? Where are you going?" she demanded as he flung open the car door.

"I let you come. Now stay here." That was all the explanation he made. He ignored her demand that he leave the key so that she could listen to the radio. He knew if he gave her the key neither she nor the car would be there when he came back.

He'd seen Riley slide into an alley a little up the street just as he turned the corner. At least, he was fairly certain it was Riley - the man was the right height and build and had his facial features, but was wearing a long coat and brimmed hat. If the man wasn't Riley, he could always walk up the two blocks to the hotel - but he was pretty sure it was.

Quickly he crossed the street, then slipped from shadow to shadow until he reached the mouth of the alley. He started to swing around the corner, then halted when he saw two men not five feet from him.

"Looks like it's all here," a man wearing a dark jogging suit said. Obviously *he* wasn't Riley - besides the fact that his hair was mostly gone, his voice was also a few octaves too low.

"For a job like this, I figured it'd better be." That voice belong to Riley, Angel would have sworn to it. The agent had an interesting way of slurring his vowels, almost like a Midwestern accent.

Angel glanced around the corner and saw the two men shaking hands.

"Ouch," the deep voiced man said, yanking back his hand. "You stabbed me!"

The outline of Riley shrugged. "‘Fraid so."

"You-" The jogger let out a stream of profanity, then abruptly became silent, stumbled a few steps and fell sprawling to the ground.

Angel watched as Riley slowly moved forward to lean over the man.

When Riley walked out of the alley a few minutes later, the coat slung over his arm and his hat and little sack in his left hand, Angel was casually leaning against a wall, waiting for him.

"Good morning."

Riley calmly turned to face him. "Morning, Angel. What are you doing out so early?"

Angel pushed away from the wall to face him squarely. "Cut the crap, Riley. I saw what just happened back there. What's going on?"

Riley smiled lopsidedly, turned, and began to walk away.

"I has to do with Buffy, doesn't it?' Angel guessed. Certain things were starting to fit together in his mind, like why Riley would suddenly reappear in Buffy's life after years of absence. "No, it doesn't," Riley called over his shoulder without pausing.

Angel easily caught up to him in a few strides. "I think it does," he argued, keeping pace with the taller man. "I think that's why you've suddenly made a reappearance."

Riley shook his head. "You're way off base."

"Am I?" Angel challenged, suddenly blocking the agent's path. "Did you really just show up to say hi and wreck her life for the hell of it?"

Riley stopped. He gave Angel a hard look, then sighed and glanced away. "A couple of years ago Buffy did some consulting for us. I'm sure you understand what I mean. Her - work - resulted in the take down of several major mafia figures. One of them died of a heart attack, one of them committed suicide, and one of them was released from prison just before Christmas." He glanced at Angel. "Guess who's number one on his hit list."

"There's a contract on her," Angel said dully.

The agent chuckled without amusement. "More than one, I'm afraid - we've tracked down six so far." He hesitated, then added, "This crimelord - he's not all human. Do you understand what I mean?"

Angel thought of the two Mora demons that had attacked Buffy not a month before in the mall. "Yes, I understand," he said shortly. Yes, dammit, he understood very well. "What's this crimelord's name?"

"You won't find him," Riley answered. "And even if you did, you couldn't get near him - like I said, he's not human."

"You said he wasn't *all* human. There's a big difference."

"I'm not going to split hairs with you and I'm not giving you the name,' Riley told him calmly. "But I am taking Buffy back to D.C. with me."

Angel's eyebrows arched in surprise. "Did she agree to that, or were you planning to club her over the head and tell her when she got there?" he asked coolly, keeping the fear out of his voice.

Riley shook his head. "She needs someone to protect her, to watch her back. Can you do that?"

Angel fought down the urge to laugh. "I've been doing that for a long time. Long before she ever knew you."

The agent started to reply, then paused. His expression became thoughtful. "You know, Willow told me a long time ago that Buffy had once been involved with a man called Angel. You wouldn't happen to be the same man, would you?"

"What if I said I am?" Angel returned calmly.

Riley slanted him a look. "Then maybe I'd reconsider about that name," he answered. The he laughed shortly and added, "Or maybe I'd just curse my damn luck and walk away. That would probably be the best thing to do. It would be a first for me - I never walk away from anything." He tilted his head back, looked up at the light sky and smiled. "Maybe I should give it a try."

"What took you so long?" Giles demanded as he shut the front door behind Angel. "It's been hours - did you forget the way?"

Angel shook his head, then suddenly stopped and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I did. But I remember it now."

"Well that's good," Buffy said, appearing in the doorway between kitchen and entrance. "I'd hate to think there's anyplace I'd go that you wouldn't follow me."

The pair stood silently and gazed at each other.

Giles looked from him to her, shrugged and ran a hand over his head. "Turn out the light and lock the door on your way out. Good night - or morning, I should say." He moved past Buffy, shut off the kitchen light and withdrew further into the apartment.

"I'm sorry -" they each began, then fell silent, looking at each other.

"Let's not apologize," Buffy offered quietly. "Neither of us did anything wrong."

Angel nodded. "Alright. We'll go home and talk." Without taking his eyes off her, he reached behind him and opened the door. "Helen's in the car. She demanded that I let her come."

"She's got you wrapped around her finger," Buffy laughed quietly. "Did you two have fun shopping?"

"What shopping?" Angel returned. "All she did was flirt with guys all night. There was no shopping involved."

Someone was shaking her gently and telling her to wake up.

"Five more minutes," she mumbled, rolling over.

"It's two in the morning, Buffy," Angel told her. "And someone's here to see you."

She groaned and cautiously opened her eyes. The blinds were still down, so she opened her eyes and looked at the man sitting beside her. Angel had a line of tense muscle his brows, and his eyes were filled with worry.

"It's Riley, isn't it?" she asked.

Angel nodded. "He's waiting outside with Helen."

She threw on some clothes and ran a brush quickly through her hair. Not bothering to look for shoes, she made her way downstairs and outside. Angel had disappeared after awaking her she found him talking quietly with Helen and Riley on the front steps. The two men seemed to be getting along fairly well - at least, they were both nodding and smiling. Helen was drawing pictures in the sand with a pebble.

"Is that a hotdog with eyes?" she asked the dark haired Slayer, subtly announcing her presence.

"It's a dolphin," Helen said, making a face at her. "It doesn't look like a hotdog."

Riley got to his feet and dusted off his pants. He was wearing a dark suit, but not sunglasses, and the jacket was casually draped over his left arm. "Hey, sleepy," he greeted her, then glanced back at Angel. "It was nice to meet you, Angel."

Angel stood up and solemnly shook his hand. "A pleasure, Riley."

"Good-bye, Ellen," the agent told the young woman drawing pictures in the sand. "Try not to break too many hearts."

Helen looked up at him. "See ya, g-man. And the name's Helen."

Riley smiled and turned his gaze back to Buffy.

"I'll walk you to your car," she offered quickly. He was leaving - she shouldn't have felt surprise, but she did anyway. He'd been here less than three days and already he was leaving. He hadn't even asked if she planned to go back with him.

She supposed he'd already figured out the answer.

"I'm glad you came, Riley," she said softly as they walked towards his car.

He nodded and flashed her a smile. "I am, too. I'm just sorry-"

"You couldn't have known," she interrupted. "Besides, you gave me a chance to explain - and to apologize. Any trouble was worth that."

They reached the side of his black car. He turned to face her and put his hands on her shoulders. "What I was going to say was that I'm just sorry I didn't look for you sooner. I kept thinking that you wanted space, that you needed time. Guess I waited just a little too long, huh?"

She looked down at the sand, at her bare feet and his shiny shoes, then glanced back up to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, Riley. If things were different..."

"I know," Riley said, dropping his hands. He glanced out at the ocean and sighed. Turning his eyes back on her, he added lightly, "But it was good to see you again. And like you said, we got a chance to set things straight, so we have had some luck after all. ‘But whether we live or whether we die (for the end is past our knowing), here's two frank hearts and the open sky, be a fair or ill wind blowing.'"

"‘In the teeth of all winds blowing,'" Buffy finished softly. "You always were a fan of Hovey."

He smiled lopsidedly. "I've always been bad with my own words."

She felt a rush of tenderness for the man standing before her. They had had some good times together, hadn't they? They had been going to raise a family together. They had been planing to grow old together. If things were different.....

"I love you, Riley Finn," she said, her voice unsteady.

"I know," he said gently. "And I love you, too, Buffy Summers." He leaned forward and lightly kissed her cheek. "If you ever change your mind, you know how to find me."

That was the end of it. He climbed into the dark sedan with government plates, slipped on his sunglasses and drove away. She watched the car move farther and farther away, and she told herself the moisture in her eyes was from the sun's reflection off the car's black paint.

When she began walking back towards the house, Angel was there waiting for her. She halted before him and looked into his eyes, searching for something that proved she'd made the right choice. She was almost sure she found it.

"Regrets?" he asked her softly.

"Every now and then," she answered honestly, and moved past him.

Helen was leaning against the doorframe, brushing the sand off her hands. "Must be pretty cool having two way good lookin' guys after you, huh? I sure hope I'm that popular at your age."

Buffy met the young Slayer's gaze, and the grin slid off Helen's face. In those hazel eyes Helen saw more than just pain and insecurity, she saw herself in a few years, should she be lucky enough to survive, and for the first time in her life she wished that she could take back the words she'd just said.

Buffy broke the gaze between them and silently moved into the house.

The End

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