"I think we'd better get back downstairs," Buffy finally whispered apologetically, with a soft, dazed sort of smile as she pulled reluctantly away from the latest of countless sweet, tender kisses that they had spent the past thirty minutes indulging in. "They're gonna be worried about us."

Spike and Buffy had not moved from the bathroom floor since they had first sat down there nearly an hour earlier. Her powerful revelation of her feelings had been naturally followed by more slow, passionate kisses, as she reaffirmed to him again and again with her lips and her embrace just how deeply she had meant her words.

Now that she had finally admitted to him and to herself the way that she really felt, she could not seem to take her hands off him, and he seemed to return the sentiment. The soft, almost reverent brush of her kiss, her warm, encircling arms around him, told him clearly how much she cared for him -- that at long last, she really did love him.

But he still made her say it, over and over, just needing to hear it again, to convince himself that it was really true. It was all just so beautiful and amazing, he could hardly believe it was really happening to him. Every few moments, he would break his lips away from hers, whispering breathlessly, "Tell me again."

And she would gladly comply, her heart aching with the depth of emotion that now, she could hardly believe she had ever denied. "I love you, Spike. I love you so much."

But now, as much as they hated to, they knew that they had to end their little tryst, and face the situation at hand. Riley was sure to be more of a problem to them now than ever, after the incident at his house, and they had to fill the others in on what had happened, and figure out exactly what they were going to do about it.

He nodded, breathless, as he reluctantly drew back from her. "Right. S'pose we haven't got much choice, have we? Still got Captain Cardboard out there to take care of -- probably on the warpath now that he’s been bloody well humiliated." The smirk that he could not suppress at that thought faded quickly as he added, “More dangerous than ever.”

"Yeah," Buffy agreed as she got to her feet, pointing out quietly, "And we need to find out what's up with those vampire guards, too. Nobody's legally supposed to own unchipped vampires. It's considered a hazard. So obviously he's up to something that he’s been keeping a secret -- until now."

As she spoke, she reached carefully to help him to his feet, remembering that he was still injured. He winced slightly as he stood up, but did not seem to have as much difficulty as before, or to be in nearly as much pain.

"How you doing?" she asked sympathetically, wrapping her arm around his waist and drawing close to him in a tender, loving way that sent a thrill through his heart. Yet another reminder to him of the feelings she had just declared to be true.

"Better," he said with a nod and a reassuring smile. "I heal quick, love."

"Good," she replied with a secretive little smile of her own, lowering her head to kiss him gently on the neck, pulling up slowly to look him in the eyes with a sultry expression in hers. "How much better do you think you’ll be feeling by tonight?" she asked him in a tone of innocence that was so clearly *not*!

The low, husky tone of her voice, and the sparkle in her eyes that was both teasing and enticing, sent a rush of desire straight through him. His eyes widened, and he swallowed hard, staring at her, as he realized just exactly what she was saying.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be completely healed by then,” he nodded quickly, his eyes focused on hers, feeling a bit breathless again.

Her smile became a smirk at the effect she was obviously having on him, as her hand around his waist dipped down to play along the line of the waistband of his jeans. She leaned in to place several more quick kisses along his neck, before looking up to whisper, “You sure?”

He drew in a little gasp at the contact, before he finally managed to get out, "Oh, I'm bloody positive, pet!"

"Good," she whispered, releasing him and sauntering slowly ahead of him toward the stairs.

He watched her for a moment, fascinated by her. It was almost frightening, the intensity of his feelings for her. No. Not almost. It was bloody terrifying. His mind flashed back to the first time he had seen that seductive, enticing look on her face -- right before they had spent that first night in her bed.

As they reached the door, he gripped her arm suddenly, surprising her with the force of the move as he spun her around to face him, giving her a deep, searching look with serious eyes of dark blue.

"Tell me again," he whispered.

She studied his face for a moment, reading in it all the insecurities and uncertainty, weaker than they had been before -- but still there. And it was her fault that they were there. She stepped slowly, deliberately toward him, standing directly in front of him and gazing up into his eyes with a firm assurance in hers. The playful seductress had vanished for the moment, and in her place was the loving woman, determined to prove her devotion, no matter how long it took.

One hand rose to rest behind his head as she spoke in a soft, clear voice of complete certainty. "I. Love. You." She pulled him down into one last tender but passionate kiss, not releasing him until he was gasping for breath. "Convinced?" she whispered, affection and amusement in her eyes at the startled look of awe in his as he stared down at her in utter amazement.

He nodded quickly. "Yeah. Right. Just checking," he said with a little shrug, trying for light nonchalance, but still a bit dazed as they headed toward the stairs.


"Riley's guards were vampires?" Giles was absolutely shocked by their news, as Buffy and Spike filled him and the others, gathered around the dining room table, in on what they had discovered. "Fascinating! That puts a whole new light on the whole situation, doesn’t it?"

"How is that possible?" Xander asked, frowning. "I mean -- he's all about keeping the vampires under control, right? *Not* letting them have the power to fight back. So why would he keep unchipped vamps around? Isn’t that pretty dangerous for him?"

"I think the better question is why would they keep *him* around," Mara countered, a dark note to her lowered voice. When the others seemed puzzled as to her meaning, she clarified. "He has to have put them through the training center if they're obedient enough for him to think they’re okay to have in his own house. After everything he's done to them, if they're not chipped -- why don't they just kill him the first chance they get?"

Her blunt question was only a little startling. They all knew that she had good reason to want to see Riley dead, and it was hard for her to understand why another vampire in the position to make that happen would not gladly take the opportunity.

"The whole thing just doesn't make sense," Buffy shook her head. "I know he's got to be up to something that he's not letting the general public in on. Officially, any unchipped vampires are supposed to be captured and sent to the training centers, right? Mara’s right; an unchipped vampire in a human home would be considered too much of a hazard."

Giles nodded. "Right."

Willow frowned thoughtfully for a moment, and then her eyes widened with memory. "Hang on a second," she said. "There was something....be right back!"

She jumped up from the table and hurried to the living room, returning in a matter of moments with that morning's newspaper. She scanned hurriedly through it, flipping pages quickly as she tried to find the specific article she was looking for. Finally, she found it, pointing at the place on the page with a triumphant air.

"There!"

"What is it, Will?" Buffy frowned, looking over her shoulder curiously.

“Here – let me read it,” Willow said, adjusting the paper in her hand and beginning. “ ‘The body of local politician Stephen Rhodes was found in his Sunnydale mansion late Tuesday night. Puncture wounds found on his neck, as well as other injuries, were consistent with a vampire attack.” She looked up at Buffy expectantly, wondering if she would have the same reaction that she had had.

Giles was the one who reacted, surprise and dismay in his voice. “Stephen Rhodes? How very unfortunate. He was one of my strongest political supporters in the abolitionist movement – and a very good man.”

“It says here,” Willow went on. “That they suspect it was one of his own vampires that did it. They think one of their chips malfunctioned, and that’s what allowed the vamp to do it.” She looked up at Buffy. “I took it at face value that that’s what happened – until you mentioned that *some* of the slaves might not have chips at all!”

“So you think,” Buffy began slowly. “You think this guy’s death could have been deliberate? Planned?”

“Mr. Rhodes was running for state Senate this fall,” Giles nodded grimly. “He was very openly in support of abolishing the slave trade. And with the support that we’ve been building for the idea – he may very well have been able to get it accomplished.”

“Well,” Spike said dryly. “Bloody convenient for Finn for him to suddenly be taken out of the way, in’nit?”

“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “The only vampires Rhodes owned were – well, quite like mine,” he said with a quick smile of affection toward the vampires in question. “He never treated them as slaves. He only owned them for their own protection. I can’t see how it would have been to the benefit of any of them to kill him.”

“Riley on the other hand,” Buffy added thoughtfully. “stood to gain a lot by taking this guy out of the picture. Didn’t he? There was a good chance that this Rhodes could have done him a lot of damage.”

“So you think that he planted an unchipped vampire in this guy’s mansion to kill him?” Xander frowned, troubled by the thought, which still seemed a bit far-fetched to him.

“It’s possible,” Giles nodded slowly. “That, or sent one of his own unchipped vampires in to do the job.”

“Funny that this isn’t on the front page,” Willow mused with a frown, looking down at the paper again. “I mean – he’s an up-and-coming politician; you’d think it’d be bigger news.”

“Unless somebody’s trying to keep it quiet,” Anya observed matter-of-factly. “It would be too suspicious if the story wasn’t in the news at all. So they put it back on the fifth or sixth page, in small print like that, and a lot of people miss it completely. Doesn’t even seem like a big deal.”

“Money talks,” Xander nodded grimly. “And it sure looks like Riley would have a lot to want to hide in all this.”

“It *does* appear that Riley is definitely involved in some things of a much darker nature even than we were aware of. If he is indeed keeping a number of unchipped vampires in his service, for purposes that would require them to commit acts of violence…”

“Then that could be exactly the bombshell we need to bring him down for good,” Tara finished the thought, an excited note coming into her voice. “I mean, this could shut his business down completely. If it got out to the public that Riley’s involved in something like this, Riley would go to prison, and the organization would fall apart.”

“One problem with this whole theory, though,” Buffy said with a frown. “How could he keep unchipped vampires under control? I mean – it’d just be too easy for them to decide to go after him. Riley wouldn’t risk that kind of danger, not right in his own house.”

“He must have some other way of controlling them,” Aaron said darkly, his tone setting the mood for the others, wondering what sort of method of control Riley might be using, knowing that whatever it was, it was probably as horrific as his other methods.

“Well, one thing is certain,” Giles said in a no-nonsense tone, after a heavy pause. “We’ve got to get into that training center. See what information we can gather. All of the vampires that Riley releases to be sold go through there. It only stands to reason that that would include any of the unchipped variety as well.

“Ooh!” Buffy perked up suddenly, hurrying out to the living room for a moment, before returning with the bag she had taken to Riley’s house. “Here – I think I’ve found our way in.” She took out the copies from Riley’s personnel files, with the names and passcodes of all of his employees.

“Will – if you could come up with something to make me *look* like one of these people – I can use one of these passcodes to get into the place,” she suggested.

Willow nodded. “Simple glamour. No problem, Buffy,” she assured her.

“So I pick somebody in this file with a really high clearance level, and go in there and see for myself what Riley’s up to,” Buffy went on. “See if I can get a lead on this whole unchipped vamp theory.”

“I’ve got an idea, Buffy,” Giles broke in. “I work with a lot of people of various – talents, and with access to many types of resources. It’s possible that I could get a very small camera, almost invisible, actually. If you could wear something like that into the center – you could come out with more than enough evidence against that infernal place.”

Buffy nodded thoughtfully. “Good idea.”

“Give me a day,” Giles said. “I’ll have the camera for you.”

“That’s another thing,” Buffy said with a frown. “Are we gonna be safe here for that long? I mean, Riley doesn’t know where you guys live,” she looked at Willow and Tara, “but I don’t think it’ll take him long to find out, once he starts looking. And – I *did* sort of – hold a gun to his head and threaten to kill him,” she blurted out in a rush, the look on her face somehow both sheepish and smug. “He could call the police or something, or just send his guys after us – and I don’t want to put you all in danger.”

“Don’t worry, Buffy,” Willow assured her with a self-satisfied smile of her own. “We’ve got it covered. He’ll never find this house.”

Buffy gave her a puzzled look.

“Shortly after we got involved in the abolitionist movement,” Tara explained with a smile at Willow that said clearly just how proud of her she was. “as soon as we realized how dangerous it could be – Will put a few precautionary measures in place.”

“There’s an elaborate glamour over this house – all of our ID’s, that sort of thing. On the official record – none of us exist,” Willow explained to a stunned Buffy. “Until it’s safe for us to again.”

“Riley could search to his little heart’s content to find any trace of our addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, anything,” Xander added with a little laugh, still impressed even after so much time with the skill that his best friend possessed. “And he wouldn’t find a thing.”

“Officially,” Willow said with a grin. “This house belongs to an elderly couple named Peter and Bonnie Reynolds.”

“Who – don’t…actually…exist,” Buffy said slowly, trying to comprehend what they were telling her.

“Exactly,” Willow grinned, very pleased with herself.

“Wow,” Buffy said, her eyes wide and solemn as she looked away, trying to fathom it all. “So this house is – a safe house. Completely untraceable.”

“Well isn’t that convenient,” Spike remarked quietly, obviously impressed. “Neat trick, Red.”

“Thanks,” she smirked.

“Okay. Well that settles that then,” Buffy said decisively. “As soon as Giles can get me that camera, I’m going into the center. And until then, I think we should all just kind of sit tight, try and stay as close to this house as possible. So there’s no chance of anyone’s getting hurt. Riley would have no problem at all using one of you to try to get to me.”

The others quietly agreed, and the meeting began to break up. Willow and Tara disappeared somewhere or other together, and Giles went off to use the phone. Xander and Aaron went off to watch TV in the living room, while Buffy, Spike and Anya helped Mara and Julian get the dining room straightened up.

“Well, I’m glad we finally have a plan,” Anya commented as she picked up a few empty coffee cups from the table. “It helps to actually be able to *do* something instead of just talking about it.”

“I agree,” Mara said as she leaned down in front of the ex-vengeance demon, wiping down the table with a damp cloth. “All this talk and not enough action was starting to get…”

She suddenly stopped, freezing completely, her eyes wide and focused.

“What?” Buffy asked, turning around to see why she had stopped talking, a frown of concern on her face when she saw the girl, still bowed over slightly, silent, apparently – listening.

“What is it?” Anya asked her, frowning. “What’s wrong, Mara?”

The female vampire slowly straightened up, tilting her head slightly as she looked at Anya with a sparkle in her eye. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your doctor, Anya?”

“Well, I don’t really go to the doctor much, unless I’m sick. And what does that…”

“Not your regular doctor, Anya. Your women’s specialist,” Mara clarified, an odd little smile on her face.

Anya actually looked a bit offended. “Well *that’s* a bit of a personal question!” she remarked. “Not really appropriate for a public conversation.” The air with which she said it made it obvious that she had been told that herself many times. “I mean, why would you even think about that? I’m not sick, Xander’s and my sex life has been *amazing*, no problems at all, and I’m not pregnant or anything, so….”

Her voice trailed off, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes widened as she stared at Mara, and whispered breathlessly, “Why do you ask?”

“You might wanna go,” Mara said with an outright grin of excitement now. “and get that last part checked out, Anya.” She paused, allowing her words to sink in. “Cause just now, when I was leaned over close to you – I distinctly heard *two* heartbeats!”