Disclaimer: All the characters belong to Joss Whedon and all those folks. Just playing in their sandbox. Thanks again to Sanity Fair, the Punctuation Slayer (cue theme music).
 
Chapter 12 An Afternoon Off
 
“Buffy? Buffy!” The loud voice shattered the quiet of the tomb, and Buffy clenched her eyes shut even tighter. Go away. Please, go away. I just can’t face you right now. But she heard footsteps approaching, and then Willow’s voice called, “She’s in here! Buffy, are you okay?”
 
With a sigh Buffy replied, “Yes, I’m fine. What is it?” She sat up, wiping away the remaining tears as she did.
 
Willow had squeezed in the open doorway and was looking around. “What are you doing here?”
 
“Nothing much,” Buffy answered. “What’s the crisis?” She climbed down off the coffin, brushing off the dust.
 
“We didn’t know where you were. Riley was worried, so we did a locator spell,” Willow explained.
 
“So I’m not allowed to go anywhere without an escort?” Buffy snapped. “You trust me to slay vampires and demons all night, don’t you?”
 
“Of course,” Willow said in a conciliatory tone. “It’s just that you’re… having trouble, and the last time you had this type of trouble it was really bad.”
 
Buffy stared into space, shaking her head for a moment. Fuck it. Not worth the battle right now. “Whatever. I’m going home for a shower. Is that okay with everyone?” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed past Willow and made her way blinking into the sunlight.
 
Riley, Giles, and Xander were there looking relieved, irritated, and confused respectively. Riley hurried up to her and put his arms around her. “When you didn’t come back I was worried,” he exclaimed, pulling her close. Buffy stood stiffly, not returning the embrace. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she felt no connection to this man. She had known the other Riley, but she had no way of really knowing this one and neither one was the man she wanted right now. After a moment, Riley released her awkwardly, his eyes troubled. “Let’s get you home, all right? The others can work on the problem.”
 
“Fine.” She felt empty and wrung out from all the crying, and she was dusty from the crypt. Right now a hot shower was about the only thing she really wanted. She followed Riley and the others out of the cemetery to what was apparently their car. Riley opened the door for her and she got in, saying nothing to anyone. Riley closed the door, asked Giles to call if he knew anything new, then got in and drove toward Revello Drive.
 
The silence was thick between them, and Riley was the first to break it. “What were you doing in that crypt?” he asked, apparently for lack of anything else to say.
 
“I just needed a quiet place to think,” she muttered, staring out the window. “Not sure why you had to call out the cavalry to find me.”
 
“I’m not allowed to be worried about my wife?” he said, trying to keep his tone light.
 
Biting her lip she looked down at her lap. “Riley, I know you say I’m your wife, but I don’t remember you being anything but my TA. It’s just… you’re kind of a stranger to me. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you need to understand that.”
 
Riley tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I understand. I’ll try to… take things slow. I guess I hoped you’d somehow remember I loved you.”
 
“Just give me time, okay?” she replied. Guilt welled up inside her. He was trying to be a decent guy and a responsible husband, at least in this world. Maybe this is what he would have turned out to be in the other world without all the vampire weirdness. Or maybe I actually loved him back because I didn’t have anything to compare him to. Whatever the reason, she found she was unable to let go of the memory of Spike’s love for her, the connection they had, all they had gone through together. Riley hadn’t died for her in either world, and that was hard to top.
 
The rest of the ride took place in silence. When they pulled into the driveway Buffy got out slowly, feeling like she was drowning in an unfamiliar sea. She walked over to the tree in front of the house. The grass grew all the way up to the trunk, with no bare spot littered with cigarette butts. No one had ever stood here half the night watching over her and Dawn, worrying about her when she returned from the grave. These little reminders were like paper cuts on her soul, each one making her bleed just a little, adding up to a huge wound. Riley was waiting for her on the porch and she reluctantly followed him inside.
 
“I’ll be upstairs,” she said. She left Riley with his concerned face permanently stitched in place as she made her way upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom. She turned the water to as hot as she could stand and stood under it for a long time, leaning against the wall and letting the water run in little rivulets down her body. What do I do, Spike? How do I live here without you? She washed her hair mechanically, her mind going over the same tracks again and again. Everything’s changed but me. We clearly saved the world, but my brain doesn’t seem to know that. She toyed again with the idea of just telling them the truth. That seems like a one-way ticket to the loony bin with this crowd. Plus there’s just no way to tell them that some of them should be dead. But the alternative was to stay here and pretend. I guess I did that before. I pretended I was glad to be alive. She frowned as she recalled how well that went. The water turned cold and she turned it off with a sigh, no closer to solving her dilemma.
 
After she got dressed she went downstairs to where Riley sat in the living room, flipping through channels in a desultory manner. He turned the TV off when she came in and sat up, looking like a nervous high school kid on his first date. “Are you hungry? I could order a pizza or something.”
 
“I’m not really hungry,” Buffy replied. “But if you are, feel free.”
 
“I’ll, um—I’ll order some in case you get hungry later.” Riley got up and made the call to the pizza place while Buffy walked around the room, looking at things. There was a picture of her with her mom and Dawn, a picture of what she assumed was Riley and his family at some graduation or another, a picture of the Scoobies at the beach. She saw that there was a carved chest in the corner, and opening it she found it was a weapons chest, of a slightly different design. Riley came back in the room as she was closing it. “Xander made that for you as a birthday present one year.”
 
“Yeah,” she said, her voice was flat, disconnected. She went and sat down in one of the armchairs and Riley sat down across from her, studying her carefully, wondering what to say. Buffy finally broke the awkward silence by asking the first mundane question that popped into her head. “What was my degree in?”
 
“History,” Riley answered. “After you got back into school you had sort of lost interest in psychology.”
 
Buffy chewed on that thought for a moment. “What do I do for a living then?”
 
“Well most of our money comes from my job. The army helped me find a pretty good deal in return for not suing them over all the Initiative stuff. Mostly you help out at the Magic Box. The plan was for you, Willow, and Tara to take over the day to day running of things once Anya and Xander have their baby.” Riley explained.
 
“Oh.” So I guess I ended up a shop girl around here. I guess it’s better than Doublemeat Palace but not much. Another question rose up in her mind. “Are Giles and Jenny married?”
 
Riley gave her a strange look. “They’ve been married since you were in high school. I thought you remembered that far back.”
 
Crap. “There seems to be some holes in the memory bank,” she replied. She supposed she needed to do a bit of homework on the sly if she was going to pull this off. On the other hand, she was finding it increasingly hard to care. Spike and Dawn didn’t exist here. What purpose did she have?
 
Riley broke into her roaming thoughts. “What could have done this to you? We know it’s not a spell, so what could it be? Poison? Did you get hit on the head?” The concern was evident in Riley’s voice, and Buffy once more felt a twinge of guilt.
 
“I don’t know what happened,” Buffy said slowly. “But if this doesn’t get better, are you going to be able to live with me this way? I mean, I understand if this is too much, and you can’t deal.”
 
“What do you mean?” Riley was completely astonished at what she was implying. “What kind of guy would leave his girl when she needed him most?”
 
I dunno, before you left me when I was in the middle of fighting a freaking hell god because you couldn’t face not being stronger than your girl, she thought with irritation. And if you took off now, it would probably be easier on both of us. “I’m just saying I’d understand, all right? I mean living with a wife who doesn’t remember anything could be pretty stressful.”
 
Riley came over and knelt down in front of her. “Buffy, when I married you I did it for better or for worse. We’re going to fix this and get back to normal, you hear?” Not trusting herself to say the right thing, Buffy nodded. The doorbell rang at that point to her relief and Riley got up to get the pizza. Buffy followed him into the kitchen and took a slice but found she had no appetite.
 
“You really haven’t eaten today,” he fretted, “and did you take your meds earlier?”
 
“No,” Buffy replied shortly.
 
“Maybe I should get them for you,” Riley said, getting up.
 
“No, that’s fine. I don’t want them.”
 
“But the doctor said…”
 
“Look, I’m fine, okay?” she snapped. “I’m a freaking adult, and I can decide what to do with my own health.” She stood up, tossed the half eaten pizza in the trash, and stormed back upstairs. She went into the home office and started rifling through things. In a file drawer she found a bunch of her medical records. She flipped through the various notes from doctors, diagnoses of anxiety, major depression, suicidal tendencies, all the stuff she had heard or surmised from the others. Angrily slammed the folder back into the drawer and looked through other things. Bills, copies of their marriage certificate, the car insurance – it was all so mundane and ordinary, and none of it seemed like it had anything to do with her. She was kept, and watched over, but there seemed to be no trace of her in any of this. She shut the drawers and sat down at the desk, resting her head on her arms. She called out desperately with her mind. Spike… oh, God! I miss you. But nothing came back to her mind but silence, and tears started running down her face once more.

TBC