Chapter 13
 
Buffy settled Annie on the pile of exercise mats that served her as a nap bed, pulled a fleecy blanket over her and dropped an absent-minded kiss on her forehead. Then she straightened up, took a deep breath and went back into the shop to face the music.
 
“So that whole story you gave me about not knowing who it was; that was what? A pack of lies?”
 
Buffy sighed wearily. “No, Riley. There was a spell…”
 
“Oh. And of course that explains everything,” Riley said scathingly. “You were dating me, but you wouldn’t back me up and let me do my duty and recapture Hostile Sixteen. You protected her, and even announced you were going to move in with her. And then you told me you didn’t mean it because it was all a spell. We made love…”
 
“Lust,” Buffy broke in quietly.
 
“…and then you never… Huh?” Riley glanced around and flushed when he noticed their very attentive audience.
 
“We didn’t make love, we made… lust. It was ‘cos of the whole haunted sexy frat house thing. I explained…”
 
“Yeah, I know what you said, but…”
 
“But nothing, Riley. That’s really all that was.”
 
Riley heaved an exasperated sigh. “Maybe for you, that’s all it was, although I guess it explains why you never let me get that close again. But that wasn’t the end of it, was it? You let Dracula bite you, but you didn’t mean to, it just happened because of his magic thrall.” He folded his arms across his chest and said indignantly, “It seems to me that any time you do something you later wish you hadn’t, you blame some kind of magic.”
 
Buffy could only gape at him. Suddenly, finding the right words to break up with Riley wasn’t going to be hard at all.
 
Giles cleared his throat. “What Buffy has said is true, Riley. We were all affected by the memory spell, not just Buffy.”
 
Riley didn’t appear impressed. He still stood rigidly facing Buffy, tight-lipped and defiant.
 
With a little shrug, Buffy simply said, “Well, I’m sorry, Riley, but if it hadn’t been for the spell making me forget Sp... uh, William, I never would have started dating you in the first place. I love him.” A crease furrowed her brow. “For that matter, I’m not sure why I did go out with you. Remember that picnic? Didn’t we decide then that we were going to be just friends?”
 
Riley relaxed slightly and unfolded his arms. “Yes, we did, but then…” He scratched his head. “I don’t know. I suddenly found myself asking you out again. It seemed like something I had to do.”
 
“And… and I suddenly found myself saying yes. I do like you, Riley, but the magic was just never there and if you’re totally honest about it, you know that.”
 
Xander burst out, “But the two of you have been so happy together! You were made for each other!”
 
Buffy gave a little shrug. “Not so much with the happy, Xan. Riley could never get past the teenage single mother thing…”
 
“And Buffy never really loved me. She certainly never needed me. She’s right. We should have stayed just friends. It would have been far less…”
 
“Awkward? Uncomfortable? Unsatisfying?” Buffy finished for him. “So you understand, then? Now William’s back and I remember being in love with him, what you and I had, whatever it was; it’s over.”
 
“Yeah. I guess. Actually, it’s kind of a relief. Things haven’t been right for a long time. Well, from the beginning, really. I just couldn’t seem to end it.” Riley sighed, gave a little wave, turned and headed towards the shop door. “Bye, Buffy, everyone. I think I’m gonna contact Graham and find out some more about that new unit. I’ll see you Friday night as usual for our regular movie date, okay Buffy?”
 
“Yes, of course.” Buffy clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. “I don’t know why I said that. What’s wrong with me?”
 
Riley pulled up short with his hand on the door and turned back. “I don’t get it. We just broke up, right? So why am I asking you out again? And why did you say yes?”
 
“Oh for Odin’s sake,” Anya said impatiently. “Can’t you tell? It’s obvious there’s a spell on you both!” She directed a meaningful look at Willow who was sitting quietly in the corner, trying to shrink down behind Giles. “Isn’t that right, Willow?”
 
Buffy spun on her heel and looked at Willow in disbelief. “Oh my god! Willow?”
 
“I’m sorry, Buffy! I’m so sorry!” Willow cried, grimacing anxiously. “I totally forgot about that one!”
 
“What did you do? And for god’s sake, why?”
 
“After losing Angel and what you’d told me about Sp—uh William, I thought… Well, you were so sad and Riley liked you so much and you needed a boyfriend, a nice normal human boyfriend and...”
 
“And so… what? You pimped me out? Willow! How could you?”
 
“Buffy! No! It so wasn’t like that! It’s only… you were hesitating so long with the likeage and dithering about the dateage and I just kinda gave you both a teensy tiny nudge in the right direction. Then when there was the Annie freakage, I just kinda gave the spell a little boost so he wouldn’t leave you, ‘cos you hurt so bad when guys you like leave you and…”
 
Buffy’s eyes went wide with horror. “What? You took it upon yourself to decide I needed to date, appointed yourself as matchmaker to select my boyfriend for me, and thenforced me to date him?”
 
“But Buffy, I was only trying to help!”
 
“Enough!” Buffy closed her eyes, clenched and unclenched her fists and took several deep breaths, desperately trying to resist the overpowering urge to beat Willow to a bloody pulp. When she thought she’d managed to control her rage sufficiently, she opened her eyes again and glared at the girl who for years she had regarded as her closest friend. In a quiet, restrained tone she said, “You need to undo it. Now, Willow.”
 
Willow edged out of her chair and sidled across the shop floor towards the counter, keeping a wary eye on both Buffy and Riley, who was staring at her in shocked disbelief. “Yeah, sure, Buffy. I’ll get right on that. I… I’ll just need a few things. Uh, Anya? Have you got any essence of rose thorn? Oh! And... and a feather?”
 
“Raven, canary or dove? And will that be cash or charge?”
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
In an attempt to distract himself from his almost overpowering desire to snap Willow’s neck, Spike tuned out the discussion about spells and their components, and contemplated the young man standing looking lost in the middle of the floor. He gave the impression of being an all-American good old country boy, but Spike had the feeling there was something off about him. He got up and slowly circled the taller man, employing all his enhanced senses to evaluate him.
 
Now he recognised what had seemed wrong. Riley didn’t have a trace of Buffy’s scent on him. That was a welcome relief, but the odd thing was that he did have the scent of another… no two other females on him. And blood, some fresh and some not so fresh, centred around his arms. The blood could be explained if he’d been injured while patrolling, but the feminine scents…
 
“William? What are you doing?” Riley asked warily, turning to follow Spike’s movements.
 
Totally ignoring him, Spike said, “Oy, slayer. Seems your boy here doesn’t have the same scruples as you do about cheating. He stinks of two other women.”
 
“Riley?”
 
Buffy sounded wounded and insecure, and Spike winced when he realised that his discovery had hurt her.
 
“Buffy! No! It’s not what you think!”
 
When Riley spun around to defend himself to Buffy, Spike caught a glimpse of a healed scar on his neck, half hidden by his collar. A scar that, to the initiated, could never be mistaken for anything else.
 
All the clues fell into place. Spike grasped Riley by the hand and roughly shoved his sleeve up past his elbow.
 
“No!” Riley tried to twist his hand out of Spike’s grip and when Spike released him he went to pull his sleeve back down. Before he could complete the move however, Spike repeated the action on his other arm. Both arms bore bite wounds in varying stages of healing, one on the inside of each elbow still covered by bandages through which fresh blood was seeping.
 
“Brainless bloody wanker!” Spike snarled, allowing his demon to surface in his anger. “How long have you been dicing with death in the bite shops?”
 
Riley skittered away from him and ran towards Buffy, putting himself as a barrier between her and Spike. “Oh my god! Buffy, look out! He’s been turned! Where’s your stake?”
 
Impatiently, Buffy pushed him away from her. “I know that, Riley. Spike was turned over a century ago. Stop avoiding the subject.” She gripped one of his arms and examined it closely. “What’s a bite shop?” She flung the offending limb away from her in disgust. “As if it isn’t totally obvious. God, I knew you could be a little naïve where demons are concerned, but I never pegged you for suicidally stupid. You could have been killed! Or even worse, turned! Then you’d have put us all in danger!”
 
“I think when this thing started it was just some stupid, immature game. I wanted to know what the attraction was with Angel. Why instead of staking her, you protected Hostile Sixteen…”
 
“Harmony,” Buffy ground out. “Her name is Harmony.”
 
“…And I needed to know what you felt when Dracula bit you. I wanted to know why vampires seem to have so much power over you.” He gestured towards Spike. “And now it turns out…” In horrified disbelief, he said, “My god, you really do have a sick thing for vampires.”
 
Buffy slowly shook her head. “You so don’t get it.”
 
Riley sighed and subsided wearily, pulling his sleeves back down. “No, no I don’t get it. I don’t think I ever will.” He turned to Willow who was standing watching wide-eyed, her arms full of magical supplies. “Do your thing, Willow, then I’m out of here. I’ve had it with this hellish town. I can’t get away soon enough.”
 
A few minutes later, while the smoke was clearing and Willow was scurrying around clearing up the residue of her spell, the shop bell tinkled as the door closed behind Riley.
 
Buffy turned towards Giles, her arms folded firmly across her chest. “So, bite shops. How come you never told me about them before?”
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
Buffy was finding it difficult to understand Giles’ point of view. “You’re saying what? That because these people are too stupid to understand how dangerous it is, they deserve to die?”
 
“Of course not, Buffy. It’s just that I'm not sure this is where your efforts are best spent at the moment. Perhaps you should focus on a less ambiguous evil. Glory, for instance?”
 
Buffy waved that suggestion away. “Oh, Glory’s not a problem.” She turned to Spike. “You know where these bite shops are?”
 
“When I was here before, there was one down behind Willy’s. I don’t know if it’s still there, but I can easily find out.”
 
“Okay then. You up for a little mayhem later? I need to send a message that these evil… leeches aren’t welcome in my town.”
 
Spike leered and waggled his eyebrows at her. “You know me, love. Always up for wreaking a little mayhem.”
 
Buffy smiled at him and nodded her satisfaction, then directed her gaze at Willow, the smile fading from her face.
 
“Will, give me your word that there aren’t any more ‘let’s screw with Buffy’s life’ spells floating about out there that you’ve conveniently forgotten about.”
 
“I promise, Buffy. That’s all. No more, honest. I know I keep saying sorry, but I am. I just wanted to help you to be happy and…”
 
“And tried to control every aspect of my life to suit you. You’ve been a good friend, mybest friend since I first arrived in Sunnydale, and I’d hate to lose you, but you do get that I don’t trust you any more, right?”
 
“You… you want me to go?” Willow’s eyes welled up and she sniffled.
 
“I need you to stay away from me for a while, Will. Well, at least until you’ve been to that coven that Giles was talking about and learned the witchy rules. Then… well, then we’ll see.” Willow brightened up and opened her mouth to speak but Buffy held up her hand to stop her. “But understand this. If I ever find out you’ve done another spell on me without discussing it with me first…”
 
Spike put in grouchily, “Or me! Bloody manipulative bitch.”
 
“Or Spike,” Buffy nodded in agreement, “or anybody else for that matter, we’ll be done. Get that? No more second chances, Will.”
 
“But Buffy! It’s Willow, you can’t…”
 
Sniffing back her tears, Willow laid a restraining hand on Xander’s arm. “It’s okay, Xan. I deserve that. I did it all wrong. I got carried away using the magic and even though I had the best of intentions, I ended up causing nothing but badness for Buffy. I’m just grateful that she isn’t giving up on me altogether.” She sighed sadly, stood and started gathering up her possessions. “I understand, Buffy. I’ll go. You know where I am if you need me for Glory or anything.”
 
“Okay. That’s settled then. Now, Mom will be here shortly to collect Annie, so I’m gonna go deal with these bitey places. Coming, Spike?”
 
“Wait a minute, Willow.” Giles held out a hand to stop her. “Buffy, when you called this meeting, you said you had some important news for us. It obviously had nothing to do with Willow’s spell since you didn’t know of its existence. I wonder… Earlier you made an offhand comment to the effect that Glory isn’t a problem. What precisely did you mean by that?”
 
Buffy’s eyes went wide in surprise. “I said!”
 
Giles shook his head.
 
“I didn’t say? I thought I…” She frowned and chewed the inside of her cheek as she went over the evening’s events in her mind.
 
Giles heaved one of his best long-suffering sighs. “No Buffy. We have yet to discuss the Glory situation.”
 
“Oh. Sorry. My bad.” Buffy grimaced guiltily. “Well, last night on patrol, Spike and I found a bunch of Glory’s scabby minions. Or rather, they found us….”
 

A/N:
Some dialogue borrowed and partially adapted from S5 ep10 ‘Into the Woods’ written by Marti Noxon.