They stopped in Chula Vista, a relatively clean California city, to catch the trolley down to Mexico. It was better than driving down there, or so Buffy had been told. And then there was the walk, avoiding the puke from people who were drunk when they went into Mexico and would leave much drunker than before.
And then they avoided the peddlers, the taxi cab drivers all trying to entice them to use their cab to make a quick five bucks, and got into the last possible cab offered, all of them cramming in to avoid paying for another one.
No one had more than twenty dollars, everyone had fives and ones ready. Spike had even offered to pay the cabbie and take them around Tijuana's clubs. He had a totally realistic fake ID and everything.
It had all been his idea for them to spend the last New Year's Eve of the 1990s in Tijuana, partying and drinking the night away. Xander and Anya and Willow had decided to go; Buffy hadn't wanted to. She'd wanted to stay in her dorm, curl up with a magazine and watch MTV's coverage of the party in Times Square.
But Giles, who wanted Spike out of the house so he could spend time alone with Olivia, put his foot down: if Spike went than Buffy went.
So here she was, sitting in a club and watching all of them get drunk and dance and have fun while she sat alone at the table, ducking her head when the whistle blew and the club bartenders walked around with the bottles of tequila and the napkins, giving anyone who wanted one a shot of it, and even giving those who didn't want one a shot.
She'd managed to avoid them so far. It had been close, once: Spike pointed her out to one of them and they went towards her like vultures to dying prey, but she covered her mouth and shook her head, ducking it down quickly, just like she'd seen the others do. She took another sip of her sangria, still a bit surprised at the delightful taste of wine and fruit.
"Buffy!" Spike said, stepping off the makeshift dance floor and walking towards the Slayer, dragging Willow behind him. "We're having fun. Join us?"
Willow laughed. Next to Buffy, she'd had the fewest drinks: a Long Island ice tea and three or four Shirley Temples, so she was only slightly buzzed. But she was having a fine time with Spike, seeing as how the two of them were becoming close friends.
And the drinks they'd been drinking were causing them to get much closer.
Buffy shook her head. "No way. You two are getting all cozy, and...where'd Xander and Anya go?"
Willow pointed to the ceiling, and started to giggle. "Up there."
Buffy groaned as she looked towards the spiral staircase leading towards an upper deck. "Tell me they didn't..."
"We didn't," Xander said, coming up behind them. "We went outside. It was wet."
"It was raining," Anya said.
"I could tell. It smells like mud in here," Buffy said, gesturing towards the entrance. "Lot's of people walking through dirty streets which are wet from rain equals--"
"Mud," said a voice from behind Spike, who was standing in front of the entrance.
Buffy raised her eyebrows at the new arrival. "Well, if it isn't Riley Finn."
"Dog-boy," Spike muttered, and then Willow elbowed him, causing him to take a deep breath of unneeded air.
Riley ignored him, looking at Buffy and giving her a small smile. "Forrest and Graham dragged me down here. How about you?"
The others filtered away from the two of them, moving back towards the dance floor. "They all dragged me down here. I'd rather be in my dorm with a good magazine right now." She took another sip of her drink.
Riley flagged down a waitress and placed an order for a mai tai. "Fruit juice and booze," he muttered. "I'm trying to forget I'm here. I'd rather be watching MTV and the party in New York."
Buffy grinned at him. "That's what I'd rather be doing too."
He nodded, a grin forming on his face as well. "Well, we're both stuck here, it's done raining...should we go outside with these drinks or leave them here and go dancing?"
"Let's just stay here and talk," she said. "Too cold to go outside, and I'm not really wanting to dance right now."
He nodded, sipping at his just delivered mai tai. "I guess I'll have to agree."
She patted the seat next to her. "Sit down, Finn."
Two mai tai's for Riley and a pina colada for Buffy later, they were laughing like old friends, enjoying each other's company and ignoring everything else.
Riley's friends found him, and then Buffy's friends joined the group, and soon it got to be too suffocating for the both of them and they excused themselves, five minutes to midnight, and went to the upper level, finding it empty.
They sat down, leaning against the railing and smiling at each other shyly.
"What's your New Years resolution?" Buffy asked, looking at Riley.
He thought about it for a moment, then smiled. "To find more interesting ways to run into you. What's yours?"
Buffy blushed, shaking her head. "It's stupid."
"Nothing about you could be stupid," Riley said, straightening up and lightly brushing her arm.
She took a sharp intake of breath. "I don't want to keep any more secrets from people I care about."
Riley got a serious look, looking at his hands before looking back at Buffy, four minutes to midnight. "Want to know a secret?" he said quietly, leaning close to Buffy so that she could hear him.
"Sure," she said, nodding and leaning towards him.
"Willow told Graham you guys were coming here. And he did have to drag me here. But Willow told me you were going to be here alone and that's what made me want to come here."
"Well, I have a secret too," she said, three minutes till 2000.
"What's your secret?"
"I didn't want to be here at all. What I was going to do was ask you to go to the Bronze with me, but I thought you'd turn me down, so I didn't. So I'm glad you're here."
He reached over and touched her hand lightly, pulling it up to his lips and kissing it gently. The music around them seemingly dimmed as Buffy sat still and Riley turned her hand over and kissed her palm.
"I would have said yes, you know."
Two minutes away, and the party entered it's final, frenzied stage. "You would have?"
"I know we never got to have that talk, but I've liked you for a while now. Regardless of things...you know, the whole demon fighting thing...you know."
She nodded. "I know."
"But...we're not there right now, and...uh...well..."
"Well, what?"
"We're here, and I didn't get to dance with you once tonight." He stood up, taking her hand. Even if the beat of the music was fast, they danced slowly, doing nothing more than embracing and swaying.
The countdown started, the Spanish and English mixing into a loud, thunderous roar. "Diez...nine...ocho...seven...seiz...five...cuatro...three...dos..."
The thunderous shouts of "one," "uno" and "Happy New Year!" were lost upon Buffy and Riley as they kissed each other, ringing in the new year just as the lights went out all of Tijuana.
And underneath them, Spike could be heard yelling "And I bet the lights are on in California! We should have stayed there!"