Eternal Love
Chapter Two
DISCLAIMER: We own nothing except our original story idea. The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of it’s characters belong to Joss, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, et al.
PAIRING: You will find out in this chapter.
RATING: PG-13 for some graphic imagery.
SPOILERS: Season 5, up to and including “The Gift.”
SUMMARY: Again, you will find out in this chapter.
AUTHORS' NOTE: Anything in bold plus italics is a flashback.
DISTRIBUTION: THC & Beau, anyone else, ask and ye shall receive.
“RILEY!” Buffy loudly exclaimed as she realized who he was.
Riley locked his eyes onto hers and smiled that special smile, the one that only appeared when he was near her. He had had so much fun teasing her and leading her on that wild goose chase. He’d known Buffy would get frustrated at not knowing the prankster’s identity and that she’d go tearing through the woods in search of him. Buffy was so predictable. As a natural born hunter, she never could resist tracking her prey down; be it demon, vampire, or a boyfriend playing a practical joke.
Buffy couldn’t believe he was standing there. Her excitement level was off the charts as she ran to him, jumping up and wrapping her legs tightly around his waist when she reached him. She grabbed the back of his head and started raining kisses all over his face.
“God, I missed you.” Smack.
“I ran after…” Smack.
“I saw you in the helicopter...” Smack.
“And you took off…” Smack
“Don’t ever do that…” Smack
“…Again.” Smack
“Buffy!” Riley said, quickly looking back toward the stream, which flowed behind him. She was twisting and turning so much that he had trouble keeping his balance and footing on the slick moss covered rocks on which he stood.
“Buffy, slow down.” Smack.
“We’re going to…” Riley tried to regain his balance but…
“Shit!”
Never releasing his hold on her, Riley fell over backwards into the knee deep, icy cold mountain stream. They both lay there in a rather ungraceful heap soaked from head to toe.
“Guess we kinda ‘fall and go boom’.” Buffy said, laughing as she looked down at Riley. His tee shirt and arms were coated with thick black mud and his dark golden hair was dripping with dirty water.
Looking up at her, Riley could only grin as he ran his fingers through her tangled, wet tresses. It had seemed almost an eternity since they’d been together. He’d been through so much and had so much to tell her. But right now, all he wanted to do was hold her.
“God, I missed you.” He said, gazing into her love filled eyes.
“You don’t know how much I missed…” she began to reply in kind, but Riley placed a finger against her lips and she stopped talking.
“No, me first. Buffy, I’m so sorry for what I put you through. I know you had your mother to worry about and my problems just seemed to add to it. I didn’t want to make your life more difficult.”
“Shhh, don’t. It wasn’t entirely your fault. If I hadn’t been so self-centered, I would never have convinced myself that you were jealous of me. If Spike hadn’t been so anxious to show me what you were doing, maybe we could’ve had time to talk and work things out.”
Riley clenched one of his hands into a fist upon hearing the bleached blonde vampire’s name.
“Spike! God, he loved to belittle me whenever he had the chance. He always managed to make me feel like I was never good enough. He loved to call me white bread and said you only liked your men dark with bumpy foreheads.”
Buffy was flabbergasted. “Spike told you that and you… you *believed* him?”
“I had no reason not too, he was always there for you, doing the things for you that I wanted to do.”
Looking into her eyes, Riley confessed. “You knew he loved you, didn’t you?”
Buffy nodded.
“Yeah, Spike told me, soon after you left. He had the audacity to tell me how much he loved me after knocking me out by shocking me with a cattle prod and having me wake up chained to a wall in his crypt.”
Sighing, Buffy continued. “But then again, he always was sentimental.”
Riley laughed loudly. “Yes, shocking someone and chaining them up is synonymous to giving her candy and flowers in Spike’s eyes. I bet he wondered why you just didn’t throw yourself into his open arms.”
“True, true.” She agreed, chuckling.
Standing up, Buffy held her hands out to Riley to help him up from the mud filled stream.
“Lord, I think I got mud in my shorts.” He said, squirming around and tugging on the seat of his pants.
Buffy just stood there, gazing up in wonder and amazement, Riley’s dripping wet tee shirt clung to his skin, accentuating every rippling muscle of his well-toned body. “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. I don’t know where you’ve been but it sure did wonders for the view.”
“Do you think we outta go back to the cabin and maybe change into something… let’s say… more comfortable? Buffy asked suggestively.
Riley grinned at her as they turned toward the trail that led back to the cabin.
They walked along the leaf-strewn path, arms wrapped around each other’s waist and listening to the sound of birds as they flew from tree to tree.
“What kind of tree is this?” Buffy asked, pulling down a branch on a tree they were walking beneath.
“A sugar maple. That’s where maple syrup and sugar comes from.”
“From maple syrup berries?”
“Are you serious?” He asked, not knowing if she was pulling his leg.
“Yeah, everything you eat that comes from trees is a fruit. Right?” Apples, peaches, oranges, cherries, even bananas are fruit that comes from trees. So where are the maple berries?” She asked again, looking up into the branches.”
Riley started laughing hysterically, the tears forming in his eyes as he tried to regain his composure.
“What?”
“You really don’t know where maple syrup comes from?”
“Riley Finn!” Buffy said, stamping her foot. I live in Southern California and have never been farther north than Carmel. I’ve never seen a maple tree before in my life, so how would I…?”
Riley picked her up and swung her around like he would a child.
“Calm down, Buffy, I’m sorry. But it’s time you had a little botany and cooking lesson. Maple syrup comes from the sap of the sugar maple. If you boil the sap down until most of the water evaporates, it turns to syrup. You cook it down even more and it turns to sugar.”
Buffy stuck out her lower lip and pouted. “And you know that how?”
“I’ve made it before, back in Iowa. We used to collect the sap every spring. Mom would bottle it and sell it to the local grocery store. It helped finance my way as an undergraduate until I managed to pull in some scholarship money.”
The pair continued their walk back toward the cabin, stopping every once in awhile to look at some lady slippers and may apples.
“Where are we anyway?” Buffy asked, as they entered the cabin’s back yard.
In the distance they could see fog clinging to the tops of trees in nearby valleys. It seemed like they were walking above the clouds and the mid-morning air was cool, but the sun on their faces warmed their chilled bodies. That, or maybe it was just being together that made Buffy and Riley warm.
“Somewhere in the mountains would be my guess.” Riley answered with a smirk.
Buffy slapped him on the arm.
“No, duh!”
“Truthfully, I have no idea, Buffy, but it looks like the Appalachians. This place is beautiful, but so strange, there are no clocks or watches, no calendars, and the TV only shows movies and reruns, never any news programs. It’s also the same with the radio; every station plays some type of music, but no news. I’m not complaining mind you, because they play my favorite songs. I’ve also noticed there are no weather forecasts and every day is always the same, no real cold weather, only crisp feeling, and never once has it rained, but the flowers grow and bloom constantly.”
“The cabin is always stocked with fresh food. All I have to do is think of something and the next morning it mysteriously appears. A couple of nights ago I was daydreaming of you and I on the beach and when I woke up the following morning, the pictures of us appeared on the nightstand. It was really weird. Yesterday, all day long, I kept picking them up and wishing you were here, I was so lonely. Then last night I woke up and you were there; cuddled up next to me and my arms were wrapped around you. I thought I was dreaming.”
“I don’t know what’s happening here, but I like it.” Riley said, opening the back door to the cabin then stepping back to allow her to walk inside. “And now that you’re here, everything is perfect.”
Buffy and Riley climbed the stairs and entered the bedroom to change into clean, dry clothes. Buffy was shocked to discover that Riley’s clothes now hung along side hers in the closet and his shoes also were lined up neatly beside hers.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, seeing the startled look on her face.
“Your clothes, where… where did they come from?” She managed to say while sorting through the hangers filled with his button-down shirts and pullovers.
She quickly ran over to the dresser and started pulling open drawers; every other drawer held his jeans, t-shirts, boxers and socks all neatly folded.
“They were always here.” He answered simply.
Buffy walked quickly into the adjoining bathroom. All of her toiletries had been put away. Opening the medicine cabinet, she saw both of their toothbrushes, his and her razors, hair spray, gel, and a bottle of ‘Old Spice’ aftershave.
“I just don’t get it.” She said, mostly to herself.
They quickly changed and put their wet, dirty clothes into the washing machine, located in the utility room adjacent to the kitchen.
After making each of them a mug of hot chocolate, Buffy came into the living room and sat down on the overstuffed couch. She watched Riley who was busy placing more wood into the grate of the stone fireplace. Soon he had a roaring fire blazing. That was all they needed to get into the mood for a good, old-fashioned cuddle session.
“Ooh, this is nice.” Buffy said, sideling up next to him. Cuddling next to Riley felt much better than curling up in a comfy chair alone.
“Yes, it is, real nice.” He answered, smiling. “Did I ever tell you how much I missed you?”
“Yes, you did, but feel free to tell me over, and over, and over.” She replied, reaching up to kiss him lightly on the lips, taking care not to spill her hot chocolate all over herself.
“So, where did you end up going? You told me before you left that it was a some kind of covert operation.” Buffy snuggled closer to him and took a sip of the steaming hot chocolate. She glanced down at the marshmallows floating on top. It was amazing, she wanted to use those little colored marshmallows instead of the regular white ones and there, lying beside the can of hot chocolate mix, was a bag of them.
“In Belize.” He answered as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and helped her to get more comfortably situated before he took a sip of his own hot chocolate.
“We were sent down there to save a group of missionaries who decided to camp out on top of a demon hotspot, but we were too late. By the time we got there, all but two were dead and they were huddled together in their tent absolutely terrified. It took two days for our on-duty shrinks to get them to talk and tell us what happened. Then, we didn’t believe their story; it sounded way too farfetched. ”
“The survivors said the others were murdered during the middle of the night by some strange, invisible force. They told us that one minute you’d be standing there talking to someone and the next; he’d let out a blood-curdling scream. They said the victims had their stomachs slashed open and their intestines were spilling out all over the place. Never once did these men see what attacked them but, since they were missionaries, they thought it must be an act of God coming down to earth to punish them.”
“That first week we didn’t see any evidence of demon occupation when patrolling the area, but then again, we had no clue what we were looking for. We tried researching, but there aren’t any military records categorizing this type of demon.”
“Did you try contacting the Watcher’s Council? They may be a bunch of old fuddy-duddies but they do keep good records.” Buffy asked, looking up into Riley’s solemn face.
Sighing, he answered. “Believe it or not, we did, but they didn’t have anything to go on either. It seems the Watcher’s Council only keeps tabs on European and North American demons. They have a tendency to believe third world countries are beneath them and that goes for their demon infestations, too.”
Riley continued with his story. “These demons had specialized skills and many inborn defenses that we’d never seen before. They were superior hunters and chameleon-like in their actions. They changed the color of their skin tone to blend in with the surrounding jungle, even if they stood in mottled sunlight, they blended in with the foliage. If they moved, any spotting on their skin would shift positions to give the illusion that everything remained stable. It was frightening to know that they could camouflage themselves so well.”
“They were cold-blooded too, like reptiles. We never could get an infrared reading on them, even if we knew for sure where they were located.”
“And their defenses were like out of a Freddie Kruger movie, each finger contained retractable, razor-sharp talons.”
“One day, we were out on maneuvers and were camping out overnight. It was God awful hot. You could see steam rising from the undergrowth. Many of us couldn’t resist the temptation to take off our shirts, even if it meant taking a chance on being bit by mosquitoes and coming down with malaria. We were being eaten alive by them and the various other bugs.”
“In the afternoon, we came to a clearing and set up camp. We could hear howler monkeys up in the canopy just past the jungle’s boundary. Listening to them screech drove us nuts, but we learned really quickly, if we didn’t hear them, we were dead ducks because the monkeys got the hell outta there when demons showed up. For some reason the monkeys could see the demons where we couldn’t, maybe because both species evolved side-by-side and the monkey acquired a natural defense. I’m thinking the demons prayed on humans because we were easier to hunt down and couldn’t escape as fast as monkeys.”
“That night we had bonfires burning because we’d heard somewhere the demons were afraid of fire.”
Riley scoffed. “That was a damn lie.”
“I was in my tent trying to get a bit of shuteye when I heard someone scream. I came outside and saw men wildly running through the compound. Graham was nearby, frantically pulling out weapons from their cases.”
“Rye, here!” He tossed me a rifle and a taser.
“What’s out there man?”
“Don’t know but listen.” Graham answered quietly, crouching down by the case. He was straining his ears to hear the noises. He was listening for one particular sound.
“Do you…”
“Shhh, listen.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s just it, I don’t hear anything either. The monkeys are quiet, they’re gone.”
“I listened closely, he was right. The only thing I could hear were the men yelling to each other and the C.O. barking out orders.”
“Come on.” Graham said. “We need to get outta here.”
“Running along the camp’s perimeter the two of us tried to organize the others, but it was too late. We could see them in the distance clutching their arms, shoulders, and stomachs. They were screaming out in pain, but we couldn’t see what was attacking them.”
“Suddenly I felt like my stomach was set on fire. Looking down I saw a massive blood stain spread across the front of my shirt, and it had been ripped wide open. I never saw what caused it. I heard Graham calling my name and grabbing hold of me as I stumbled. My legs felt so weak and I could hardly stand.”
“I heard someone yell.”
“Incoming Black Hawk’s!”
“I could hear the motors on the military helicopters. Seconds later, I saw them rising over the horizon and it was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen!”
“I was hypnotized watching those choppers trying to land at the edge of the clearing.“
”Come on Rye we’ve got to make a run for it!”
“What?”
“Run…we’ve got to make run for it!”
“I tried, but my legs gave out.”
“Can’t Gray, my legs aren’t holding me up.”
“Graham dropped his weapon, picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder. We made a break for it. I could hear the sound of footsteps beside us, but never once did I see our attackers. I knew it had to be the demons.”
"I don’t know how we made it but, Graham managed to carry me to the Black Hawks. The others lifted me off of his shoulder, and put me on a stretcher, and slid it into one of choppers. Graham climbed in after me and never once left my side. All the time, he held my hand and tried encouraging me."
“Hold on Rye, you’re going to make it, just hold on.”
“l… will… not… planning …on…goin’ … anywhere.”
“On the way to the field hospital, the medics inserted an IV into my arm and shot me up with morphine. I felt dizzy. Graham kept holding my hand.”
“It seemed like hours before we landed. We were at a MASH unit. They pulled me out of the chopper and carried me straight into the O.R.”
“The last thing I remember was the surgeon telling me to count backwards from ten.”
“Ten… nine… eight.”
“I saw Graham standing and watching me through the window of the O.R. He was praying.”
“Seven… six… five… four…”
Riley paused a moment to brush away a tear.
“I woke up here. I was alone.”
“Wow,” Buffy exclaimed as she raised her head up from where it had been resting on his chest. She sat up just a bit so that she could look at him and the fact that there were unshed tears in his eyes did not escape her. “That’s just… I mean… wow.”
“Yeah,” he agreed as he fought back the urge to cry. He had never spoken of what had happened during that last day in the jungle until now. Of course, until this morning, he had been alone, so there really was no one to tell his story to. Now, though, he had Buffy.
She raised up and brought her lips to his cheek, kissing him softly. He shuddered at her touch, but in a pleasant way. God, he had missed her so damn much!
“So, that’s all you remember?” Buffy asked. “You went into surgery and then woke up here?”
Riley nodded. “That’s it.” He reached for her, pulling her against him and wrapping his arms around her once more. She settled back against him and laid her head on his chest. The fingers of one of his hands began stroking her silky hair. “So, what about you? What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”
Buffy emitted a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. “I jumped off of a tower.”
Her admission took him by surprise. “You what? You jumped off of a tower? But, why?”
“That’s a *long* story,” she replied a bit dryly.
“Well, we seem to have nothing but time on our hands, so why don’t you tell me?”
“Where should I begin?”
“The beginning is usually a good place,” Riley teased. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened from the day I left until you woke up here?”
“Okay,” she chuckled, “but just remember, you *asked* for it!”
The story continues in chapter 3
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