As he was dragged helplessly down the basement stairs by the determined Slayer, Spike tried to think of the words to salvage this situation before he ended up dust.

“Now look, Slayer,” he began, speaking rapidly. “You walked in on the tail end of that little scene, and there was an awful lot you missed! You’ve no idea what that filthy wanker did to Diana in that room before sh – we – did what we did.” He corrected himself at the last second.

Diana had really been the one to actually kill Riley, but it would not do to let the Slayer know that. Though her emotional connection to him was precarious at best at the moment, she had none whatsoever to Diana, and he could easily see her thinking the easiest solution to be simply staking his childe, leaving her new lover free and clear.

They had reached the bottom of the stairs and his words were cut off as Buffy released him suddenly, slinging him back against the wall, hard, advancing quickly to stand right in his face, giving him no room to move away. “I don’t care what he did, no one deserves to die like *that*!” she spat the words out at him, glaring into his sapphire eyes with her own blazing green ones.

Hearing the Slayer defending Finn, after the night of horror he and his childe had spent at the hands of the sadistic monster, infuriated Spike. “Really,” he snarled. “Well let’s hear you say that if it was *you* he took, *murdered* and turned, and then raped and tortured *every night* for eight soddin’ months, with you helpless to so much as push the bloody sadist away from you! See what *you’d* do if you could suddenly fight back!”

Buffy was silent for a moment, taking in his words, before she edged even closer and replied coldly, eyes narrowed in fury, “I’m not blaming *her*, Spike.”

“So it’s all *my* fault, then, is it?” His eyes widened with the realization, and he was surprised at how much it actually hurt.

Buffy shrugged casually, but her eyes were full of rage. “You’re her sire, right? I don’t know that much about vampire relationships and all that, but I know that she sure listens to everything you say. You could have stopped her, Spike.”

A furious expression to match hers coming over his face, he threw back, “All right, then. Different scenario. What if it wasn’t you? What if it was Dawn? Or your mum? What would you do to the monster that did that to them? What would you do then, Slayer?” His tone was an accusation and a demand.

The words were like a blow to her, and she could not help but at least partially see his point. If someone did that to Dawn or her mother, she would track them down, to the ends of the earth, and make them pay for it.

Still, she shook her head, looking away from him for a moment, taking a step back. “Not like that,” she insisted. “Not – not torn to pieces like that…”

“And how else would you suggest then?” he asked, his voice softer now. “Not exactly like we had a wide range of weapons at our disposal, is it, Slayer? Diana’s only defenses are the ones *they* gave her when they turned her.”

“You keep saying that,” she said, looking back at him with a hard expression. “As I recall it was *you* that turned her.”

“Because they made me!” He nearly exploded; she was being so bloody unreasonable!

“Oh, and you hated every moment didn’t you?” she snarled back sarcastically, and he could see the loathing in her eyes, the disgust for not only what he had done, but what he *was*.

And suddenly he understood.

“Oh, so this isn’t just about what happened to Finn, is it, love?” he said, realization dawning in his eyes. “You’re facing up to just exactly what it is *you’ve* done…being with me. Well, newsflash, pet! I’m a bloody *vampire*! Okay? Never gonna be anything else until I’m dust!” He paused, realizing that the mention of dusting was probably not wise at this moment. No good to remind her of the ideas she was probably already seriously considering.

The flash of fury in her eyes showed him that his comment had hit home at least a little. “This is *not* about you and me, Spike! This is about Riley and what happened to him in that room!”

“What about what happened to *Diana* in that room?” he demanded, his voice trembling slightly as his own anger rose. “Have you even stopped to consider what she was even *doing* there? What she and your dear sainted Captain Wanker were even *doing* in *my* suite at bloody midnight, Slayer? No, you were too busy climbing on your moral high horse to even listen to a bloody explanation!”

Buffy was silent, and a little of the anger left her eyes, replaced by uncertainty. After a long moment, holding his gaze with a determined air, as if preparing herself for the worst, she said quietly, “Why were they there, Spike? Tell me. Explain.”

An immense sense of relief filling him, he took a deep breath, then released it slowly. He paused, choosing his words carefully, before he responded. “The good lieutenant decided that Diana and I were not aware enough of our own bloody helplessness for his liking. Decided to do something about it.” He stopped, not sure how to tell her the rest, suddenly extremely uncomfortable.

“What did he do?” she pressed, her voice soft now, her eyes wide and almost panicked. She instinctively knew that what she was about to hear would not be easy.

Spike struggled with the words, looking away, not meeting her eyes, as he went on. “He hurt her. Raped her. Again and again. Every way you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t. All night.”

The thought of Riley doing those things sickened her again, as it had the first time she had heard it. She wanted to flee, escape up the stairs, so she wouldn’t have to face the reality of the situation – of who the monster of this particular tale really was. But there was still more that she had to know.

“Why in your room?” she asked, her voice expressionless, her eyes still on his face.

Spike swallowed hard, his head lowered a bit. His voice was quieter when he finally replied, “Wanted me to see it. To know…to know there was nothing I could do about it.”

The anguish, the misplaced guilt in his voice, not over killing Riley, but over allowing Diana to be hurt, tore at her heart. At that moment she found herself wanting to comfort him. She forced herself to remember the image seared in her mind of Riley’s torn, bloodied body in Spike’s suite. And at the edges of the memory, a small detail emerged. Her eyes widened in horrified realization.

“The handcuffs,” she whispered. She recalled seeing them, lying discarded on the floor near Riley’s body. At the time it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why they were there. “He chained you up and made you watch.” There was a rising horror in her eyes at the realization of just how far Riley’s cruelty had gone.

Spike nodded silently, his eyes on the floor.

Buffy’s eyes welled with tears at the thought of what he and his childe had gone through – and at the hands of a man she had once cared for, if not really loved. Though she felt like she had heard all she could stand to, there was still more that she needed to know.

“And this?” she said, reaching to gently touch the mark on his face. He flinched away, uncomfortable with her touch. “Diana has them too. What did he do?”

“Riding crop,” he answered simply. “Clever one, he was,” he went on with a bitter smile. “Knew the best way to get her to cooperate was to threaten me…and vice versa. If one of us didn’t do as he said, he’d…he’d hit the other.” His voice was halting, and Buffy knew that the memory was painful. In spite of everything, at that moment all she wanted was to reach out to him.

She reached gently toward his face again, seeking his eyes. “Looks like you were a little more cooperative than she was,” she said softly, her voice low and grim, and for a moment Spike thought that Riley might actually have been lucky to have died by *Diana’s* hand and not Buffy’s. “She wasn’t hurt nearly this bad.”

Spike shrugged. “Not her fault. She did as he told her…like she always does…did,” he corrected himself, allowing himself a small smile of hard satisfaction. His childe would never be abused by Riley Finn again. “No, this,” he gestured toward his wounds with an upward wave of his hand. “This was personal. Thought he’d take the opportunity to work out a bit of his pent up aggressions.”

Buffy swallowed hard, fighting down the feelings of rage toward Riley that were rising in her. It was not right that she should feel this way, she thought. How had Spike managed to do that to her? To turn her feelings around? Riley had been brutally murdered by the two vampires. She was the vampire *slayer*. Shouldn’t her anger be directed at Spike and Diana?

But she thought of all he had just told her, and knew in her heart that she could not honestly say what she would have done if in his position, or Diana’s for that matter. She knew that her actions would have been governed not by her sense of right and wrong, but by her emotions.

And Spike and Diana did not really *have* a sense of right and wrong to go by. They were soulless vampires, which meant not having to deal with things like guilt, and right and wrong. That was what she had been taught from the moment she had been chosen. She knew deep down that it was not really fair to expect any different of them. No matter how their actions disgusted her, she should not have expected that they would have done anything differently. If a human in that situation would likely react in violence, how could she expect a vampire to show any greater strength of morality?

“I understand why you did it, Spike,” she said softly, and he looked up at her, startled. He kept his silence, waiting cautiously to hear what she would say next. “I can’t even imagine going through what you and Diana went through before you…before it happened. What Riley did to you both was disgusting and inhuman and…and he probably deserved to die for it.” She paused, and he knew that the “but” part of her statement was coming.

“But that doesn’t make it all right,” she said sadly, shaking her head. After another pause, she hesitantly managed to get out, “I trusted you, Spike. I told you how worried I was about the chips going down, about putting people in danger. And you helped me find the way to do it…without anyone getting hurt, remember? That’s how it was supposed to be.”

“But Finn came in there unexpected!” he broke in, frowning, shaking his head. “We couldn’t have done anything about that! We didn’t plan on anyone getting hurt, love.”

“I know.” Buffy’s voice was sad, and unexpectedly gentle. “The truth is…you can’t help it, Spike. It’s just your nature. Put a vampire…any vampire…in a situation like that, and that’s what’s gonna happen. I’m the Slayer. I should have known better.”

He looked up at her sharply, finally meeting her eyes, and the hurt she saw there was painful to her as well. Stepping toward her, putting his hands gently on her arms, he said softly, “I didn’t think I was ‘just any vampire’. Not to you, love.”

Still meeting his gaze, she pulled firmly away from him, taking a step back. “No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You weren’t. But that was my mistake.”

The words hurt him like a physical blow, and he flinched. “Buffy,” he whispered, not knowing what to say.

She looked away, unable to stand the pain in his eyes. She turned to go upstairs. “Come upstairs and take a shower whenever you’re ready. I’m sure you want to get cleaned up. You’ve been through an awful lot. Let me know if you need anything. There’s blood in the refrigerator and bandages and stuff in the bathroom.” Her voice was compassionate, but still so sad and defeated, and her words effectively closed the subject for discussion. “I’ll bring down some blankets and stuff for you to sleep with in a little while. The three of you will sleep down here.”

He didn’t know what to say, so for once he said nothing, just stood there and watched her go.

She paused halfway up the stairs, turning, facing him but not meeting his eyes as she added, “What happened wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It was a mistake to let the chips be shut down…and it won’t happen again.” She looked him in the eye, her expression sorrowful, but determined, as she finished, “If it does…we both know…I’ll do what I have to do.”

And with that painful promise, she turned and walked away from him.