( Chapter 1 )
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended, all characters belong solely to the creator, Joss Whedon. On the other hand, this idea belongs to someone I met on aol but forgot to get his name before he changed his SN. So, I won't take credit for the idea, Buffy was played by me and he was Riley and Angel. This whole story is more or less mine though, since I typed it all up and what not. If you wanna use it, ask me first please. ^_^
Pronunciation and Reference:
Chratylia: ( pronounced Shruh-teel-yuh )
U.I.C.O.: Undercover Investigative Chratylia Organization
Buffy's Dorm Room
There was a quick but light knock on the outside of Buffy's dorm room door. Not expecting anyone at all that day, she put down the book she was reading, slid off the side of her bed and made her way over to the door. She placed her ear lightly against the thick wood, "Yeah?" she asked slowly.
"It's me..." came a weak and obviously painful reply in a very familiar voice. Not noticing anything but that voice, her mouth slowly curved into a smile as she opened the door in happiness to see him. Although what she saw behind the door was not what she expected. When she saw him, the look of happiness immediately vanished from her face. As she reflected a look of sheer shock, her jaw slowly dropped. "Are you just...going to stand there...or.." as he trailed off, her eyes darted down to where his left hand was clutching his right side tightly.
"Riley...what happened?" she whispered slowly, her eyes never leaving their trail of gaze.
"...trouble...we...Buffy..." came his pained reply, she knew she had to get him to rest so he could explain things to her. So, she slowly ran her right arm behind his back and placed her left hand over his stomach to try and straighten him up, but to no avail. Riley's body was in complete pain, there was no way he could straighten up. As she began moving him into the room, he hesitated outside for a moment as if he was considering if he should really bring his girlfriend into this mess, or if he should even be there at all. "Buffy...maybe I sh..shouldn't be he..ere on second thought..." he whispered in a half mumbled half painful gasp.
"Wait a minute...Riley tell me what's wrong," she replied worriedly as she moved her left hand to cover his left hand, that's when she knew something was seriously wrong. "My god...Riley you're shaking..." she almost shouted.
"We found a casket...about a week..or so ago..." he whispered, as she slowly moved him into the room he closed the door behind them with a muddy boot. "...there was strange language...encryption of some...kind..." his solid shoulders rolled forward in a shrug, just slightly, but he wrenched with it, stepping backwards with a grimace to settle his back to the wall. She went with him, still keeping her arms where they were for further support.
"You have to lay down...or rest or..." she gently bit her lower lip and lifted him from the wall in an attempt to get him to the other side of the room to her bed.
"Buffy...our experts couldn't crack it.. we couldn't open it...by Monday..they'd pretty much f-figured it was useless.." his pain was growing worse, not to mention he hadn't looked at her once since he'd shown up at her door and it was beginning to scare her. "Somebody's thinking otherwise....someone wants that casket..." he was hardly able to get the words out.
She whispered gently, "Riley...who is this somebody? I mean what's going on that's making you act this way...?" It was becoming quickly evident, by the dialation of his eyes, and the sweat lining his brow in the particularly cool room, that he was injured somehow.
"All we could...make out was Chra...Chratylia..." as he swallowed back against the air, he finally accepted her aid in standing, still partially using the wall as a support. She kept her left hand over the one he held over his right side, she knew he was hiding it from her. Breathing in deeply, she tried to move his hand away from the wound he was trying to conceal from her. "What happened to you out there Riley? Why is it so hard for you to tell me what happened?"
"It's..the government..an underground branch," not being in any condition to battle her touch, he let his arm go limp but kept his hand partly over the wound. The lower portion of his shirt that had a thickly padded canvas vest was torn and ripped. The flesh was exposed beneath, or what could still be called flesh..that as well, torn and punctured as if he had been sent through a metal grinder. Rags had been pressed to it, although no good had been done. "They call thems-selves the U.I...C.O..." evidence was beginning to show that he was ready to give up, though he was trying to keep himself concious for her. As she stared at the wound that had been bleeding accesively, she was now becoming all mixed up with frightening emotions.
"Riley...I don't understand....what happened to you is all I want to know," she began feeling the tears in the back of her eyes but she blinked them back.
"They came in armed with pulse rifles.. I-I think I'm the only one that got out..." his voice was quivering slightly, his skin feverish and clammy to the touch; his features, on the other hand had taken on a ghostly, pallid tint. "They're..cleaning the place...nothing we can..really do," he whispered so lightly she barely heard him. He was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he kept them toward the floor because he hadn't wanted her to see how terrible they looked. His body twitched beneath her touch sparatically when too large of a breath was drawn, he had the idea it wouldn't do much good. He wasn't exactly wanting to make it worse; although, he didn't know, she may have been able to help.
"You have to rest or lay down at least...I can help fix that wound while you tell me what happened... " she said without hesitation. She gently made a motion for him to move and almost stumbled, but she regained her balance. She now allowed him to lean on her for complete support, he needed rest because they both knew his wound was fatal. As he put his arm around her small shoulders for support; he knew her small frame was more than strong enough to hold him up as a result of her extensive training. She began moving slowly across the room, when they finally reached her bed, she gently kneeled down and let his now limp body slide slowly onto the covers of the bed. He gasped painfully as he landed on his back, a new angle his body didn't exactly agree with.
"Chratylia...it's some.. I don't know, talking about the hellmouth.. " it was getting hard for him to say anything anymore, but she needed all she could get from him.
"...What about the hellmouth..exactly?" she asked directly after he had finished his sentence.
"I don't know.." he whispered painfully, "too cryptic."
She looked down at him, "I have a bad feeling about all of this...but I think something's going to happe--" she then realized and hoped against all odds that she could be wrong and didn't finish her sentence.
"You think..." as he trailed off momentarily into a grimace, he tried to become situated. But even as it was, he could feel the bullets lodged deep between ribs and internal organs. As he shifted to get comfortable with the bullets that had already begun sinking deeper into him, more blood bubbled in protest from all wounds on his body. "..You think what's.. going to happen..?" then his head flopped back, neck limp and appearing almost boneless.
"Riley...oh my god..." she reached over to lift his head back into position so as to not let him pass out too quickly. "Riley...are you not telling me something..? I need to know what's going on..." her voice slightly rising with every word she said. He was struggling now to get out any word possible, all the while he was growing weaker and more dissoriented by the minute.
"Something..about that casket's..." he trailed off for a moment, his amber-hued irises half hidden by heavy eyelids, but he willed them open to look up at her, "...wrong..evil...I don't know...but they wanted it..and didn't..want any...anyone else to know." Her gaze was fixed on his, this being the first time he'd ever looked at her since his arrival. Suddenly, she had been hit with the pain and agony that reflected in his glassy, clouded eyes. "..I've endangered you.." came an anguished whisper, she turned her eyes from his and onto his now, tangled looking figure. She could feel the tears stinging the corners of her eyes but she held them back.
She gained as much of her senses as she could and began questioning him again, "I can take care of myself...I want to know who did this to you..." she knew she had to stay strong and not lose control over what was happening.
He then let his eyes close in as rapt concentration as he could devise, but he let out an exasperated gasp and shook his head in confusion, "Never saw a face..." She wasn't going to give up on him yet.
"Well then where were you when this happened?" standing up slowly, she walked to a desk on the far side of the room. She retrieved a towel that was draped over a chair that sat beside the desk and returned back to him. "You can't do this on your own now, you need me to help track down whoever did this... " She stared at him for a moment as if she hadn't known what to do.
"I..." he trailed off a moment and concentrated on his breathing until a particularly troublesome moment had passed. "I'm not sure..how much tracking I'll be doing.. I don't think I can..move again," she came back to reality just as she heard those words, and she pretended not to take them as he meant her to. She gently pressed the towel onto the wound, trying as hard as she could not to cause him any more pain than he was already going through.
"Just stay still or you'll lose more blood...I'll track these people down for you..." He forced his eyes to open so he could look at her, she watched him struggle to keep them open; his eyes were being held closed by the pain.
"Don't.." came an agrivated groan as he adjusted and moved his left hand away to give her better access to the wound, "...stay with me..." Her eyes looked at him worriedly, unable to hold back the tears any longer, she let them run freely in hot streams down her face.
"Riley I can't just let them get away with this...what they've done to you..." What if Riley didn't survive this? What if she was alone again? No, she had to keep him alive, not just because she loved him, she needed him to help her find this casket...whatever it was. He slowly worked his fingers free of the tangles of rags she had placed over his wounds and raised a hand up to run his fingers lightly across her cheek, his glazed eyes falling on hers. She reached up with her left hand, grasped his hand tightly and closed her eyes, wishing this had never happened and everything would go back the way it was. "Riley I have to do this...you can't even move...I just..." she opened her eyes forcively and looked at him with an intense look of distress, tears still draining down her cheeks. He, too, now had tears streaming from his closed eyes, he was just realizing how beautiful she was and that he'd never see her again after this day.
"..Buffy..don't...I'm not.." he cleared his throat against unfelt liquid, "I don't think..I'll.." the words 'make it' not exactly able to be forced out. His breathing sharpened just at the attempt of trying to speak a single word.
"What...?" she kept her eyes still, straining to see him through the blurring tears. "Riley just let me handle this..." she moved her free hand to the towel over the wound and applied a small amount of pressure to try and stop the bleeding that seemed to have become worse due to his movements. The towel had already been completely soaked with blood, there was nothing left for it to sponge up. His eyes were lazy it seemed, not really able to find a genuine focus anymore; he didn't wince and he didn't even blink at the applied pressure. His body was going numb to any sort of sensation, pain, or movement.
"...Don't leave Buffy..." still feeling his hand against her face, she slowly closed her eyes again and tightened her grip on his hand.
"I can't just watch you die like this...I have to find out what these people want..." she began whispering aloud, although her words didn't appear to be directed at anyone in particular. He wouldn't force her to stay, he'd never do such a thing. As he weakly tugged his hand free, he let it drop beside him with an accepting nod.
"Buffy..." he whispered dryly, "...you'll make the...right de--" it was no more than a few seconds later that the last breath was drawn past pale lips, when his head went limp and his eyes fell half-way closed. She noticed his blank gaze never shifted from her face until the life had passed from him. She wiped her tears away slowly, only believing he'd passed out from the pressure of the pain in his side.
"Riley?" it wasn't until she placed a palm over his chest that she knew. "Riley...n....no..." blinking back her tears as she felt them come on twice as strong now resulting from the truth she didn't want to believe. Not a motion was made, his eyes remaining partially sunk and his chest no longer rose or fell with painful breathing, just cold silence. Her jaw dropped and she began shaking slowly as she knelt down closer to him to see if he might still be moving at all, in any way. "Riley you can't be...you can't be dead..." She then placed her other hand over his chest to feel for a heartbeat with both hands, her mind going wild now, thinking this was some cruel dream. When she found the sound absent, her head slowly went back and forth in protest as she whispered over and over, "No..."
Down below, just outside, the sound of gunshots and yells of men filled the air. Whatever had happened had gotten out of control, and innocents were going to suffer. Faintly hearing the noise outside, but too entrapped in her own suffering at the moment to realize they had come for him and possibly whoever was with him or had anything to do with him. "Riley don't leave me li...like this..." she placed an ear against his chest only to hear yet another dead silence, still trying to deny the fact that he was gone. When they got closer, the sounds never ceased as heavy boots could be heard outside on the pavement. Now she began to hear them getting closer and louder. "My god...okay um..." blinking quickly to regain her focus, tears still making tracks down her face, she quickly ran to the door to her room and double bolted it for extra time although she knew it wouldn't hold them long. His broken form remained still on her bed, twisted, but at least where she could be the last thing he ever saw; long gone now and even through death, a trouble to her, like a magnet his killers were coming to finish the job. Looking everywhere for a place to hide from the one's who had killed her lover, she knew she couldn't escape now. She ran across the room and sank to the floor next to her bed and slowly began pulling herself underneath it. She had very little room under it seeing as how it used to be on the floor completely, the tears came again as she remembered when she had Riley level it up for her; and the night they first slept in it after he'd fixed it.
"They'll die for this...they'll wish they never came to Sunnydale..." The minutes ticked by until a hammering was heard on her door, seconds later it finally splintered open and half a dozen sets of boots came raging into the room; stopping at the foot of the bed where his broken corpse lay. There were a bunch of murmured words, so quick they were, that they took only minutes before they all quickly sped back out of the room, towing his lifeless form behind them. Listening as the sounds of the boots got fainter and fainter, she quickly pulled herself out from under the bed and looked toward the spot where Riley used to be. "They...I can't believe this...he's dead what could they possibly still want or get from him!" she yelled in rage, the tears started painfully stinging the corners of her eyes all over again as she slowly fell onto the bed, trying to comprehend how this had all just happened out of nowhere. He was alive just yesterday, this morning, what did they do to deserve losing each other? She then realized she had to find out what this 'Chratylia' was...and how to destroy it for what it had done.