Disclaimer: Not my characters, Joss Whedon’s characters. I’m just borrowing. My wonderful beta Sanity Fair has slapped my commas into shape once more, and I thank her greatly.
 
Chapter 15 Times Gone By
 
“Buffy! Are you all right?” Someone was shaking her. She had been having the most marvelous dream. She and Spike were in a church, walking down the aisle together. An organ swelled in the background, and people laughed and clapped. He was looking down at her with such pride and devotion, and she was floating on a wave of utter contentment. Then suddenly the church and Spike faded, and she was blinking as her eyes opened to see Riley looking down at her alarmed.
 
“Who… what?” she muttered. Then her heart sank as she realized that she was back in the Magic Box, and the situation was unchanged. The ache she felt for Spike was still there, intensified somehow by the experience. She sat up, shaking her head slowly.
 
“How do you feel?” Willow asked, and hands reached to help her up to her feet.
 
“I’m… uh… I guess I’m the same,” she answered vaguely.
 
Faces fell all around. “You don’t remember anything new?” Tara asked.
 
Buffy shook her head. “It’s the same as it was before.” She moved shakily to a chair and sat down. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths. Her memories of Spike were intact, and she was grateful. A deep sense of shame washed over her for her moment of weakness. Forgive me, William, I panicked. But she found that the spell had worked, after a fashion. She wasn’t confused about what she wanted anymore. She wanted the memories of Spike, and she wouldn’t risk losing them. This world wasn’t hers. She was just passing through, but she was going to hold on to Spike in whatever way she could while she did.
 
All these thoughts did nothing for the Scoobies though. “That is most unfortunate,” Giles said.
 
“I don’t know what happened,” Willow cried.
 
“Doesn’t matter,” Buffy said. Standing up, she exuded a sudden power and confidence that surprised the others. “I’ll be fine. What I don’t know, I’ll figure out.” She grabbed her coat and made her way to the door.
 
“Wait, where are you going?” Riley grabbed her arm as she passed by.
 
“Home.” She headed out the door with Riley on her heels.
 
“Wait, please!” he pleaded. With a sigh she turned to him. “At least… let me drive you, okay?”
 
“Fine.” She followed him to the car and climbed in, her mind turning down various possible pathways.
 
Riley soon interrupted her thoughts. “Can I just ask why you’re, so… I don’t know… mad at me or something?”
 
She pondered for a moment how best to answer that question. “Look, I don’t really know what sort of relationship we had. But in the short time I’ve been aware that I’m married to you, all you’ve done is hover over me like I’m two years old.”
 
“Buffy, I’m just worried about you!”
 
“But worried doesn’t mean that you need to shadow me twenty-four hours a day!” she snapped. “I can’t live like that. You need to trust that I’m not going to run off and shoot myself every time I’m out of your sight.”
 
Riley tightened his grip on the steering wheel. When he spoke it was in a low, distant voice. “I don’t want to lose you again. Watching you go through that was…” He shook his head, trying to find the words. “It was hell. Not knowing if you were going to ever come back to us. Not knowing if this was going to be the day I got the call saying you were dead. So yeah, I get worried.”
 
Staring at her lap, Buffy chewed her lip. “I didn’t choose to put you through that. And I guess I understand why you’re worried. But this isn’t the same thing. I don’t know what it is, but something is different this time, all right?” This time I’m not the Buffy you knew, and I’m sorry but this Buffy doesn’t love you.
 
“But how do you know if you don’t even remember the last time?” Riley cried, exasperated.
 
Buffy ground her teeth and clenched her hands. “I don’t know, instinct or something. But if you keep wringing your hands around me all day I’m going to kick your ass, literally. Got it?”
 
“Whatever,” Riley muttered. The rest of the ride was conducted in an angry silence.
 
Back at home, Buffy hung up her coat and turned to Riley. “You say I was a history major, right?”
 
“Um, yeah,” Riley answered sullenly, still hurt from the argument in the car.
 
Ignoring his grumbling she continued, “What sort of history? Did I specialize in anything?”
 
Riley looked puzzled by the strange question. “You did your senior thesis on daily life in Victorian England. Got the highest grade in the class.”
 
The answer made Buffy raise her eyebrows slightly at the coincidence. “Did I keep all my notes and stuff after I graduated?”
 
“They’re in the attic. Why do you suddenly want to know about college though?” He truly couldn’t see where she was going with this.
 
Buffy on the other hand turned and made her way toward the attic. “Just an idea,” she said vaguely over her shoulder. She pulled down the attic stairs, climbed up, and pulled the chain on the dangling light bulb. She searched among the boxes until she found several marked “Buffy, College Notes.” She dragged them close to the light and started rifling through them. As she started reading through notes in her own girlish handwriting and leafing through textbooks and old assignments, it somehow made sense. There was always some sort of connection. Maybe it was vague, but it was there. Even though time got all screwed up. She packed up the boxes and hauled them down to the spare bedroom. Her hands shook slightly as she unpacked the boxes. I could have lost him. In that stupid moment I could have lost him. But it hadn’t happened – she was still here, but so was Spike, and it seemed that nothing was going to change that.
 
She proceeded to spend the rest of the day reading about what things were like when Spike was William. The clothes and the social customs, food and drink, rituals around marriage and birth and death – it was all there. She became completely absorbed in the world Spike grew up in and lost all track of time. At six o’clock there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she said, without looking up from her notes.
 
Riley opened the door. “I was going to make some hamburgers for dinner. Are you hungry?”
 
She realized she was in fact famished, having somehow forgotten lunch in the process. “Yes, actually. Do you want some help?” She felt vaguely guilty about him waiting on her.
 
“Sure, if you’re not busy,” he said in a tightly controlled voice. He looked tense and miserable, and Buffy found herself feeling a bit sorry for him. She followed him downstairs and watched as he rummaged in the fridge. “You want to make a salad?”
 
“Sure.” She started cutting up vegetables and washing lettuce while he went out on the back porch and fired up a grill that she hadn’t noticed before. While the burgers cooked she set the table, wondering idly if she had repeated this domestic scene before. It gave her a pang to think that she would never have this sort of domestic life with Spike. Nothing she had read or experienced had prepared her for the deep, all-encompassing oneness of the claim, and she didn’t think she would ever be able to find anything like that again in her life. Maybe the soul made it stronger. Do all demons that claim each other feel this way? She had no answer to that, but as Riley came in bearing the steaming burgers she realized anew that there was no way she was going to find that feeling with Riley Finn. And hell if I know what I’m going to do about that. “That smells really good. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
 
Riley gave a slight smile. “I don’t have much of a cooking repertoire, but I can do slabs of meat as well as the next cave guy.” They sat down and dug in, silence falling once more between them.
 
Buffy wolfed down her burger and started in on her salad. “Who… who usually does what around here?” she inquired. It occurred to her that at least for now she couldn’t exactly kick the man out of what he thought was his house on his ear, so she had at least learn the ground rules.
 
Riley swallowed. “Well, I tend to be the lawn work, auto maintenance, and trash guy. You tend to deal with laundry and the floors. We both tend to straighten up, and whoever gets hungry first tends to cook.”
 
“Sounds fair,” she said. It actually sounded stultifying and frighteningly traditional. Gender roles clearly defined, with the slightest hint of sensitive modern man who would cook from time to time. Was she really this dutiful little wife who tended to the house, worked her little shop job, and just happened to slay things for a few hours every night? She had often longed for a ‘normal’ life, but now that one was laid out before her it felt like she was wearing someone else’s clothes. Was this really what she had wanted all those years? Her life in Rome, dealing with the new Slayers and drifting through unsatisfying relationships still seemed more real than this cardboard cutout life she seemed to inhabit this time around. The thought occurred to her again that it seemed as if someone had devised a sort of reward for her, but with her memories of what had been the reward was hollow and unsatisfying.
 
Riley’s voice broke into her reverie. “Did you find what you were looking for in all your old notes? You were up there for a long time.”
 
Buffy shrugged noncommittally. “I was trying to jog some memories. I ended up just being really interested in Victorian England.”
 
“Well, that’s something,” Riley said, brightening a bit. “I mean, you really threw yourself into that research when you were doing your thesis. You lived and breathed Victorian times for months.”
 
“I guess I haven’t lost everything,” Buffy replied.
 
“Maybe Willow will come up with something different that can nudge you the rest of the way,” Riley continued, clearly feeling encouraged by the apparent slight improvement.
 
Buffy put her fork down resolutely and fixed him with a piercing look. “Riley. I know you want to help. I get that. But I really just want to see if things come back gradually on their own, okay? I don’t want Willow trying one spell after another on me to see what sticks. It might take a little longer, but it makes me feel more in control, and I need that. Do you understand?”
 
The hopeful look receded somewhat from Riley’s face. “I guess I understand. It’s just, well, it’s pretty difficult going from having a wife to having a roommate. I just want my wife back.”
 
“Just give it time, all right?” Buffy got up and cleared her place, so she didn’t have to face those plaintive eyes. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she just didn’t see herself being his wife either. Riley had never understood her like Spike had. Even when she and Spike were still enemies he had understood who and what she was better than anyone. This Riley didn’t seem any more likely to have that deep insight into her character. Then there was the idea of other domestic ‘duties’. Sex with Riley had been okay, not terrible but not mind blowing either. Sex with Spike had been a revelation as he had once put it, and after they had claimed each other it was indescribably intense. How could she ever fake her way through sex with an ordinary man again after that? She glanced over at Riley, bent over his plate to gather up the last few bits of salad. No, she would never be able to fake it convincingly. Something would have to be done.
 
By the time dinner was done, the sun had gone down. “I guess I’ll go patrol,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager. The need to go out and kill things was very strong.
 
“Can I come with?” Riley said, getting up to clear his plate.
 
“Not tonight,” she said firmly. “If I don’t get to kill things, alone, right now, I am going to lose it.”
 
“So I’m just supposed to sit here alone every night?” he asked, frustrated.
 
Buffy took a deep breath, praying silently for patience. “Riley. If you woke up tomorrow in an apartment with Tara and she told you she was your wife, how would you react?” Riley opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, unable to think of a comeback to that. “Exactly. That’s how I feel right now. You need to absorb that message if we’re going to share living space until I get my memories back, all right?” She turned and fled outside, leaving him stunned in her wake.
 
The night welcomed her like a lover, and she was grateful for the darkness, the cool breeze, and the lack of company. She took her time walking through the cemeteries, keeping half an ear out for any prey but mostly thinking about Spike. She had spent all afternoon reading about his era. In some ways it seemed so stuffy and repressed, and the descriptions of women’s clothing with its corsets and bustles gave her inner fashionista the shivers. But she could also picture him, in a dark suit perhaps, his natural hair color showing through, reading, or walking through London’s fog. She wondered if he had ever gotten married, how long he had lived, what had happened to William Pratt. Maybe I could do some research on him.
 
A fledgling erupting from a nearby grave interrupted her thoughts. The woman barely had time to stagger upright before she was dust again, filtering quietly down onto her open grave. Buffy continued on, her mind wandering to London, in between the graves. At Restfield she automatically went to Spike’s crypt, knowing it would be empty. However, when she got there, she found that there were in fact three vampires inside, discussing setting up house there.
 
“This place is big enough for all of us,” One of the vampires was saying. “We just need to shove these coffins out of the way.”
 
“Or we could just sweep you into one,” Buffy quipped, stepping into the room.
 
The three vampires, all male, turned with surprise. The tallest, a black haired guy, turned and said, “Look, boys. This place even has dinner delivery.”
 
“Sorry, you’re on a strict diet,” she replied. She waited while the three of them closed in then leaped into action. A spinning kick took out one, and she grabbed an iron candlestick from the corner, sweeping the legs out from under the other two. She dusted them in quick succession, but the first grabbed her from behind. She flipped him and jumped on top of him. His eyes were wide and yellow, and for half an instant they reminded her so much of Spike that she hesitated. But then he swore, and his voice wasn’t her vampire and she cried out incoherently as she dusted him. She fell forward as he disappeared and she found herself crying again. Oh, God, this is so hard. She stretched her mind, calling over the broken link for her mate, but there was no answer.
 
 TBC