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Author's Chapter Notes:
Don't you just love to hate Riley?
Chapter 36: Remember me?

“So who was the guy in the fancy car that brought you home?” Riley wasted no time on pleasantries, and it ticked her off. It had been years since she had last seen him! Who did he think he was, calmly sitting in her kitchen and drinking her coffee as if no time at all had past since they had last talked?

“Just a friend, Riley." Since when did she actually think of Spike as a friend? But more importantly at the moment, " What are you doing here? Last I heard from you, you had to go back to Iowa because your father was ill. After that, I don’t hear from you for years, and then you suddenly show up drinking coffee in my kitchen and prying into who I spend my time with? I don’t think so, Riley.” He looked good. A little tanner maybe, but perhaps that was just in comparison to Spike who always looked so pale. “How’d you get in here, anyway?”

He shrugged, and took another sip of coffee as if it wasn’t any big deal. She’d forgotten how insufferable Riley could be sometimes. “It’s not important.” Riley gestured toward the only other seat in her kitchen. The one where Willow usually sat when she came over. The one where Dawn had sat earlier this morning, complaining about her lot in life, and how Buffy had made her life harder. Apparently the younger girl slept like the dead, or at least had the good sense to pretend that she was still asleep while an intruder made himself at home in her kitchen.

“What is important is that I thought that we should spend some time together, catch up with one another. It looks like I’m going to be in LA for a while.” Riley set down his cup and reached for her hand, but she managed to pull it away before he could get a hold of it. “I never would have left you, Buffy, if I’d had any choice in the matter. I would have married you.”

“Yeah, right.” Buffy moved further away. She didn’t want to let Riley touch her. “That’s as may be, Riley. But, that was then and this is now. Why should I want to say anything to you, Riley? You’re the one who left me, as I recall. I haven’t heard from you in years. You can’t just waltz back into my life, into my apartment, and try to pick up where we left off! Life doesn’t work like that, Riley.”

“Is it the fancy car guy? It better not be. I know what he is.”

“What do you mean by that? And it’s not him, Riley. This just isn’t right.” She had forgotten how intractable he could be sometimes. He got an idea in his head and you just couldn’t get it out again. She didn’t want to have to call the police on him, but if she couldn’t convince him to leave on his own, she admitted that she might have to. “You don’t just go around breaking into people’s apartments in the middle of the night and asking questions you have no right to ask. No matter how close we used to be.”

“I didn’t break in.” Something small and shiny was sitting unnoticed on the table next to his teaspoon. He held it up for her inspection. “I used my key. You gave me a key to your mother’s apartment a long time ago. I didn’t hear she had passed until I came back here to LA. I’m so sorry, Buffy. I know that must have been a hard time for you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for you.”

“Grrgh! If she hadn’t done such a good job bringing me up, I’d slap you one, Riley. I don’t care if you have an old key. Since you won’t take the hint, I’ll tell you straight out, you’re not welcome here anymore.”

“So it is Mr. Flash then.” Of course Riley would never believe that it was simply himself and his actions that Buffy found unwanted. “I know who he is, Buffy. And why you’ve been seeing him. I came to warn you, Buffy, that guy’s bad news. Whether or not he’s passed a lie detector. You should stay away from Spike Thorndale.”

How could he possibly know about that? They had just come from there, minutes ago!

“We’ve already been through that Riley, Spike’s innocent. All charges are being dropped.” She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering what it was she had ever seen in him. “And how do you know all that? Have you been stalking me? That’s just creepy.” Way creepier than anything Spike had ever done. Riley was seriously beginning to give her the wiggins.

“I’m not stalking you, Buffy. I don’t have to stalk you. And I know everything there is to know about Thorndale. More than you do, Buffy.”

There was that smug expression on his face again, like he knew everything, and she was still an ignorant little co-ed. “Did you know that Thorndale spent time in that same mental hospital where he sent his ex-wife? And wasn’t that a nice thing to do to her, just because she was talking about leaving him? Yeah, he’s a great guy! And you’re precious Spike didn’t check himself in there just to dry out either. Oh, no. He was a patient, Buffy. Under twenty-four hour psychiatric care. The guy’s unstable, or hadn’t you noticed that while you were busy making time with him?” Riley was on a roll now. He pushed away from the table and stalked towards Buffy, invading her personal space.

“Oh, the guy’s got money, Buffy. There’s no doubt about that. But he has serious mental problems. And I mean serious. And in all the time you’ve been playing Mata Hari didn’t it ever occur to you to wonder about the more mundane criminal activities he might have been up to in order to get that rich?”

“How do you know this? How do you know any of this?” Somehow with his size, proximity and his know-it-all attitude Riley intimidated her. She hadn’t felt that way in a long time. She didn’t like it. She didn’t think she ever had.

“Come on, Buffy. I thought you were a pretty smart girl. Smart enough to be recommended for a special government training program. Graduate school, I think you called it. Didn’t you ever wonder how you and Willow both managed to get tabbed by the same government agency?”

“What…what are you saying, Riley?”

“I’m saying, Agent Summers, that I know all about Spike because it’s my job to know. You and I are working on two sides of the same case. You work for Rupert Giles, and I report to Maggie Walsh. But we’re all part of the same big happy family. Because I put you there. I’m the one who put a word in the right ear so you and Willow were both recruited. I’m the one who got you the job you have now. So when I tell you to stay away from Thorndale, you can well believe that I have a good reason. Just because your little investigation didn’t work out, doesn’t mean that mine won’t. I’m close, Buffy. Real close to putting that monster behind bars where he belongs.”

*~*

No sooner had Buffy finally convinced Riley to leave than Dawn padded out into the kitchen wearing her Happy Bunny pajamas and fuzzy slippers.

“Real charmer. If I hadn’t heard him myself, I’m not sure I’d believe that they actually built egos that big. And what’s with the breaking and entering? Isn’t that a crime anymore?”

“I’m sorry he scared you, Dawn. I’m sure that he didn’t know that you were here.”

Strangely Riley had seemed to know everything else about her current life, up to and including the results of the polygraph that had just been taken. If he was that well informed, he should have known about Dawn as well. Maybe he just wasn’t interested in anything except her relationship with Thorndale. It seemed pretty clear that Riley had been hoping that they’d get back together. Although from how she reacted to him tonight, she knew that that was never going to happen. She just wasn’t a young impressionable co-ed anymore. She was no longer impressed by what Riley assumed was his superiority. “I hope you weren’t here alone with him in the house too long before I came home. I am sure he never dreamed that anyone else would be here. But he didn’t break in – he had a key.”

“Right. And you so expected him to just show up unannounced some day! I can’t understand why you’d defend him – especially when all you’ve ever done to Spike is make accusations. Spike is a way better person than that Neanderthal will ever be.”

“That’s enough Dawn. And for the record, you may be right. Spike did something tonight to prove himself to me, and to Giles. I’ve just been so blinded by what everyone else says that I haven’t been able to think for myself.”

“So what about Mr. Big Double Agent and his ‘I’m gonna put Spike behind bars where he belongs?’ Are you gonna warn him? ‘Cause from what I just heard, conspiracy theory is starting to sound like the sane explanation.”





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