Title: Bring Me Into the Light (4/?)
AUTHOR: Mistress Ace & Em
E-MAIL: rosewood@inreach.com & slayerbuffy@aol.com
FEEDBACK: Is the butter on our bread. We write because the story begs to be told. Feedback lets us know if we struck a chord with you.
DISTRIBUTION: FINNatics, Vamps-N-Slayers, the other list archives as well. Anyone else interested, we'll be happy to share.
RATING: NC-17 (eventually – or maybe quickly depending on the whim of the muses)
CATEGORY: Story: Romance, Angst
SPOILERS: As You Were
PAIRINGS: B/R/Sam, m/f, f/f
DISCLAIMER: Don't own the characters at all. (More's the pity) They belong to the Great God Joss Whedon et al. We are just borrowing them for a little bit. That's all. No BtVS characters were harmed in the writing of this fic. Well, maybe just a little.
SUMMARY: Not back for long enough. Not nearly long enough and there were too many things left up in the air. But isn't that the purpose of fan-fiction?
DEDICATION: From Ace: To Em, there are many roads we walk down on the path of life, thank you for introducing me and my muses to this one. To Sharon, for reading the smut and not coding on us. To the whole Buffy community – love you...
From Em: To Ace for her understanding and assistance, as well as her ever-developing Riley and Sam. To all the lovely people who have sent us feedback continually - you will never know how much it means to me, but this one goes out to you. And to our betas, for making this story better by your input.

 
Bring Me Into The Light

Chapter 4

Hearing the explosion, Buffy jumped so hard she'd have hit the ceiling except for her seatbelt. She let out a muffled shriek and whipped around, looking for the source of the explosion with eyes gone huge with shock. Turned just in time to see the house collapse in on itself. Her nerves on fire and all her instincts screaming at her to run.

It wasn't that blowing things up was entirely new to her... but this had been completely unexpected, and that made all the difference in the world. Her heart pounded and her thoughts swirled in frantic little circles for a few moments. It took several minutes for the sound of her name to even register in her mind...

"Buffy, Buffy... Ry, pull over. Buffy... Oh honey, shhh. It's all right, it's all right." Sam was next to her, having crawled over the seat the instant she'd heard the other girl's cry. Opening her arms, she pulled Buffy into their protective circle. "We couldn't leave it standing. Had to drop it. Should have warned you."

Far enough away they wouldn't be connected with the explosion, Riley followed his wife's orders. He stopped the car, turning around in his seat to look back at them. Buffy was staring back at the house, her whole body rigid. "Buffy, I'm sorry. Didn't want you to know. Plausible deniability if you got caught."

Buffy trembled in the circle of Sam's arms, not even aware of their warm comfort. Buffy's reaction to the explosion was akin to her fear of earthquakes: not entirely rational, because the sensations were linked to tragic or traumatic events. She curled in on herself, wishing she could stem the flow of memories.

A melange of events: the Mayor's Ascension, blowing up the high school, the earthquake-heralded apocalypse, the final fight with Glory and the flash of light and pain when she'd jumped into the gate. The sensations mingled in her mind, shaking her up worse than anything ever had before, and she began to lose her grip on reality.

"No, no, please," she whispered. "Make it stop. Take me away. I want to go back. Please... why did they bring me back here? Why couldn't they have left me in peace? It hurts... it all hurts..." As the tears came and the words hung heavy in the air, Buffy instinctively curled up against Sam, seeking the warmth and comfort that she missed so much. Warmth and comfort she'd been missing since her mom died, since Riley left her behind – left her standing alone while the wind from the chopper blades tangled her hair and cut hard and cold across her cheeks.

"Shh... shh... Riley. Hotel. Now." Sam rocked Buffy back and forth, brushing the hair out of her eyes. Soft kiss of her forehead, holding her close as she shook and tears ran down Buffy's face. So much fear, so much pain. She hadn't seen anything like this, not even in the aftermath of the worst of their missions.

They were staying at the Marriott, in one of the back wings where no one disturbed them. Riley nodded, that was another order he didn't mind obeying. The powerful vehicle roared to life, tearing through the shattered night and away from the still collapsing building.

It could have waited. He could have waited. Come back in the daylight and taken the place down. He'd never seen Buffy react that way but there were things that had happened in the past year. Terrible things. Willow hinted at a few of them in her one e-mail and Xander said they needed to go out for a brew and a very long talk the next time he was in town.

Seems the time for that talk was pretty much... now.

Buffy's breath began to hitch as she cried onto Sam's shoulder. On some deep level she was aware of the soft touches and gentle words, but they had yet to fully penetrate to her conscious mind. But she knew she was safe and someone was looking out for her, and it was okay to cry.

She clung to that with the same terrified desperation she clung to Sam. Fortunately for Sam, even when distraught Buffy was still aware of her own strength and she refrained from holding too tight. Otherwise there might have been broken bones to contend with instead of just tears.

******

The Marriott sign was a few yards away when Riley shot a glance back over his shoulder. Buffy was still in Sam's arms, looking for all the world like a broken little doll. He'd never seen her like this, never seen her vulnerable even though he'd asked time and time again for Buffy to let him in.

The sight of her this vulnerable worried him. No Bronze tonight, not for them. They needed to get to the bottom of what was going on here. If there had been something bad enough to put Buffy in this condition, he and Sam needed to be apprised of the situation so they could neutralize the threat.

He spun the car into the lot, missing the curb by a few inches and pulled it into a parking spot. Riley moved with quiet precision, got out of the cab, opened the door and took Buffy into his arms. She weighed too little, felt brittle in his arms. Felt fragile, like spun glass that would shatter if you breathed on it. "Sam, get the doors."

His wife obeyed, sliding out of the back seat, closing the door behind her and racing ahead to open the side door to the hotel. Card key in hand, she waited for Riley to carry Buffy inside before following him in.

Buffy clung to Riley much as she had to Sam, but with one exception. She recognized him, and knew him to be safe, even though her subconscious didn't put a name to him right away. It relaxed her and her breathing began to ease. Tears still ran down her face but the sobbing had calmed.

She began to feel safe again, slowly, a tiny bit at a time. Comfort and caring, that was what she picked up from him... What he projected to her senses, dim as they were at the moment. Her rock, gone for so long and through some miracle restored to her when she needed him most.

How had she gone so quickly from competency to this? What had happened? What in God's name had happened to his brave girl? Riley strode down the hallway, questions buzzing in his head while he held her close. It didn't take long to reach his goal, to come a halt in front of their door. Which beeped quietly as Sam slid the key-card into the slot.

He waited for her to open the door, watching Buffy, watching the tears stream down her face from beneath closed lids. Felt all the walled-off places in his heart open all at once, even the places he'd kept secret from Sam. Getting this close to Buffy again was dangerous but he couldn't help it.

He still loved her.

Fiercely.

Completely.

Without question.

Sam held the door open for her husband, again following him as he carried Buffy inside. Rather than laying her down on the bed and raising questions that had no place here, Riley sat down on the couch, settling Buffy in his lap. A glass of water appeared at his elbow and he held it to her lips. "Drink... You're safe. It's over, Buffy, it's over."

Buffy obediently took a sip from the glass held to her lips. After a moment's delay as his words percolated through to her brain, she whispered, "It's never over..." She laid her head on his shoulder, her arms still wrapped around him as if afraid he would let her go.

Just like everyone else had let her go. The same litany of names, the same line of faces. They all loved her and they all left her.

And he was going to leave her again too.

He had to.

His heart belonged to someone else.

Sam looked at him from over the top of Buffy's head. She knew what was wrong. Had seen it in some of their men, even saw it in Riley's eyes when they'd first met. She pulled up a chair, watching both of them, mouthing, "PTSD."

Riley nodded; it made sense. This shouldn't surprise him. Buffy's life was one living war zone. What should surprise him was the fact she'd lasted this long without cracking. "It's over for now. You're with us and we'll keep you safe. It's what we do."

"There's no such thing as 'safe'. Safe was what I had, and then had taken from me. Safe and loved and happy. And it's gone, without so much as a by-your-leave. And they thought they were helping me!" Her tiny voice was laced with pain and bitterness. Dripped with it as she continued on, still clinging to him. "And even when they found out... I was still alone. No one help Buffy; she's the strong one, she can deal and get on with her life. My life," she cut herself off, nearly choking on the word.

"Buffy, I'm a little thrown by this. What happened to you?" He smoothed a lock of hair out of her eyes, tears wetting his fingertips. From somewhere, Sam handed him some tissues before perching on the coffee table.

Riley looked at his wife, not so much for answers than for her support. Which she gave with a gentle hand on his knee. Nothing in what Riley had told her about Buffy warranted this kind of behavior and judging by his stunned expression, Riley was as much in the dark as she was. So this had to be new. "Buffy. We can't help unless you tell us. Did... did something happen after Ry left?"

"It'd be easier to tell you what didn't happen," Buffy answered, control starting to creep back in as Riley gently wiped away her tears. "You want to hear the whole story or just the cliff's notes version?" She took a deep breath and sighed. It would be hard... extremely hard... but maybe, just maybe, it would help. God knows, nothing else had.

"The whole thing, Buffy. Give us everything from the minute..." Riley swallowed, looked away for a second. When he looked back, his voice was gravelly and thick. "From the minute you left me in the Magic Box to now."

Here was the opportunity they'd missed almost a week ago. What he knew of that night was limited to their final confrontation in the Magic Box, to his coming back to packed bags and an impatient Graham waiting on his doorstep... that last hour when he paced beside the helicopter. Looking up every time he heard a noise or saw some shadow that wasn't cast by the whirling blades.

Buffy took another deep breath and nodded. She began to tell him about that evening, and about her confrontation with Xander. Left nothing out, not even the way Xander ordered her to see what was before her eyes and in her own heart. "And he was right. He was right. I did come after you, Riley. I ran as fast and as hard as I could, because the time was running out."

Quiet shift of the body underneath and the arms she'd waxed poetic about on more than one occasion tightened. But Riley said nothing, just let her continue to talk. "I made it to the heli-pad just before the 'copter lifted off the ground. I got as close as I could, and I shouted at the top of my voice... but you never looked back. I stayed there, hoping against hope, until the helicopter was out of sight." She paused for a moment, dropped her eyes and attempted to master her voice before it broke again.

Riley thought he understood what pain felt like but he didn't. Not until this moment. If someone had cut his heart out with a dull knife, it couldn't have hurt worse. He'd almost turned back, almost looked down but Graham tapped his leg and handed him a dossier on where they were going. He used it to occupy his mind as he left Sunnydale and a large part of his heart behind.

In front of him, Sam sat and watched. She touched her wedding band with one finger, wondering if she should take it off. The look on Riley's face said it all, while he loved her... he still loved Buffy. He'd come to her on the rebound, had opened his heart after months of being badgered by her and maybe... maybe she should have left him alone.

Let him heal. Let him come back here and find Buffy again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Riley spotted Sam pushing her wedding ring down and he reached out to stop her. He shook his head slowly, that wasn't what he wanted. Not at all.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I never saw you there..." he whispered. So many other things he wanted to say, so many regrets. What they had, what they lost... what he made them lose.

"I know. And it was my own fault. I'm sorry, Riley. Because of my fears, I caused the one thing I feared most. You leaving me." After another moment of pained silence on both their parts, she continued the tale. She had to, if she was going to tell him everything he wanted to know.

"The next few days passed sort of in a haze. Then I threw myself into my schoolwork and taking care of mom and Dawn. It wasn't... wasn't too much later when mom died. Aneurysm, after the operation. They said it was instant and painless. I came home from class one afternoon, and I... I found her body in the living room." She told them about the visit to the hospital for the autopsy, about her spaciness and Dawn's refusal to believe their mother was gone until she saw her. About the vampire in the hospital, and Dawn's aborted attempt to bring Joyce back to life.

Riley listened in silence until Buffy stopped to take a breath. "I'm sorry about your mom. She was a fine woman." His voice rumbled in her ears, deep and low and soothing. Just what she wished she could've heard that night. Wished he'd been there to hold her when she finally broke down and cried. Having Dawn to cling to then had been temporary shelter from the pain but having Riley... Having Riley would have made the difference between wanting to live and finally deciding to die.

The memory of Dawn in her arms brought up the rest of the secrets, the worst one, the one she'd hidden from everyone until it was almost too late. It had been too late for Riley. "We were just getting things back together, to normal after... after you left but before..." Her voice broke and Buffy stopped talking.

Sam held the water glass to her lips again, this time. She rubbed Buffy's arm and her shoulder and murmured. "Go on. You can tell us anything. I'm sorry we weren't there to help. So sorry."

Buffy nodded, swallowing the huge knot in her throat along with the water. "Before my mom died, I got a visit from the Watcher's Council. They put us all through a bunch of tests until I figured out that I had the power." She told them about her confrontation with Travers and the subsequent sharing of information. "The most shocking thing he said, though, was that Glory wasn't a demon," she said softly.

"Not a demon? Then what was she?" Riley held up the glass again, watching Buffy's face as she drank. He remembered the demon chick, remembered somewhere in the haze and fog of his addiction that Buffy had been having a hard time with her but she hadn't been willing to talk to him about it. Hadn't opened up like she was doing now.

Sam leaned forward, taking the glass from Riley and setting it down on the table beside her. She clasped one of Buffy's hands in hers, rubbing a thumb over the back of it. Cold, Buffy's hands were cold. First sign of shock.

"Riley, we need to move her. Buffy, you're going into shock. We need to get you warm and get your feet elevated." Doctor first, friend second... lover - maybe never. Sam was able to accept the last part, even though she might have wanted it to go differently. Much differently.

With an ease that no one else in her life had even been able to duplicate, Riley got to his feet without setting Buffy down. Four steps and he was laying her on the bed. Sam covered Buffy with a blanket and the comforter while Riley removed her boots and tucked two pillows under her feet. Each of the Finns took up a position beside her. Riley on the right and Sam on the left. Her hands ended up between theirs, warm callused palms enfolding them.

Buffy felt a little dazed; they'd moved so fast, when she wasn't entirely aware that anything was wrong with her. Still, she felt bad for putting them to such trouble. "I... I'm sorry... I didn't mean for..." She shook her head, having trouble putting the words together.

"Don't apologize. Not needed." Sam rubbed Buffy's hand while Riley did the same on the other side. She looked down at Buffy's fingers, noting that the pallor she'd noticed was changing and they were no longer quite so cold. It took everything in her to keep from lifting that hand to her lips and placing a kiss in the center of her palm.

Which was exactly what Riley did. He kissed her palm, his eyes closing for half a second as he felt her fingers follow the curve of his cheek. "Go on... Glory wasn't a demon."

Eyes fixed on his, Buffy squeezed Sam's fingers gently with her other hand before she continued. "No, she wasn't a demon. Glory was a Hell God. She was looking for the Key that would open a gate between Earth and the Hell dimension that she came from." She paused again to give her words time to sink in. Buffy was sure Riley would be okay with the concept, though he would probably blame himself for leaving. She wasn't clear on just how much of the supernatural Sam was comfortable with, though, so she waited a moment and watched for their reactions.

"Dimensions... Finn mentioned something about that and we've run into portals before. So she came through one of those and couldn't get back, right?" Bright green eyes bored into her own as Sam continued to massage Buffy's hand and then her arm. Getting the circulation going again.

"I take it that you had the key." Not a question, Riley's tone merely confirmed he knew Buffy had the key. Whatever the key was. It had happened before; Giles had little things scattered all over the place, he probably picked it up at one of his weird estate sales. Plus there was the Magic Box with its treasure trove of interesting and sometimes really disgusting items.

Buffy answered Sam first, "It's a much more complicated story, Sam, but the basic idea was that she tried to take over a few millennia ago and the other powers in that dimension banished her here and tied her to a mortal." She turned to look up at Riley and nodded slowly. "In a sense, I did, though I didn't know it at first. It was Dawn, Riley. Dawn is the Key. Mystical energy given a human form and life. She didn't exist as Dawn until the summer before you left... sometime in August, I believe."

"Wait a minute. Dawn, as in your sister Dawn? Tall, annoying and getting too pretty for words, Dawn?" All protective instincts aside, that admission floored him more than anything else. Well, that and knowing Buffy did go after him that fateful night.

"Yes, Dawn. The monks who were guarding the Key apparently knew Glory was getting closer to finding them. So they gave her life and sent her to me to protect. Our memories and hers were all altered by the spell. It had to have been a huge undertaking." Buffy knew that it was almost too unreal to believe; but it was the truth.

"I didn't tell anyone except Giles, and I only told him because I needed to know more. To know what we were up against. Mom knew, though... remember the night of her operation?" At Riley's nod, she continued, "Mom had been seeing things... apparently the mental patients at the hospital could see that Dawn isn't entirely of this world. Mom saw it too, and she made me promise to take care of her if anything happened. Dawn was ours, and that was all that mattered."

Riley nodded, numb from what he'd just heard. He had memories of Dawn that went back as far as he knew Buffy. She'd talked about her sister on their first date. "So... It's like what Jonathan did. The spell where we all had memories of him being great when he really wasn't?"

Startled by that, Sam shot Riley a confused glance. He shrugged and laughed, "Don't ask. It was crazy... There are some things about Sunnydale that I'd rather forget. The swimsuit calendar comes to mind."

Buffy laughed very softly at the memory his words produced. His sense of humor was another one of the things she'd missed about him. "Mmm... some things are too strange for words. And yes, the spell was a little like that, only subtler and with no harmful side-effects. Jonathan's spell had to be broken. This one doesn't. Dawn is Dawn, and will be for the rest of her life."

Cradled between them, Buffy picked up the thread of her story again, filling Riley and Sam in on the fights and the problems, Spike's hounding her, Warren and April, and then the BuffyBot - which she noticed brought a look of amusement to Sam's face. And outraged shock on Riley's when he put two and two together and came up with Spike having a sexbot made in Buffy's image.

She told them about Tara's mental injury and Willow's first rage-induced explosion of power. Buffy detailed the trip out of town, from the stolen Winnebago to the sword battle on top of it. Gave them the gist of it and noted their silent intrigue about the dynamics of horses versus a motor home. Interesting tactics they could discuss at a later date.

Then there was Giles' injury and how Glory finally got Dawn. Her descent into madness and Willow following her there, lifting her out of the dark place. More hard things now, the hardest thing...

"We reached the tower Glory had had built. Rickety thing, built by all the people she'd mind-zapped. Including Tara." She briefly filled in the details of the fight, and Spike's attempt to get to Dawn and protect her. "In the end, though, we were too late. Glory was defeated, but Dawn had been cut and was bleeding. The gate was opening. I ran up the tower and dealt with the demon there... but the gate was growing beneath the platform we stood on." She paused for a deep breath and looked up at Riley.

Her eyes locked on his and her tone went from tentative to blade sharp. "I knew then what I had to do. Dawn was a complete innocent. She'd only just barely begun to have a chance at life. I couldn't sacrifice her for the sake of the world... and I couldn't let the world go to Hell. But somewhere along the line, I discovered something."

Thankful that her companions were both remaining silent, Buffy took another deep breath. Her voice softened slightly. "Dawn's blood and mine... it's identical. Dawn's blood is mine."

No denying Riley had a quick mind. He put it all together in under two seconds. "So you used your blood to close the gate, didn't you? God, that's what you meant. You weren't telling a joke." Riley's hand tightened around Buffy's as he leaned back. "You died."

Across from him, Sam made a tiny noise of surprise. He hadn't filled her in on that detail. Hadn't felt the need because Buffy had said it so flippantly. Throw-away comment equaled a throw-away concept. He should have known better.

"I did," Buffy confirmed in a soft, gentle voice. "I told Dawn I loved her and she had to be strong on her own. And then I dove off the tower, into the middle of the gate. It hurt... a lot. Flashes of light and pain. And then it was gone, and I was free. At peace, and able to rest. I'm told my body landed on the ground below the tower, but I wasn't in it anymore by that time."

Riley closed his eyes, shutting out her face but not the lingering image. Her body, beautiful and still, lying broken on the ground. The Scoobies crawling out from wherever they landed during the battle, converging on the one thing that had held them together as a group.

Buffy.

He couldn't ask her to continue, not after that. It was the unimaginable thing. The only thing his heart could never have taken. Buffy dead, beyond his powers to save, beyond comfort, beyond hope. She died, she died and he hadn't been there to save her. To save her or die beside her.

It was on Sam's shoulders to keep her talking. The story shared was an amazing one but everything she'd heard about Buffy was amazing. Hence the hero-worship. "So how is it that you're here? You feel real enough to me. Your hands are warm, your cheek." She touched that cheek and then on impulse Buffy's mouth. "Your breath is warm too."

"Willow. Willow did it, with some help from Tara, Anya and Xander." Buffy sighed heavily. It felt good to tell someone but that didn't mean it was easy to say. "They thought my soul was trapped in the Hell dimension, so I suppose I have to admit that their hearts were in the right place. But..."

Panic rose within her, the same blind panic she's felt upon taking that first burning breath and waking up in sheer darkness. Six feet underground. She shook her head and took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "I was dead for several months... 147 days, Spike told me. He kept count. They did the spell one night... took the ingredients to the cemetery and set themselves to the job."

The hands holding hers tightened, warm and damp with sudden sweat. Buffy looked from Riley to Sam and then back to Riley, seeing the same trepidation and dawning horror in their eyes. "And it worked," she conceded, bitterness coloring her expression. It showed in the line of her mouth and the tilt of her head.

"But not the way they'd intended it to." No comment from Riley or Sam. They were here to listen. Listen until she was ready to stop talking. Listen until the tears that would not fall, could not fall - listen until they did fall and then listen some more.

Where had they been when she needed them most?

Buffy's voice dropped to a very soft tone, so full of pain, "Instead of rescuing me from Hell, they tore me out of Heaven. I'd been happy there. I don't remember much about it, but I know that I was warm and safe and loved. And I never realized just how much I needed that peace and safety until I was thrown back into this life."

The little Slayer spoke haltingly about waking up in her coffin, buried underground. The words were wrenched from her, washing over their ears and into their minds as the Finns listened and waited. And tried not to judge the people who had stolen away her reward, her rest. Warriors themselves, the concept of someone being denied their place in Heaven after such a long fight was the worst thing they could conjure up.

Here was the crime and Buffy was the one being punished.

Stunned, they looked at one another while Buffy stumbled through the rest of the story. Sam's heart, the softer of the two, bled for her while Riley's raged. Furious that someone, anyone, denied her her place amongst the angels. The place she had earned through her blood, her sweat, her tears and through the loss of her innocence.

Unaware of their internal struggles, Buffy pieced together hazy memories for them of fighting demons who were trashing the town and somehow ending up back on top of Glory's tower. "I was reliving my memories of dying, until Dawn shook me out of it. And my first question was 'Is this Hell?'... which shook Dawn up completely."

Guilt and rage and fear roiled up. Riley swallowed around the bitter taste in his mouth; Adam's bite from the apple was anything but sweet. Smoke and ash and oil - dark and thick. It blackened his soul and laid the blame for this travesty where it should be laid. On his doorstep - amidst the tatters of his pride, his need, his selfishness.

The time for silence was over and there was only one thing he could say. "I should have been there." Words quiet, voice cracked. He didn't want to say them, didn't want to hurt Sam by saying them. But he'd abandoned his post, walked away from his duty and left her to die. Left her to die and left her to be recalled to a life she didn't want.

A deserter, a fucking deserter. Again.

Walked out on the Initiative too, left his men to die at Adam's hands. Left Forrest to meet his fate in a cave somewhere in the foothills. Walked out on Buffy, left her to meet her destiny atop a tower. He was always leaving the people he loved.

Guilt, he wore guilt so beautifully, wore it with a sense of nobility and purpose that no one in her life had been able to match. Not even Angel at his broodiest.

Very, very gently, Buffy squeezed his hand. "In a way, I'm glad that you weren't. I'm glad that you didn't have to be there to see me die, that you were on the road to healing yourself. And honestly, Riley, if you had been there and nothing else had been different, I don't know if I would have had the strength to sacrifice myself. I don't know if I could do it knowing that you were there to see it happen."

So much forgiveness in her voice, in her words. Most noble person she'd ever met, that anyone could hope to meet. She wore her destiny well, accepted it with the conviction that only the very young could achieve. The very young and the very broken... Looking into Buffy's eyes, Sam knew she was both. Terribly young and terribly fragile... breakable... broken.

Her calling, something Buffy had never requested, had taken so much from her. How in the world could she deny this lonely, lovely girl the one thing Sam was certain she needed? The one thing that would help her heal. The only thing that was truly hers to give.

Sam took a deep breath and sat up straight. Strange how calm you could feel in a moment of utter clarity. The hurt wasn't bad, not as sharp, not like she'd expected it would be. Even though she hadn't discussed this with Riley, hadn't discussed any of this with him, her decision was made.

Riley belonged with Buffy, he was married to her but he belonged with Buffy. She could let him go. It would hurt, probably for years and years and years but she could do it. She loved him enough to let him go. After tonight, she cared enough for Buffy to let her have him.

Squeezing Sam's hand in turn, Buffy took a deep breath. Knowing and not knowing what was going through their minds, she spoke hers. She told them the truth. "I think that you and Sam needed to meet. You fit so well together... I don't think I really fit into that picture anymore. I'm glad that you fell in love and found happiness, Riley. I'm happy for you both."

******

 
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