The One That Kills Him

Riley

Buffy's been patrolling the Restfield Cemetery, tense from the stress of the last weeks. Her mother's illness was keeping her up at night, Dawn has been extra moody and difficult trying to cope with the situation, and Riley blew her off two times in a row for some reason. Her Uni incompletes were just around the corner, and to add insult to the injury, a recent demon attack left the Scoobies at a crosswalk, no one able to identify the culprit's species.

She needed information, a distraction, or maybe just to punch someone who definitely deserved it, as she confidently burst through the doors to Spike's crypt.

The vampire looked up at her, unusually startled. He was shirtless and swayed a little away from her, but not before she noticed a fresh injury on his chest.

"Spike, I need..." She traced off as she came closer to him, gazing at the unmistakable round wound over his heart. "What happened?"

"Nothing", he said smoothly, putting his shirt on. Its hole pattern matched his chest.

"You got staked." Spike tilted his head. Was she worried about him? "And you didn't die." Nope, just dumbfounded. He shrugged and walked past her, carrying on with the initial plan of getting too hammered to feel the pain of his healing tissues.

"It couldn't have been wood", she kept thinking out loud, frozen in the middle of his crypt, staring at the floor. Spike took a sip from the half-empty bottle and sat on the sarcophagus, watching her with mild interest.

"Something that looked similar, but..." He could see the wheels in her head turning. One whiff of a vampire nose, she would have known immediately.

"Just drop it, love."

"Woodgrain." She was ignoring him, deep in thought. A plastic stake that looked real enough... but why would someone do it? Demons didn't go for idle threats made with human weapons. Someone tried to humiliate him, to taunt him. A human enemy?

Where did she see woodgrain like that..?

"Riley did this." She said to herself, earning her an impressed look from Spike. Sherlock Buffy strikes again.

"Oh God, it's because I said..." She remembered their fight in the caves, how she carelessly made the comparison that must have spun Riley off his axis. How he's been avoiding her lately, how she was too preoccupied with her mother to consider his feelings.

She left the crypt in a hurry, determined to straighten it out with her boyfriend, leaving Spike alone with his thoughts and whisky.

---

His phone kept going to voicemail. She circled the graveyard and breathed a sigh of relief when she found him near the south gate.

"Riley", she exclaimed, catching him by the arm. He seemed agitated and... a little drunk?

"What's up?, he asked cautiously. She frowned - he was wearing a jacket in a humid Californian afternoon.

"Are you alright? I..." She trailed off, unsure what to say. "I was worried about you. You didn't return my calls, and I know I wasn't really... there, with my mom and all."

He smiled and they walked together to sit on a nearby bench. "I'm okay, Buffy. And I know how hard it was for you lately, so... I guess I didn't want to implore."

"Like you could ever." She playfully smacked his arm. So far so good. "What have you been up to? I missed you."

"Uh, nothing much." Suddenly, her bullshit detector flared up. "Helped with patrolling, but I can see you're back to it now."