Furious as he watched Spike walk away, Riley tried again to shove past Buffy and get to him, but she managed to hold him back, although it was more difficult for her than it would have been a few years ago. She had allowed her strength to diminish from lack of exercising it, and Riley had become stronger.

They had never talked about why – as they rarely talked about anything – but Buffy suspected that it had some connection to his research on the experimental drugs the old Initiative had given him without his knowledge. A couple of years ago, Riley had mentioned to Buffy that he wanted to develop safer versions of those drugs, medications that could be used to increase strength and stamina without the nasty side effects.

Buffy had realized when her husband’s strength became inexplicably greater each day – he must have accomplished his goal.

Now, she regretted allowing herself to become so weak in comparison to Riley, as he shoved her back roughly to try to get to Spike, who had just disappeared down the stairs. She staggered a couple of steps, thrown a little off balance by the forceful push, but she recovered quickly. She wasn’t sure why it was so important to her; she only knew one thing.

She *could not* let Riley get to Spike!

“Riley, stop!” she cried out, grabbing his arm and exerting as much force as she could muster to spin him back around to face her.

The vindictive fury in his eyes stunned her, and her eyes widened with surprised realization of what was about to happen…in the moment before her husband raised his fist and brought it down hard across her face.

He had acted in anger and without thinking of what he was doing, and the blow had carried nearly his full strength behind it. A normal woman would have been at the very least knocked unconscious by the impact – possibly worse. But Buffy was not just a normal woman.

In spite of everything…she was still the Slayer. Even if she did not remember that.

The punch rocked her back a few steps, bent over to the side, her hand flying to her already bruising cheek. She stayed like that for a moment, not even moving, not even righting herself to face him, too utterly shocked by the fact that he had actually struck her to even react at all.

Riley seemed just as shocked as she was, just standing there, his eyes wide with the growing realization of what he had just done. His intense desire to punish the insolent slave vanished in an instant as he stared in shock at his wife, both of them hardly able to believe what had just happened.

As she slowly stood up straight, turning wide, stricken, tearful eyes on her husband, her trembling lips slightly parted in disbelief, under the slowly darkening bruise on her cheek, Riley shook his head slightly, a horrified expression on his face.

He had never struck her before. Yelling, screaming, hurtful words hurled at her – he was guilty of all of those things. And this incident was not the first time that he had unthinkingly pushed her out of his way, or acted in an intimidating way such as he had done tonight.

But never, ever had he actually hurt her.

“Buffy…” he whispered, shaking his head. “Buffy, I’m – I’m so sorry…” He moved forward, his hands extended to take her arms and pull her close to him. His hushed, intensely shamed tone told her that he at least partially understood the terrible gravity of the offense he had just committed.

It did not matter.

She shook off his touch, stepping rapidly backward, wide green eyes focused on his in painful accusation. “Don’t,” she said, her voice low and trembling with rage and pain. “Don’t – don’t touch me!”

“Please, Buffy – I don’t know why – I don’t know what came over me,” Riley insisted, his voice desperate and pleading as he moved toward her again, his hands open in a non-threatening gesture in front of him. “Please, Honey…please…”

Buffy just stared up at him, still disbelieving, such an intensity of pain and betrayal in her eyes that it almost hurt him to look at it. It forced him to see what he had done, what he had become.

And he could not face it.

“Honey…if you had just listened to me,” he began. “I just – I just got so mad…if you hadn’t – you know, *undermined* me…in front of Spike, like that…”

She just stared at him, hardly able to comprehend his fumbling, desperate attempts to place the responsibility for his violence on her shoulders. A part of her saw it for what it was – the abuser’s attempt to manipulate his victim, making excuses, giving her reasons why *her* behavior had inevitably led to his, making it her fault instead of his. That part of her saw clearly through Riley’s awkward excuses and apologies.

Another part of her wondered if he could possibly be right. Maybe if she had…what? Allowed what would certainly have turned into a vicious beating, on a creature utterly incapable of defending himself against Riley? Just sat back and said nothing, when she knew that what he was doing was wrong?

Wasn’t it? According to Riley – according to the society that had slowly arisen around them – Riley was completely within his rights to hit Spike, for speaking to him the way her had. For any reason at all, really. Just because he felt like it. After all, Spike was not human. He *had* no rights.

The image of clear, expressive blue eyes meeting hers with a compassion and concern for her pain, in spite of the miserable condition he was in due to her, in spite of her brutality with him only moments before, filled her mind. Even after she had beaten Spike cruelly, taking out her frustrations with Riley on him, his main concern had been *her* pain.

That image stood in sharp contrast to the savage, out-of-control violence her husband had displayed moments before, and Buffy found herself wondering which of the two – her powerful, respected husband, or her willful slave – was really more human.

“Buffy…Buffy, please just talk to me,” Riley insisted, his gentle pleading voice now in sharp contrast to his raging, out-of-control yelling of only moments earlier. “I’m so, so *sorry*, Honey.”

Confused and unsure, Buffy stood there, allowing him to approach her as she stared at the floor at his feet, trying to make sense of her swirling thoughts. Gently, cautiously, Riley reached out and took her arms in his hands again, seeking her eyes with his own anxious, pleading gaze.

“Buffy? Honey? Please…say something,” he begged her softly.

She stared at the floor, lost in her own thoughts, barely even hearing his plea. *You can’t put up with this, Buffy,* she insisted to herself, though she felt lost and unsure of anything. *This is abuse.*

Suddenly, her flashing emerald eyes shot up to his, with an electric jolt of fury and conviction. She didn’t move, didn’t pull away from him, but he felt her body tense under his touch as she drew herself up straight, mustering every ounce of pride that had nearly been driven from her over the past few years.

“Take your hands off me,” she ordered, her words resounding with the natural authority that came with her calling, her head raised high as she met his eyes with defiant fury in her own – that masked the pain and confusion still just beneath the surface.

There was no question, under the power of her tone and expression, and Riley immediately removed his hands from her arms, taking a single step backward. “Buffy…” he began again, hesitantly.

“No,” she cut him off, her voice trembling with anger, but a righteous, assured anger. She paused for a moment, staring at him with something resembling disgust – but also an intense pain and betrayal -- in her eyes. “You need help, Riley. You are out of control.”

“Buffy,” he tried again, reaching toward her with one hand.

“I can’t live like this, Riley,” she broke in again, her voice softer, sadder now, but still firm and sure as she held his gaze. “You can’t treat me like this.”

“Buffy,” he pleaded softly. “I can do better. I can make this right.”

A part of her was surprised that he even seemed to care so much. Lately her husband had seemed so indifferent to her, practically ignoring her and making her desperate for his attention and affection. Now, he seemed to have been shocked out of his apathy by the impact of what had just happened between them.

God, how long it had been since she had seen that passionate, desperate look in his eyes as he looked at her – as if she were the most precious thing in his world, and he would do anything it took to keep her.

Almost against her will, she could feel her resolve weakening under the soft, pleading look in his pained, guilt-stricken eyes. “Please, Buffy. Please, you have to forgive me. I swear to you, Buffy. It will never….*never*…happen again. Please, *please* give me another chance.”

She looked away from him, confused and uncertain again. She had been married to Riley for five years now, and they *had* had some good times – though those times seemed so far away at this point that she could hardly remember them.

Up until the moment when she had realized with a sense of shocked betrayal that he was about to hit her, she had been desperate to make things work between them, in spite of their recent problems, in spite of Riley’s infidelities. She had somehow come to view all of their problems as somehow *her* fault. If she was more attractive…if she showed more of an interest in Riley’s work…if she was more cooperative with him…

Even now, that nagging little voice was whispering in her head, ways in which she could have handled the situation differently, to have prevented Riley’s explosion. Was one little mistake – one time when he lost his temper – enough to give up completely? To refuse to forgive him and throw away their marriage?

An image flashed into her mind again, of that morning, and her own fury, as her own powerful fist had slammed into the face of someone utterly at her mercy, unable to fight back – for no offense, really. For no other reason than that *she* had failed to control her temper.

As Riley had done just now.

“Buffy…I’ll do anything,” Riley was pleading. “I’ll do anything to make this up to you. Please…forgive me.”

Buffy looked back up at him, most of the fire fading from her eyes, leaving only the hurt and sorrow again. “Riley…you have to control your temper,” she told him, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes welling with tears. “You get so – so *angry*, and – and you’re too hard on…on everyone.”

Riley nodded almost eagerly, and she was uncomfortably aware that his reaction would have been the same no matter what she said. He was just desperate to please her at that moment, and would say anything he had to to accomplish that. “I know, Buffy, and I’m sorry. Look…forget about the whole thing with Spike,” he told her. “You handle it your way. I’ll stay out of it. You’re right. I’ll do better, Buffy, I swear!”

Buffy did not say anything for a moment, searching his eyes with an aching longing, hoping to see a sincerity there that she just could not find. Still, she lowered her eyes and nodded slowly. “Okay,” she whispered. “We’ll try.”

And then, much to her shock and dismay – Riley broke down. At her implicit permission, he moved forward again to pull her close to him, bending down so that his head was almost level with hers, sobbing softly as his hands clutched her closer. “God, I’m so sorry, Buffy!” he repeated. “I’m so sorry! I can’t – I can’t lose you!”

Buffy still felt detached…numb…unsure of what exactly she felt. No tears fell from her wide, still disbelieving eyes, as one hand rose to absently stroke through Riley’s hair in a token gesture of comfort. She could scarcely comprehend what had just happened here… and the fact that she had just accepted it so easily – so quickly giving in to Riley’s pleas and forgiving him for his crime.

A part of her knew that she had just made a foolish mistake – that one allowed abuse often leads to another, and that she had just given Riley subconscious permission to commit the same offense again, the next time his temper got out of control.

But another part of her, the girl who had been so broken and degraded by the emotional cruelty and disregard of her cold, unfaithful husband, simply accepted this as she had accepted everything else that had happened over the past few years.

And all the while, the slowly building rage at her mistreatment that she had to work harder and harder to hide, boiled and seethed just below the surface, screaming for an outlet.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to her husband, in spite of her conflicted emotions. “It’s okay, Honey.”

When Riley had regained his composure, he pulled away from her, smiling at her hopefully though his tears. “Things are gonna be better, Honey,” he promised. “You’ll see.”

She nodded, forcing a smile to her lips, her mind still preoccupied with the wild vortex of her swirling thoughts. She still could not make sense of it all; how it had all happened. One moment things had seemed to be going on as usual, and the next they had been spinning out of control in a violent eruption of anger.

She knew that, as she had done that morning, Riley had struck out at the nearest person to him, rather than the true object of his wrath. He had been furious with Spike, and all she had wanted to do was protect him, knowing that if Riley got started in on Spike, he would not stop until he had done some serious damage.

Why had she wanted so badly to protect her slave?

And why now, in the aftermath of the traumatic experience she had just had, was seeing him the only thing she wanted to do?

She *had* told him to wait for her in the basement, that she would be down there shortly to “deal with him”, she remembered.

Riley was saying something to her, murmuring low and suggestive, asking her if she wanted to go to bed…and she found herself mildly surprised by it. It had been weeks or more since there had been any kind of intimacy between them…and now, immediately in the wake of his violent outburst? Was that his way of attempting to make it up to her? she wondered incredulously, still feeling hurt and bewildered by the whole thing.

Still, she nodded a little distractedly, saying something vaguely about having something she had to do first, that she would meet him upstairs in a little while. Once he had disappeared in the general direction of their bedroom, she turned, facing the basement stairs.

After only a moment’s hesitation, she stepped forward and headed resolutely down to her slave’s room.