Buffy’s hands were trembling visibly as she reached for the doorbell outside the tiny house that Willow shared with Tara. She and Willow had discussed it over lunch the other day and had decided that a casual, intimate atmosphere was probably best for Buffy’s reunion with the rest of their little group. They planned to meet up first at Willow and Tara’s house, and then decide from there how they would spend the day.

Xander and Anya had been married for a couple of years now, but still hung out with Willow and Tara on a regular basis. When Willow had told her, Buffy had been very happy for them, but had not been able to prevent the pang of jealousy at the thought of the happy relationships her friends seemed to be in, and the fact that those relationships had not forced their friendships to disband, as her marriage had done.

She thought wistfully of how different everything might be today if Riley had just been able to accept her friends.

Willow and Buffy had agreed that it would probably be best if she arrived a bit before the others at the house, rather than having everyone there when she got there and surrounding her all at once. Buffy had already regained her sense of comfort with Willow, but she was still terribly nervous about seeing the others again after so long.

She hoped that they would be as understanding and forgiving as Willow had been.

So here she was, outside the house at 9:55 – a mere five minutes before everyone else was supposed to arrive.

The door opened, and her stomach dropped with an irrational fear, before she saw her friend standing in front of her, an eager smile of anticipation on her face. “Buffy!” Willow gushed, obviously excited. “Come on in!” She took her by the arm and led her inside. “Xander and Anya are gonna be here any minute! They’re so excited to see you, Buffy! They just can’t wait! Are you thirsty? There’s all kinds of soda and iced tea and – ooh! I made lemonade!”

Willow’s hopeful eyes met hers in a question, and Buffy could not help feeling just the tiniest bit overwhelmed. Her friend obviously had such high expectations for this reunion. She hoped desperately that she was right about how badly the others had missed her.

Suddenly, she thought of the question that had occurred to her on the way over. There was one more person that she was desperate to see.

“Um, sure, Will…thanks…I’d love some lemonade,” she nodded, a little distracted, following her bouncing friend into the tiny, cozy kitchen.

“Um…Will?” she began, a little hesitantly, as Willow busied herself taking glasses out of the cupboard, and a tub of ice cubes from the freezer.

“Uh-huh?” Willow responded, a little too brightly. Buffy winced inwardly; she was trying *so hard*.

“Um…what about…um…what’s Giles doing these days?” she managed to get the question out.

Willow’s smile fell a little, and she looked away from Buffy’s eyes for a moment. “Oh. Well, um…we don’t get to talk to him much anymore. You know, he keeps himself… pretty busy. What with the…the rallies, and the lectures, and…well, you know…”

“Yeah,” Buffy said softly. “I know.”

Long before she had stopped talking with her friends, Riley had insisted that Buffy cut her ties with her Watcher, and as much as it had hurt her to do it – at the time it had made a terrible sort of sense to her.

After all, it had taken her quite by surprise when Giles had begun speaking out so openly against the work of Riley’s organization. After all the time he had spent helping her learn how to better destroy the creatures that Riley sought to control, she had not expected him to be so adamantly against it.

But he found the experiments, the behavioral and mind control techniques, and ultimately, the slavery, utterly abhorrent. To her, at first, there had not seemed to be so vast a difference between what Riley was doing and the slaying she had been doing for the past four years.

By the time she began to feel differently, to see the more disturbing aspects of Riley’s work, it had been too late. She had already told Giles that as Riley’s wife, she could no longer have anything to do with him as long as he was so outspoken against her husband and what he was doing.

She knew that she had hurt her Watcher terribly when she had turned her back on him so completely, and she was too ashamed to attempt to contact him after that, even when the point came that she longed to desperately. She was terrified of his reaction, certain that he would not want to talk to her at all.

And Willow’s reaction to her question just now only confirmed that fear.

Before they could discuss it any further, though, they heard quick, light footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, Tara walked into the kitchen. Buffy felt immediately nervous and uncertain.

She had barely had a chance to begin to get to know Tara when she and Riley had started getting serious, and Tara had never spent much time with them. Willow had told her that Riley made her feel uncomfortable, but had never elaborated. Buffy had not even adjusted completely to the idea of Willow’s dating Tara at all, and all that Tara really knew of Buffy was that she had thrown aside her friendship with Willow, and hurt her deeply.

Buffy did not think that was a very strong foundation to build a friendship on, and was certain that Willow’s long-time girlfriend would naturally tend to dislike her.

That was why the warm reception she received from Tara stunned her. With a soft, inviting smile, Tara moved forward without hesitation to hug her firmly. “Buffy!” she said, with genuine welcome in her voice. “It’s so good to see you!”

Something about the girl put Buffy immediately at ease, and she felt herself relaxing a little.

Then the doorbell rang, and her nerves were once again screaming in terror.

“I’ll get that,” Tara quickly volunteered, giving Buffy a reassuring smile before leaving the kitchen to answer the door.

“Oh, God, Will!” Buffy whimpered, turning to face her friend with wide, panicked eyes. “I can’t do this! I just can’t!”

“Buffy – you don’t have to *do* anything!” Willow gently reassured her, taking her hand and squeezing it comfortingly. “They can’t wait to see you! I promise!”

Buffy did not respond, but she was still not at all sure.

“Come on,” Willow urged her. “Let’s go on in there.”

The sound of soft voices halted suddenly as they walked into the living room, and Buffy found her eyes focused on the floor. She was too ashamed to face her friends, terrified of their reactions. She was well aware of the reaction that she *deserved*.

Finally, she dared a glance up – and her eyes were immediately caught by the deep expressive dark eyes of her best friend. Xander seemed struck speechless, just staring at her in a sort of shock, as if scarcely able to believe she was really there, his eyes welling with tears.

She scarcely noticed Anya at his side, until the former vengeance demon moved forward with a wide smile that seemed still and false, though Buffy knew well that it was completely natural for Anya.

“Buffy!” Anya threw her arms around Buffy in a quick, forceful hug, then pulled back to look her in the eyes as she said encouragingly, “We’re so glad you’ve decided you want to be friends with us again! We’ve missed you!”

There was no spite or sarcasm in her voice; she was simply speaking as honestly as ever, and amazingly, Buffy was not hurt by the words. Instead, they filled her with a warmth and affection toward the girl that she had never felt, even when they had been friends before.

Anya’s greeting gave Xander a moment to recover, and as she stepped back, he suddenly enfolded Buffy in an embrace with strength to rival Buffy’s usual bone-crushing hugs. She felt her eyes flood with tears at the desperate emotion conveyed by that hug.

“Buffy,” he whispered. “Buffy, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you!”

“Xander,” she replied, surprised by the sob that escaped her throat. “I’m so sorry, Xander! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Shhh,” he whispered, rubbing her back gently, his own voice trembling with tears. “No, Buffy, no, it’s okay.” He pulled back from her to look her in the eye, and the open acceptance and forgiveness in his eyes filled her with relief, and an overwhelming sense of love for this boy, no longer a boy, who had been there for her through everything, and was not about to stop now, no matter what offenses she had committed.

Across the room, where Willow had waited to allow Buffy to have a measure of privacy for her reunion with Xander, Tara met her, quietly taking her arm to pull her further aside.

“What is it?” Willow asked softly, out of earshot of the others, frowning with concern at the troubled look in her lover’s eyes.

“Will – something’s – off, about her,” Tara admitted, reluctantly but with a certainty that told Willow there was no doubt in her mind about what she was saying.

“What do you mean, *off*?” Willow’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Her aura,” Tara clarified, shaking her head slightly. “I – I don’t know, exactly, but it’s like – something’s *missing*. Like something about her life force is…is wrong. I – I think she’s in trouble, Will. It’s like she’s…not really living. Just…barely surviving, you know? There’s an awful lot of pain. And – and fear.”

Willow’s gaze turned to Buffy with concern, as she asked softly, “What can we do? We need to help her!”

“If I could – do a more thorough check of her aura,” Tara suggested. “Maybe I could find out what’s wrong.”

Willow nodded slowly. “We can try to get her to let us do it,” she agreed. “If Buffy’s scared, Tara – it’s gotta be really bad!”


This was bad. Very, *very* bad.

That was the thought that ran through Spike’s head as Riley dragged him through the open doorway of the one room on the basement level of the house that had a lock on the door. The slaves were not allowed the privacy or privilege of locking their bedroom doors. However, the master of the household required privacy for what went on in this particular room.

When his fantasies took a darker turn, requiring the pained screams of his partner to satisfy his need, or when a slave had committed a particularly serious offense, and needed more severe punishment, this was where Riley would take them.

When the two occasions combined in the twisted lust for revenge that consumed Riley at the moment – well, Spike knew that he stood very little chance of leaving this room alive, and very little chance of even *wanting* to live by the time Riley was finished with him.

And Buffy had left for the day, and night, according to her plans, believing that her husband was out of town for the rest of the weekend, and he would be safe in her absence.

So much for that.

Riley jerked him to a stop right beneath a pair of iron manacles hung from the ceiling over his head, and Spike tried again to pull out of his grip, struggling desperately, knowing that if he did not escape now, he stood little chance of surviving at all.

But Riley was too strong, and his efforts only earned him another dizzying blow across his face, as Riley jerked his head back up by the hair to snarl in his face, “I *really* hope you try that again, Spike!”

Spike did not try it again.

Riley pulled the chains down to lock Spike’s wrists into them, painfully tight, and Spike realized with disgust that the cuffs were intended to hold the smaller wrists of a woman.

*Soddin’ pervert,* he thought with revulsion…and the next moment, his thoughts were cut off in savage pain as Riley yanked hard on the end of the chain, drawing Spike’s wrists sharply upward, high enough that his feet just barely touched the floor. He fought back a cry of pain at the fiery agony that shot from his wrists through his arms, forced to support the entire weight of his body.

Riley smirked. “Oh, don’t hold back on my account,” he sneered, coming close behind him to pull his head back again, his next words a menacing whisper in his ear. “I’d *love* to hear you scream!” He then released his hair and suddenly gripped the back of the collar of his shirt, ripping it off of his body in a single, powerful move, the downward pull sending another electric jolt of pain through his already strained upper body.

Spike was breathing hard with the exertion that was forced upon his body, as he struggled not to give the wanker what he wanted. “Yeah,” he managed to choke out after a moment. “I bet you do…bet you’d also love it if I was a woman, but I guess you can’t always get what you want, can you, you bloody pervert!”

Riley’s features twisted in an expression of rage. He drew back his fist and rammed it into Spike’s back in a vicious kidney punch that stole his breath.

“Actually,” he smirked. “I usually *do* get what I want, Spike.” He crossed the room in front of him to a large urn, about waist high, filled with what appeared to be ordinary water – though Spike knew immediately that it was not.

As he watched with rising apprehension, Riley reached into it and took out a vicious looking whip, with many leather strands hanging from the handle. The whip had been soaking in the liquid for a long time, and the strands were a little swollen with the clear fluid that dripped from them.

Riley smiled cruelly at him as he went on, “And I really think I’m going to this time, too, Spike.” As he spoke he slowly walked to stand directly in front of him, a vindictive light in his eyes. He ran his hand along the glistening, wet handle of the weapon, then slapped him on the back in a mockery of a friendly gesture, chuckling as the vampire bit back a moan of pain as the holy water seared into his flesh.

“What do you think?” Riley asked, his tone light, but his eyes full of malice as they met Spike’s, and his heart sank. He looked away, not wanting to reveal his rising fear to the cruel man who would relish it so much. Riley just stared at him for a moment, taking in his silent struggle, before turning his back to him again for a moment, his fingers playing over the sodden strands of the whip thoughtfully.

Spike’s eyes were down when he heard Riley speak in mild surprise. “Oh. There you are. Thought you were going to miss the whole show.”

Spike’s eyes shot up to the doorway, and he felt a sick sense of shame mingled with his utter hatred for the figure framed there, that she should see him like this.

Velvet smiled triumphantly into his eyes as she sauntered into the room, her words directed at her master.

“Are you kidding?” she said with a soft laugh, a cruel light sparkling in her dark eyes. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”