Buffy stepped off the stairs into the kitchen, feeling utterly bereft. She hated to just walk away from him like that. Working together with him against the Initiative, actually getting to know him, all of it culminating in that one morning they had spent together in his room -- she hated to admit it but she had grown very attached to Spike, and had come to place a lot of trust in him. Now she was torn between that attachment, and her duty. She knew that what he had done was wrong, and it felt like such a betrayal.

Still, his words rang in her mind, demanding her acknowledgment of the truth. What if it had been Dawn that had been kidnapped off the street, turned into a vampire and tortured and raped for months? What would she have allowed her sister to do -- or even done herself -- to the ones responsible?

Her thoughts were interrupted at the top of the stairs when she saw Diana and Darian, sitting at the kitchen table with Anya. Diana was speaking quietly, haltingly, while Anya held her hands and kept nodding sympathetically every now and then. Darian sat close by his sister's side, supporting her with his nearness as she told them about her ordeal.

Both vampires looked up anxiously when she entered the room, glancing behind her to see if Spike was with her.

"He's still undead, not dust, so you can stop looking at me like that," she muttered, rolling her eyes in irritation.

She was not supposed to feel sympathy and compassion for vampires; she was supposed to slay them. Yet here she was in this impossibly confusing situation, all because she had actually gone out of her way to *save* this little vampiress sitting at her kitchen table, looking at her as if *she* was the monster to be feared.

Exhausted in every possible way, every fiber of her being, Buffy trudged into the living room. Another set of curious, anxious faces met her there. God, she just wanted to be alone! She had so much to attempt to process, she didn't even want to think about trying to explain it to her friends.

Xander glanced nervously toward the kitchen, where Anya and Diana were talking seriously again. "Good thing she's not a vengeance demon anymore," he muttered. "Or Riley Finn would be missing some very important body parts."

"I don't think Diana needs the services of a vengeance demon," Buffy said tiredly, sinking down on the couch between her two best friends.

"Buffy," Willow began, and the genuine concern in her eyes almost brought her to tears again. "Please tell us what happened back there. You look terrible."

"Thanks," Buffy snorted irritably, leaning her head on the back of the couch.

"No, I just mean -- you look like it's been a really, *really* rough night, Buffy. Please talk to us."

"Riley's dead." The words came out almost without her meaning to speak at all. In the shocked silence that filled the space after her announcement, she felt her eyes fill with tears again. She did not even know who the tears were for -- her dead ex-boyfriend, the two vampires he had victimized, or herself.

"How?" Xander finally broke the silence, a suspicious frown on his face.

Buffy hesitated. She really, *really* didn't want to tell them. "Diana and Spike," she finally replied, reluctantly.

Willow let out a slow breath, her eyes widening. Xander's suspicion quickly turned to anger as he said, "What, he tried to stop them, so they killed him? God, Buffy, why did we even bring them here? Why didn't you just stake them in the Initiative?"

"He didn't try to stop them," Buffy broke in, her quiet voice full of such a powerful, yet unidentifiable emotion, that it silenced any further objections. "When the chips shut down -- he was in the middle of -- he was raping her."

Willow gasped, and Xander's mouth fell open. "Oh my God," he said softly.

"He'd been doing it for hours. And forcing Spike to watch."

Xander's head dropped forward into his hands for a moment, before he lifted it again, running a nervous hand through his thick dark hair. "I -- I don't know what to say," he said finally.

Patting his arm gently, her own eyes still stricken with the horror of Buffy's revelation, Willow said, "Sometimes it's okay not to say anything, Xander."

He glanced up sharply at the very subtle sarcasm in her tone, but she was not focused on him. She gently put her arms around Buffy. "This has got to be so hard for you, Buffy. In so many ways."

Buffy nodded as a tear slipped down her face, relieved to have someone there who understood.

"If it helps, Buffy," Willow said quietly. "I saw Diana. Those marks on her legs and stuff. If I was her, I'd have killed the creep, too."

Buffy was startled by the cold anger in Willow's voice, and looked up at her quickly. "I'm not sure that helps, Will," she said softly in a shaky, miserable voice. "I'm so confused right now."

"Well, if you want my opinion," Xander began.

"Your opinion -- probably not helpful right now," Willow said in an overly kind voice. There was that sarcasm again!

Irritated, Xander said, "Well, I've just gotta say this! You're acting like this is a normal girl we're talking about. This is a vicious killer, Buffy. She's proved it now. Not just some innocent victim. She and Spike killed a person. You should dust them. End of story."

Willow looked horrified by his lack of compassion. “No, *not* end of story!” she said indignantly. “What about what Riley did?”

“Wrong,” Xander conceded with a nod. “But as much as Diana might look like an actual person, she’s not. She’s just an animal, now, Will. And as much as saying this is making me the total bad guy here, and the looks you guys are giving me are seriously scary, cruelty to an animal is a crime, but not a capital offense. Not punishable by death.”

“How can you say that?” Buffy demanded, incredulous, an oddly defensive note in her voice. “They’re not human, but they’re more than animals! And I don’t think for a second that what they did is all right, but Riley deserved to die. Maybe not like that – but he did deserve to die for what he did. And I can’t say I wouldn’t have killed him if I’d been in her place.” She paused. “By whatever means I had available to me.”

Xander looked shocked by her word, but Willow nodded her understanding.

Before Xander could say anything else in protest, Buffy said, “Don’t freak out on me here, okay? They’re chipped again now and can’t hurt anyone. And they’re confined to the house. So they’re not a threat. There’s nothing to worry about. And you know what?” she added as she stood up suddenly. “I am really tired of arguing with you about this, and tired of everything being so confusing and messed up, and just – just plain tired. So I’m going to bed now. You can let yourself out.”

And without a backward glance she got up and walked up the stairs to her room, shutting the door firmly behind her.


Down in the basement, Spike sat against the wall, his knees pulled up in front of him, his arms resting on them, with his head buried in his arms. He would not have thought that Buffy’s rejection would be so absolutely crushing. It was only supposed to have been a game, wasn’t it? Just to have a little fun with the bint, string her along for a little while? So how had he ended up caring so much? Why was her intense disappointment, her dismissal of him as “just another vampire” so devastating?

He heard footsteps on the basement stairs, and looked up hopefully. Maybe…maybe she had reconsidered?

No, it was just his childe. Darian.

An anxious frown on his face, he approached his sire. “Did – did she hurt you?” he asked.

Spike let out a silent, bitter laugh. “Yes. Not perhaps the way you’re thinking though, lad.” With a resigned sigh, he patted the spot on the floor beside him once, indicating for Darian to have a seat.

The young vampire was watching him closely, and Spike felt uncomfortable to see understanding in his soft blue eyes. “Do you love her?” he asked quietly, looking away from his sire’s eyes as he did.

Spike turned a startled look on Darian. “What? No! No, I barely know the chit!”

“And she risked her life to get you out of there,” Darian smiled, shaking his head slightly.

“No, she risked it to get Diana out.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked…” Spike’s voice cut off as he realized the implication of what he was saying. “What were you before you were turned, some sort of shrink?” he asked, with a smirk.

Darian shrugged with a smile. “Psych student,” he admitted. He paused before saying, “She was awfully worried about you. Before. Her friends didn’t want to help you…”

Spike snorted. “Big surprise there, mate. No love lost between me and her soddin’ Scoobies!”

Darian went on, “…but she insisted. She seems awfully concerned for someone who barely knows you.”

“We’ve got a…a history,” Spike admitted softly, with a far-off look on his face. “And these past few weeks…working together on this…I guess we were getting a bit closer.” There was no way he was going to admit to his childe just how close; this conversation was already quite an unusual one for a sire to have with his childe. But Spike was running a bit low in the friends department at the moment, and needed to talk to someone.

He sighed and put his head down again for a moment before raising it to say, “But that’s bloody shot to hell now.”

“Give her a little time,” Darian suggested. He paused before adding, “The Slayer kept saying how she needed you there at the Initiative, even when I begged her to get you out, because I knew they’d blame Diana’s escape on you. She kept saying they were just going to get Diana, she needed you to get information for her and all that. But then when it came down to it…here you are.” He smiled up at his sire.

A slow smile came over Spike’s face. He had never had a chance to get to know this childe of his that well, but his calm perception was quickly growing on him. “And your point, lad?” he said softly.

“The point…well, I get the feeling this Slayer doesn’t always know what it is that she wants…but somehow she still always gets it in the end,” Darian finished.

Spike laughed softly, feeling a bit better in spite of himself. Looking away, he replied, “Let’s hope that’s the case, lad. And let’s hope she wants what she says she doesn’t, this time.”


At the Initiative headquarters, in General Cordova’s office, the atmosphere was tense and dangerous. The young guard who was showing the general the surveillance tapes from that night was nervous as he pointed to the screen above them.

“See? It’s just like I said. Blank.”

“And you didn’t notice this as soon as the screen *went* blank because…?” she demanded severely, one eyebrow raised threateningly.

“I…I’m sorry, general…it’s just…nothing *ever* happens that late…”

“That’s enough. I don’t need excuses. I need results,” she snapped. “Bring me the tapes from the entire day. The hall monitors, and Hostile 17’s quarters. I need to know if there was anything before the tapes shut off that might give us a clue as to how they did it. They had to have help from someone on the inside, because neither Hostile 17 nor his childe have access to any of our security systems.” She paused before correcting herself, “No, bring me the whole week. There’s no telling how long they’d been planning this.”

“Yes, General,” the young soldier quickly replied, taking an unconscious half-step backward, desperate to be dismissed.

With a tired sigh, as if she did not even have the energy to properly chastise the carelessness of the soldier, the general turned away with a wave of her hand. “Dismissed.”

She sat down at her desk to wait, knowing the soldier would fulfill her command quickly, eager to undo the damage his lack of attention to his post had caused. Hopefully the tapes from that night would reveal how the hostiles had escaped, and which member of her organization was the traitor among them.