Title: Coven Material
Series: Destiny Found, part 8
Affiliated Series: Destiny Lost
Authors: Sonya and Erin
E-mail: sonyajeb@swbell.net OR carynsilver@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Category: Amy/Other friendship, AU, relationship oriented
*Disclaimers and Timeline Info in Part 1!!!!*
--------------------------
A bell rang cheerfully as the door to Booksellers opened, letting in a tall, thin young man with a shock of dark hair and the warm, sweet-smelling fall breeze. But Amy Madison didn't hear it. She was staring at the calendar, her eyes fixed on the last square. October 31st.
"Hey."
Amy jumped and dropped the calendar. It fell to the floor with the rattling of pages. When she saw who it was, she glowered at him. "Don't ever sneak up on me like that again, Rio!"
"It's not my fault you were oblivious to the world," Rio replied, joining her behind the counter and picking up the calendar. "What's so engrossing about this thing anyway?" He turned it to the appropriate page and hung it back on the wall. The picture of a grinning Jack O' Lantern stared out at them.
Amy shuddered and turned away. "Bad memories."
"Had a bad Halloween experience?" Rio probed. "What, didn't get invited to the cool costume party? Had to dress up as a wicked step sister rather than Cinderella?"
"You don't know what you're talking about, so shut up!" Amy turned away and started sorting a box of new books that had just come in. "If you're here to work, why don't you help me with these. Aidan won't be happy if he gets back and they're not on the shelves."
Rio reached around her and grabbed a stack of books. "I'm not working today, actually, but since you asked me so nicely, sure, I'll help."
Amy shook her head. "Whatever."
Actually, Amy liked Rio pretty well. She wouldn't consider them extremely close or anything, but after training in witchcraft together for months under the tutelage of Jenny Calendar, she figured she knew him as well as anyone in Sunnydale. Except his old commander, Faith, of course. Rio didn't talk very much. Amy had always wondered what his life was like before he joined the Council and practically sold his soul. She thought that he must have been a good person before them. He was turning into one now, staying in Sunnydale to repay his debt to society, so to speak. It was a good thing. When he wasn't grabbing on to an uncomfortable subject like a bulldog with a steak bone.
When she got to the science fiction/fantasy section, she stopped and started shelving the new paperbacks. Rio fell in line next to her and started doing the same thing.
They worked in silence for a minute or two, and then he asked, "Amy, is everything OK?"
"It would be stellar if you didn't keep bugging me!" Amy exploded. "Why are you here, anyway? It's not like I need your help!"
Rio looked at her for a minute, then set his pile of books down and turned away. "I'll be in the back. When Jenny gets here, let me know." Then he walked away.
Amy groaned and slapped herself lightly on the forehead with one of the paperbacks. She'd forgotten. Jenny was coming by to give them a quick lesson today because she needed time off tomorrow night, Halloween night. Amy put down her books and hurried after Rio. She caught up with him near the front of the otherwise empty book store. When he saw her, his face froze. She hadn't seen him this angry since before he joined their team. She felt a shiver, remembering the time she'd been at his mercy, when she'd been kidnapped by his group as bait to lure Faith and Angel to the slaughter. But Amy pressed on despite her memories. She knew it wasn't fair to hold the past against him.
"Rio, I'm sorry I yelled at you. You just... you touched on a sticky subject, and I didn't want to talk about it."
His face thawed out, and he nodded. "I can tell, but I accept your apology."
Amy could tell Rio was still curious about the Halloween thing, but, to his credit, he didn't press the issue. Giving him a tentative smile, Amy suggested, "Why don't you come help me with the books, and, if you really want to know... I... I'll tell you about my Halloween phobia."
A few seconds later, they were companionably shelving books in the sci-fi section again. Rio didn't say anything. He waited for her to speak, if she was going to.
Amy swallowed nervously. She didn't like talking about this part of her past. It made her feel more scared and vulnerable than at any other time in her life. But she decided to do it anyway. And maybe talking about it would help.
"All the worst things that ever happened to me happened on Halloween. My first boyfriend dumped me at the school Halloween carnival. It was Halloween the day my dad moved out and left me with my mother. I've told you a little about my mom, right?"
Rio nodded.
"Well the day I woke up in her body, it was Halloween. I think that helped increase her powers for the switch or something."
"No wonder you have a phobia. That's quite a string of bad luck."
She smiled wryly. "There's more, but it takes more time to explain. After my mom almost killed me, Giles and Sonya, I vowed that I would never turn out like her. I thought it was the magic that did it. I thought it had corrupted her. So I decided never to use it. And I didn't develop any of my powers once she was gone. Even though I knew they were there."
Amy shivered a little at the memory. It had been a weird feeling to have powers she didn't understand and couldn't control inside of her. But she had just pushed them away and ignored them. She glanced over at Rio, sure a long-time magic-user like him would think her actions had been silly and stupid. But there was nothing of the sort in his face. Just interest and sympathy.
"It's hard to realize someone you love isn't perfect."
For a second, Amy wondered what had happened to him, but she couldn't ask. It was time for her story now.
"Yeah." She paused, tucking a strand of long, blonde hair behind her ear. "So... things went OK for a while. I managed not to use my powers at all. I locked them up inside of myself and pretended everything was normal. And then one day two vampires kidnapped me, and nothing was ever the same again. Not only were there witches like my mother in the world, but there was a whole host of dark things, and I was at their mercy."
"That day?" Rio raised a questioning, dark eyebrow. "It was Halloween?"
Amy nodded. "They got me when I was shopping for a Halloween costume. They drug me down to this lair that was scarcely better than a hole in the ground. They tied me up, and they told me I was going to be the guinea pig in their ritual. One vampire, called Spike, he wanted to bring his dead lover back. Angel had killed her. Anyway, they were going to use my body. They were going to change me into a vampire and then put this dead vamp's soul in my body."
She glanced up again, and saw him staring at her with wide eyes. "You were going to be the host for Drusilla's body? The long-time paramour of William the Bloody? I studied them at the Compound. They were ruthless."
"Ruthless all right. I was scared beyond anything I've ever felt before or since. At least when my mother took over my body, I had her body. This time I wasn't going to have anything. I was just going to poof away and my body would walk around with someone else in it. I tried to fight them, but I didn't know anything."
"You'd been blocking your powers."
She shook her head decisively. "Yes, I had. And now they couldn't help me. Spike, his goons and that horrible little spell caster could have done anything they wanted with me, and I couldn't have lifted a finger to stop them. Luckily, that spell caster betrayed Spike and set a Chaos demon loose on the town. Doubly lucky, Xander came along in time to free me."
"I hesitate to ask, but is there any more?"
Amy managed a smile to ease his mind. "No. That's it. For now." Her eye darted in the direction of the calendar on the other side of the store. She couldn't see it from where they sat on the floor of the sci-fi section, but she knew it was there. It was like that Jack 'O Lantern had its flaming eyes on her constantly. "But all I ever want to do now on Halloween is lock myself in my room with a plate of brownies and a shotgun. Not that I have a shotgun, but it might come in handy."
Rio put the last book on the shelf and helped Amy to her feet. "How about I make you a promise?"
She gave him a curious look. "What kind of a promise?"
"Let me come over to your place on Halloween. Jenny's already busy with her techno-pagan gathering, so we won't have any lessons. They won't need us to patrol because it's supposed to be a light night. I'll sit up with you and make sure nothing bad happens."
Amy looked at Rio in surprise. That was one of the longest speeches she'd ever heard him make that wasn't about magic. And it was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever offered to do for her. "You know, Rio, that would actually be really nice. My dad is going out of town on a business trip, so the company would be great. I thought about calling Buffy, but now I won't have to. She was doing the whole giving out candy thing with her mom anyway."
The bell on the shop door tinkled again and they heard the familiar voices of Jenny and Aidan as their two mentors entered the shop. Rio turned to meet them without saying anything more, and Amy followed along a step behind.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aidan was already home when Rio got there later that afternoon. Rio walked in the door in his usual quiet way and began moving through the house to see what everyone was up to. It was just a thing he did. Something to kill time before he went into his room for the evening.
It was hard for Rio, living in this house. Aidan was an all right guy, but busy with other stuff, not much time for a quiet warlock living within his walls. Sonya, too, was OK when she set her mind to it. But for the past few months she'd been wrapped up in honeymoon land with new beaux Oz. She didn't even fight seriously with Faith any more. It was like Sonya was coated in a barrier of love and nothing Faith said could get to her. Rio wished he had that luxury. Faith always got to him. Sure they had a truce, but he knew Faith, and he knew she thought he was lower than the slime on the bottom of a Paranoia demon's tentacles.
He hadn't gotten too far into the house when the doorbell rang. "I guess I'll get it," he muttered, turning to open the door.
"Hey, man! How's it goin'?"
Rio stood back to let the Irish half-demon on the doorstep inside. "Doyle."
Doyle gave Rio a look like he had been expecting a longer answer, but got over it quickly. His good-natured outlook on life didn't let him stay down for long. Rio sometimes thought there were dark things inside Doyle, darker even than the visions of evil he got from the Powers that Be. However, Doyle seemed good at avoiding the thought of bad things in his life, or his past, whatever. At least when Rio was around.
"So, where's Aidan?" Doyle grinned a little. "I've gotta surprise for him."
Just then they all heard a loud yell and a crash.
Doyle and Rio ran toward Aidan's study to see what was going on. They found Aidan glaring down at Faith. A lamp was on the floor, obviously broken. Rio knelt down and picked up the math book that had been the culprit.
"That's it!" Faith raged. "You suck as a tutor. I'm never going to get this binomial equation sh.... stuff! I quit. I quit math! I quit school! I quit!"
"Now, Faith," Aidan tried, "you promised..."
"I promised I'd give school a try. I did that. It sucks! I quit!"
During this conversation, Doyle had taken the math book out of Rio's hands and flipped it open to the appropriate page. After perusing the example problems, he looked at the pad of paper on the table full of Aidan's precise handwriting.
"Faith," Aidan said in a stronger tone, "I'm not going to let you quit that easily."
"Who asked you?" Faith retorted.
"Aidan, man," Doyle spoke up suddenly. "You know, you were explainin' this all wrong. No wonder the lass is confused."
Aidan glared at Doyle. "Oh yeah, professor? Do you think you could do better?"
"O' course, I could. I am trained in tha teachin' arts." His sharp eyes grabbed Faith's defiant gaze and held it captive. "O' course, I have ta have a sharp pupil. I won't do it fer a coward."
Faith jumped to her feet and grabbed his collar. "Who are you calling a coward you pansy-assed, little..."
Aidan looked like he was going to intervene, but Doyle did first. "Who are ye calling pansy-assed, lass? I'm not tha one who lets binomial equations win where demons and vampires lose all the time."
She stared at him for a minute. Rio held his breath, waiting for the inevitable explosion, but it didn't come.
"Fine. You've got one chance." She sat back down at the desk and waited, the look on her face daring Doyle to teach her.
Aidan took that moment to leave. He grabbed Rio's shoulder and guided him out, too.
"What about the mess?" Rio whispered, gesturing to the broken lamp bits coating the floor, making their footsteps crunch.
"It can wait," Aidan answered out in the hall. As he shut the door behind them, he added, "If Doyle can make that girl learn, all the broken lamps in the world wouldn't make me interrupt them."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
True to her word, on Halloween day, Amy sat in her house quietly. She watched a couple of old movies, did all her homework, and read half of Wuthering Heights -- her favorite book. Something about the romance of the Moors got to her every time, and the idea of dying without one's true love, well, it made her long for a love that strong. Before she could get weepy and melancholy at the way love had turned out for her thus far, Amy put the book away and looked for something else to do.
She couldn't practice any spells, that was for certain. Amy wasn't about to flirt with disaster that seriously. She could only be glad that supernatural activity didn't require her to patrol with Buffy or anyone that evening. Amy figured she was actually helping Buffy by staying in. When Amy went out on Halloween, as the vampire kidnapping had shown, strange things happened.
As the shadows got longer and the clock ticked on, Amy wondered when Rio would get there. Her father was out of town on a business trip, so she was rattling around all alone in their big, old house.
Part of Amy wondered why Rio had even volunteered to come over. He wasn't the gallant type. He seemed to feel above that most of the time.
But he had volunteered, and Amy was glad. She did wonder what they would do when he got there. Then she got a brilliant idea...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Rio found Amy's house easily enough. He had never been there before, but the gargoyle-encrusted gate made the large house hard to miss.
He walked up the sidewalk to the front door, suddenly unsure of himself. What was he doing here? He barely knew Amy. Why did he want to help her? Going out of his way for someone was not something Rio indulged in any more. But he'd promised, and one of the things Rio had determined when rebuilding his life post-Watchers was that he would always be a man of his word.
And, honestly, Rio was also glad for a chance to get out of the house. Aidan was having too much fun with the Halloween thing. Aidan, Sonya, Oz and Doyle were doing the traditional scare the trick-or-treaters thing. Faith had vanished -- Aidan assumed for some quality time with her undead lover. The thought of that still gave Rio mild heebie-jeebies, but it was none of his business. Rio had heard tell that Buffy and Joyce were doing the Halloween thing at home, and that Cordelia was going to a party held by one of her elite crowd, but he hadn't paid too much attention.
The porchlight at the Madison house wasn't on when he got there. Apparently, Amy's Halloween phobia didn't allow her to do the trick-or-treat candy dispensing thing. Rio didn't mind. Aidan and the others had been so enthused about it (though, perhaps, they were really just enthused about the night off) that Rio had been glad to get out of the way.
Rio reached out and touched the old-fashioned doorbell. A deep ringing echoed in the house. He heard Amy's light footsteps immediately.
She opened the door and smiled shyly at him. "Hi." She opened the door wider and Rio stepped inside. They seldom, if ever, said the words "come in." Sort of a last-ditch, vampire security measure.
"Hey."
Amy closed the door behind him, and started walking down the hall, gesturing for him to follow. Rio did. He looked around and noted the expense of the furnishings in her house. The run under their feet had to be Oriental, and all the furniture screamed antique. However, the house wasn't stiff or uncomfortable. Somehow it blended expense with comfort with an appealing result.
Rio stopped in the doorway when they got to the kitchen. The cheery yellow cabinets made it feel like morning in there, even though it was nowhere near that time.
"I love yellow," Amy told him. "I painted this room myself after my mom... after they took her away to the sanitarium." She covered the hitch in her voice relatively well, and then turned to the table. "I got all the stuff ready."
"Stuff for what? A spell?" Rio walked over and looked with interest.
"No... not a spell." Amy held out a recipe card for him to see. "Brownies."
"Oh."
Amy pointed him to a chair and gave him the pecans to chop. He did so quietly, but seemed ill-at-ease in the kitchen. Amy felt uneasy, too, and wondered why things were suddenly so awkward. She added eggs to the mixture in her bowl, and they cooked in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, Amy couldn't take it any more. She reached into the flour jar, pulled out a small handful of the white stuff and flung it on Rio.
"Hey!" He stared at her, surprise and anger warring on his face.
Amy couldn't help but giggle. "Gocha."
Rio sat there in disbelief for a moment longer, and then he gave her a knowing look. "All right, Amy, you're going to regret that." He gestured down to the white streaks on his black shirt. "This was my favorite shirt."
"Uh-huh, I'm sure," Amy said, nodding. "I think you're just making that up." She flung another pinch of flour at him, and this one landed in his hair, making part of it in the middle white against the deep, natural black of the rest of it. Skunk images came to mind, and Amy laughed louder.
"That's it!" Rio confiscated the flour container and threw some back in her direction. It landed right in her face. Amy started coughing.
Rio set the flour jar down and moved over next to her, concern in his eyes. "I'm sorry... I didn't meant..."
Suddenly, Amy stopped coughing, grabbed the jar and dumped flour on his head.
That was the beginning of a full-scale kitchen war. No holds barred. They flung everything they could find, from flour to sugar to even eggs and water. Only the brownie batter was saved.
Ten minutes later, they finally called a truce, panting for breath between shouts and laughter. Even Rio had laughed, to Amy's delight. She'd never seen him so natural, or enjoying himself at all.
She bit her lip as she stared around the incredible mess that used to be her cheerful, yellow kitchen. "This is going to take forever to clean up."
Rio nodded. "Yeah, and while you're doing that, just remember, I didn't start this."
"You're not going to help?" Amy demanded. "I may have started it, but I didn't throw an egg, and then miss!" Her gaze turned to the window over the sink, now streaked with yolk and egg shells.
"All right, I guess I do bear some responsibility..." Rio agreed. He held out his hands. "Come here. I know a spell that will fix this all up, but I need your help to do it."
Amy's smile vanished and she gave him a look of horror. "Are you kidding? We can't do a spell on Halloween. It will probably backfire and then we'll both die in flames or something."
"Amy," Rio said gently, "I know you're scared of Halloween, and I can understand why. A lot of bad things have happened to you on Halloween, but it's not the day's fault. It's not magic's fault either."
"Then what was it? Bad luck?"
"Maybe."
"Then tempting the bad luck by doing magic now seems like a bad idea to me." Amy crossed her flour-coated arms across her chest.
Rio turned on the sink and held two papertowels under the stream of cool water. He used one to wipe the residue from his face and hands and then held the other out toward Amy. To his surprise, she didn't pull away. Instead, she let him gently wipe her face clean of the flour which had started to become a paste on her skin.
"Look," Rio said as he turned to put the dirty papertowels in the trash can. "I think you need to do this. What if something happens on a Halloween, and it's life and death, and you have to use your powers. I know you, Amy. You wouldn't want to let people down. But if you've never done it before, you might let them down anyway. This is a good first step."
Amy sighed. "I don't want to." But she uncrossed her arms and put her hands in his.
Rio took her gesture of acceptance, and closed his eyes. He focused on the dirty kitchen in his mind's eye. He took control of their joined powers easily. They had practiced combining forces several times during their lessons with Jenny. Rio whispered a few words in an ancient form of French and what looked like a ripple or a wave radiated out from them and flowed around the entire room. When they broke apart, everything was clean -- the floor, the table, the counters, even themselves.
"Wow," Amy remarked, looking around in amazement. "That's some spell." She turned to give him a happy smile. "And nothing went wrong. I guess that now I have to say you told me so..." Her voice trailed off when Rio wouldn't look at her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" His voice grated harshly.
Amy walked around until she could see his face. His cheeks were wet from tears. He scrubbed them off quickly and turned away from Amy again.
She reached out and touched his shoulder. He didn't respond, but he didn't shake her hand off.
"What's wrong, Rio?" she asked again. "Are you hurt? The spell did screw up, didn't it! What can I do to help? Are you hurt?" One of the risks of magic was what it could do to the user inside, when you were distracted by controlling the outer effects of the spell. Amy started to get very scared.
"I hurt, but there's nothing you can do about it."
"What are you talking about? I know healing spells..."
"It's not the kind of pain you can just zap away."
Suddenly, Amy knew Rio was talking about something more emotional. She guided him over to the kitchen table. One side was a bench, built into the wall. She sat down sideways, sitting on one leg, so she had a good view of his profile. She pulled him down after her. "Tell me."
He shook his head. "It was just the French. French always does that to me."
Amy's brow furrowed. "French?" She couldn't think of any reason French would upset him. It was just a language... unless... "Nicole was French. Is that it? Was there...?"
Rio looked over at her, grief etching long lines in his narrow face. "Nicole was French. She taught me to speak French."
"You and she were...?"
"Lovers," Rio confirmed. "Yes. It started before she had the procedure done. We didn't know, back then, what it would do. And once we found out... I promised her I would find a way to reverse it. I promised her."
"So it wasn't just the blood oath..." Amy flashed back to that time in the warehouse. The blood of a potential Slayer. The commandos had set a trap for Faith to get it for Terrance and Nicole, but he had failed. Nicole had died. She burned up from the inside because she didn't get to feed. Having the pyrotechnic powers of a demon put in her body caused her to need the life force from others to survive.
"Not just the blood oath," Rio confirmed. "Or, rather, if my ancestor hadn't made that blood oath, I still would have been bound to that group." He paused, his throat tightening. He expected to see condemnation on Amy's face, but when he took a peek, there wasn't any. She was just listening. Somehow that made it easier to talk about the secret he'd been keeping for months.
"Nicole was different than Terrance. He liked the killing. Demon, human, it didn't really matter to him. Nicole... she would put it off as long as possible. When she could, she would feed off the guilty. She would find thieves and that ilk loitering around at night... but it was still killing." Rio looked up and met Amy's eyes. "I wanted to find the cure for her. I didn't want to hurt Faith, but I had to save her. And I was bound to do what Terrance wanted." He shook his head. "It's like a nightmare now, those days. My emotions were so high all the time. I didn't know what to do. Or what I could do. I just knew what I had to do. I tried to block every thing else out. And then when it was over, when Nicole was gone and Terrance... Everything came back to me so clearly. Every life I'd helped them take. I've got a double debt to repay. Mine and hers."
"But..." Amy wasn't quite sure how to phrase her question so it sounded tactful, but she plunged ahead anyway. "That day in the library, you didn't seem to care one way or another about Nicole. You were so diffident."
"What would you have done in my situation? Admitted you loved one of the 'bad guys'? Not a wise choice, especially with Faith ready to murder me where I stood in retribution. I saved my grief for a more private time and place."
Amy reached out and touched his long, slender-fingered hand with her own. "I'm really sorry, Rio. I wish I could do something..."
"You have."
Amy looked at him in surprised. She was more surprised to see the depths in his dark eyes.
"You and Buffy were the first to really accept me. I will always remember that."
"But I didn't..."
Rio nodded. "You did. At least, you didn't make me feel uncomfortable all the time. You didn't refer to the past. You tried to make me feel at home. We didn't bond right away, sure, but, I don't do bonding."
Amy smiled softly. "I hate to break it to you, bud, but this... this is bonding."
A faint smile crossed his lips. "Maybe it is."
A loud buzzing interrupted their tete-a-tete. Amy jumped and practically pushed Rio out of the booth.
"What is it?" Rio asked as Amy ran over to the stove.
"The oven's done pre-heating," Amy explained. "We can put the brownies in now."
"Oh." Rio did his best to help. He held the pan as Amy poured the batter in, and opened the oven door for her so she could slid the gooey mess inside. But he just didn't get what the importance was. Finally he asked her.
Amy gave him an incredulous look. "Have you never had brownies before?"
"No." Rio shook his head.
Amy grinned. "Well, then, ask me that question again *after* you taste one. It should be self-explanatory, though."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"What was that?" Amy couldn't help laughing at the blissful expression on Rio's face as he took another bite of the still-warm-from-the-oven, perfectly-gooey brownie.
After swallowing, Rio repeated himself. "I said, this is the best thing I've ever eaten. I didn't know you could do this to chocolate."
"Your family wasn't the brownie-baking kind?" Amy asked.
Rio shook his head. "A bit too preoccupied with magic for that. And also preoccupied with health. We ate a lot of vegetables."
"Poor you." Amy offered him the knife she'd used to cut the first brownies. Rio had already finished his generous square. "Feel free to have another."
"Thank you, I think I will."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that evening, Rio sat on the couch in Amy's living room. The TV was on, but he wasn't really paying attention to it. They had eaten brownies until they couldn't stand any more. Then they had gone into what Amy termed "veggie mode" and watched movies until she fell asleep.
He glanced over at Amy. She was curled up on the other end of the couch, breathing in and out peacefully. One would never know by looking at her that a few hours before she had been deathly afraid that she wouldn't live out the day.
The clock on the mantle began to chime. Rio felt a bit of relief when he heard the twelfth chime.
He moved over next to Amy and gently shook her shoulder. "Amy. Wake up."
Amy mumbled something unintelligible and then opened her eyes. They widened dramatically when she looked at him and she shot into a sitting position. "What is it? Did the house fall in? Did a vamp come knocking at the door? What?"
"I just wanted to tell you that it's all over." Rio pointed at the clock. "It's midnight. Halloween is over."
Amy sat back and stared at the clock. "It's over. Halloween is over and nothing bad happened to me."
"Well..." Rio shrugged. "You did have to put up with me for six hours. Some would say that was punishment enough." He unfolded his lanky limbs and rose to a standing position. "Now, though, I'd better be going."
Amy hurried to stand, too, and walked him to the door. "Rio, I... I just wanted to say thank you for staying here with me tonight. I can't believe it, but I actually had fun."
"I don't believe it either," Rio said sarcastically.
"You're not such a bad guy to hang out with," Amy told him. "And if you ever want to do this again when it's not Halloween, well, we could." She shrugged. "I mean, if you want to get out of the house when Aidan and Buffy are training, or when Sonya and Oz are making out, or when Faith is giving you crap."
"Or when I just want to spend time with my friend."
Amy looked up, surprised. "Really?"
"Really."
Rio leaned down and gave Amy a quick hug. It didn't last very long. It had been a long time since Rio had hugged anyone, and it felt strange. But it was also nice. It was nice to have a real friend again, and, Rio realized, that was exactly what Amy was.
He turned to go.
"Rio?"
"Yes?" He turned back, standing in the threshold. The half-moon shone down, illuminating his face.
"It was a good night. Thank you. For everything." She knew she had said it before, but she wanted to make sure Rio knew how much she appreciated what he had done.
"Thank you, too, Amy." He lingered for a second, unused to actually having a place he felt reluctant to leave. "Good night." He started walking down the side walk.
"Good night," Amy called. "And be careful out there. Don't let anything get you. And... give me a call to make sure you got home all right."
"I will," Rio promised. He walked out of the gate with a small smile on his lips. Amy was the first person in Sunnydale who'd cared so much that he got home all right that she asked him to call. It was a nice feeling.
Series: Destiny Found, part 8
Affiliated Series: Destiny Lost
Authors: Sonya and Erin
E-mail: sonyajeb@swbell.net OR carynsilver@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Category: Amy/Other friendship, AU, relationship oriented
*Disclaimers and Timeline Info in Part 1!!!!*
--------------------------
A bell rang cheerfully as the door to Booksellers opened, letting in a tall, thin young man with a shock of dark hair and the warm, sweet-smelling fall breeze. But Amy Madison didn't hear it. She was staring at the calendar, her eyes fixed on the last square. October 31st.
"Hey."
Amy jumped and dropped the calendar. It fell to the floor with the rattling of pages. When she saw who it was, she glowered at him. "Don't ever sneak up on me like that again, Rio!"
"It's not my fault you were oblivious to the world," Rio replied, joining her behind the counter and picking up the calendar. "What's so engrossing about this thing anyway?" He turned it to the appropriate page and hung it back on the wall. The picture of a grinning Jack O' Lantern stared out at them.
Amy shuddered and turned away. "Bad memories."
"Had a bad Halloween experience?" Rio probed. "What, didn't get invited to the cool costume party? Had to dress up as a wicked step sister rather than Cinderella?"
"You don't know what you're talking about, so shut up!" Amy turned away and started sorting a box of new books that had just come in. "If you're here to work, why don't you help me with these. Aidan won't be happy if he gets back and they're not on the shelves."
Rio reached around her and grabbed a stack of books. "I'm not working today, actually, but since you asked me so nicely, sure, I'll help."
Amy shook her head. "Whatever."
Actually, Amy liked Rio pretty well. She wouldn't consider them extremely close or anything, but after training in witchcraft together for months under the tutelage of Jenny Calendar, she figured she knew him as well as anyone in Sunnydale. Except his old commander, Faith, of course. Rio didn't talk very much. Amy had always wondered what his life was like before he joined the Council and practically sold his soul. She thought that he must have been a good person before them. He was turning into one now, staying in Sunnydale to repay his debt to society, so to speak. It was a good thing. When he wasn't grabbing on to an uncomfortable subject like a bulldog with a steak bone.
When she got to the science fiction/fantasy section, she stopped and started shelving the new paperbacks. Rio fell in line next to her and started doing the same thing.
They worked in silence for a minute or two, and then he asked, "Amy, is everything OK?"
"It would be stellar if you didn't keep bugging me!" Amy exploded. "Why are you here, anyway? It's not like I need your help!"
Rio looked at her for a minute, then set his pile of books down and turned away. "I'll be in the back. When Jenny gets here, let me know." Then he walked away.
Amy groaned and slapped herself lightly on the forehead with one of the paperbacks. She'd forgotten. Jenny was coming by to give them a quick lesson today because she needed time off tomorrow night, Halloween night. Amy put down her books and hurried after Rio. She caught up with him near the front of the otherwise empty book store. When he saw her, his face froze. She hadn't seen him this angry since before he joined their team. She felt a shiver, remembering the time she'd been at his mercy, when she'd been kidnapped by his group as bait to lure Faith and Angel to the slaughter. But Amy pressed on despite her memories. She knew it wasn't fair to hold the past against him.
"Rio, I'm sorry I yelled at you. You just... you touched on a sticky subject, and I didn't want to talk about it."
His face thawed out, and he nodded. "I can tell, but I accept your apology."
Amy could tell Rio was still curious about the Halloween thing, but, to his credit, he didn't press the issue. Giving him a tentative smile, Amy suggested, "Why don't you come help me with the books, and, if you really want to know... I... I'll tell you about my Halloween phobia."
A few seconds later, they were companionably shelving books in the sci-fi section again. Rio didn't say anything. He waited for her to speak, if she was going to.
Amy swallowed nervously. She didn't like talking about this part of her past. It made her feel more scared and vulnerable than at any other time in her life. But she decided to do it anyway. And maybe talking about it would help.
"All the worst things that ever happened to me happened on Halloween. My first boyfriend dumped me at the school Halloween carnival. It was Halloween the day my dad moved out and left me with my mother. I've told you a little about my mom, right?"
Rio nodded.
"Well the day I woke up in her body, it was Halloween. I think that helped increase her powers for the switch or something."
"No wonder you have a phobia. That's quite a string of bad luck."
She smiled wryly. "There's more, but it takes more time to explain. After my mom almost killed me, Giles and Sonya, I vowed that I would never turn out like her. I thought it was the magic that did it. I thought it had corrupted her. So I decided never to use it. And I didn't develop any of my powers once she was gone. Even though I knew they were there."
Amy shivered a little at the memory. It had been a weird feeling to have powers she didn't understand and couldn't control inside of her. But she had just pushed them away and ignored them. She glanced over at Rio, sure a long-time magic-user like him would think her actions had been silly and stupid. But there was nothing of the sort in his face. Just interest and sympathy.
"It's hard to realize someone you love isn't perfect."
For a second, Amy wondered what had happened to him, but she couldn't ask. It was time for her story now.
"Yeah." She paused, tucking a strand of long, blonde hair behind her ear. "So... things went OK for a while. I managed not to use my powers at all. I locked them up inside of myself and pretended everything was normal. And then one day two vampires kidnapped me, and nothing was ever the same again. Not only were there witches like my mother in the world, but there was a whole host of dark things, and I was at their mercy."
"That day?" Rio raised a questioning, dark eyebrow. "It was Halloween?"
Amy nodded. "They got me when I was shopping for a Halloween costume. They drug me down to this lair that was scarcely better than a hole in the ground. They tied me up, and they told me I was going to be the guinea pig in their ritual. One vampire, called Spike, he wanted to bring his dead lover back. Angel had killed her. Anyway, they were going to use my body. They were going to change me into a vampire and then put this dead vamp's soul in my body."
She glanced up again, and saw him staring at her with wide eyes. "You were going to be the host for Drusilla's body? The long-time paramour of William the Bloody? I studied them at the Compound. They were ruthless."
"Ruthless all right. I was scared beyond anything I've ever felt before or since. At least when my mother took over my body, I had her body. This time I wasn't going to have anything. I was just going to poof away and my body would walk around with someone else in it. I tried to fight them, but I didn't know anything."
"You'd been blocking your powers."
She shook her head decisively. "Yes, I had. And now they couldn't help me. Spike, his goons and that horrible little spell caster could have done anything they wanted with me, and I couldn't have lifted a finger to stop them. Luckily, that spell caster betrayed Spike and set a Chaos demon loose on the town. Doubly lucky, Xander came along in time to free me."
"I hesitate to ask, but is there any more?"
Amy managed a smile to ease his mind. "No. That's it. For now." Her eye darted in the direction of the calendar on the other side of the store. She couldn't see it from where they sat on the floor of the sci-fi section, but she knew it was there. It was like that Jack 'O Lantern had its flaming eyes on her constantly. "But all I ever want to do now on Halloween is lock myself in my room with a plate of brownies and a shotgun. Not that I have a shotgun, but it might come in handy."
Rio put the last book on the shelf and helped Amy to her feet. "How about I make you a promise?"
She gave him a curious look. "What kind of a promise?"
"Let me come over to your place on Halloween. Jenny's already busy with her techno-pagan gathering, so we won't have any lessons. They won't need us to patrol because it's supposed to be a light night. I'll sit up with you and make sure nothing bad happens."
Amy looked at Rio in surprise. That was one of the longest speeches she'd ever heard him make that wasn't about magic. And it was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever offered to do for her. "You know, Rio, that would actually be really nice. My dad is going out of town on a business trip, so the company would be great. I thought about calling Buffy, but now I won't have to. She was doing the whole giving out candy thing with her mom anyway."
The bell on the shop door tinkled again and they heard the familiar voices of Jenny and Aidan as their two mentors entered the shop. Rio turned to meet them without saying anything more, and Amy followed along a step behind.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aidan was already home when Rio got there later that afternoon. Rio walked in the door in his usual quiet way and began moving through the house to see what everyone was up to. It was just a thing he did. Something to kill time before he went into his room for the evening.
It was hard for Rio, living in this house. Aidan was an all right guy, but busy with other stuff, not much time for a quiet warlock living within his walls. Sonya, too, was OK when she set her mind to it. But for the past few months she'd been wrapped up in honeymoon land with new beaux Oz. She didn't even fight seriously with Faith any more. It was like Sonya was coated in a barrier of love and nothing Faith said could get to her. Rio wished he had that luxury. Faith always got to him. Sure they had a truce, but he knew Faith, and he knew she thought he was lower than the slime on the bottom of a Paranoia demon's tentacles.
He hadn't gotten too far into the house when the doorbell rang. "I guess I'll get it," he muttered, turning to open the door.
"Hey, man! How's it goin'?"
Rio stood back to let the Irish half-demon on the doorstep inside. "Doyle."
Doyle gave Rio a look like he had been expecting a longer answer, but got over it quickly. His good-natured outlook on life didn't let him stay down for long. Rio sometimes thought there were dark things inside Doyle, darker even than the visions of evil he got from the Powers that Be. However, Doyle seemed good at avoiding the thought of bad things in his life, or his past, whatever. At least when Rio was around.
"So, where's Aidan?" Doyle grinned a little. "I've gotta surprise for him."
Just then they all heard a loud yell and a crash.
Doyle and Rio ran toward Aidan's study to see what was going on. They found Aidan glaring down at Faith. A lamp was on the floor, obviously broken. Rio knelt down and picked up the math book that had been the culprit.
"That's it!" Faith raged. "You suck as a tutor. I'm never going to get this binomial equation sh.... stuff! I quit. I quit math! I quit school! I quit!"
"Now, Faith," Aidan tried, "you promised..."
"I promised I'd give school a try. I did that. It sucks! I quit!"
During this conversation, Doyle had taken the math book out of Rio's hands and flipped it open to the appropriate page. After perusing the example problems, he looked at the pad of paper on the table full of Aidan's precise handwriting.
"Faith," Aidan said in a stronger tone, "I'm not going to let you quit that easily."
"Who asked you?" Faith retorted.
"Aidan, man," Doyle spoke up suddenly. "You know, you were explainin' this all wrong. No wonder the lass is confused."
Aidan glared at Doyle. "Oh yeah, professor? Do you think you could do better?"
"O' course, I could. I am trained in tha teachin' arts." His sharp eyes grabbed Faith's defiant gaze and held it captive. "O' course, I have ta have a sharp pupil. I won't do it fer a coward."
Faith jumped to her feet and grabbed his collar. "Who are you calling a coward you pansy-assed, little..."
Aidan looked like he was going to intervene, but Doyle did first. "Who are ye calling pansy-assed, lass? I'm not tha one who lets binomial equations win where demons and vampires lose all the time."
She stared at him for a minute. Rio held his breath, waiting for the inevitable explosion, but it didn't come.
"Fine. You've got one chance." She sat back down at the desk and waited, the look on her face daring Doyle to teach her.
Aidan took that moment to leave. He grabbed Rio's shoulder and guided him out, too.
"What about the mess?" Rio whispered, gesturing to the broken lamp bits coating the floor, making their footsteps crunch.
"It can wait," Aidan answered out in the hall. As he shut the door behind them, he added, "If Doyle can make that girl learn, all the broken lamps in the world wouldn't make me interrupt them."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
True to her word, on Halloween day, Amy sat in her house quietly. She watched a couple of old movies, did all her homework, and read half of Wuthering Heights -- her favorite book. Something about the romance of the Moors got to her every time, and the idea of dying without one's true love, well, it made her long for a love that strong. Before she could get weepy and melancholy at the way love had turned out for her thus far, Amy put the book away and looked for something else to do.
She couldn't practice any spells, that was for certain. Amy wasn't about to flirt with disaster that seriously. She could only be glad that supernatural activity didn't require her to patrol with Buffy or anyone that evening. Amy figured she was actually helping Buffy by staying in. When Amy went out on Halloween, as the vampire kidnapping had shown, strange things happened.
As the shadows got longer and the clock ticked on, Amy wondered when Rio would get there. Her father was out of town on a business trip, so she was rattling around all alone in their big, old house.
Part of Amy wondered why Rio had even volunteered to come over. He wasn't the gallant type. He seemed to feel above that most of the time.
But he had volunteered, and Amy was glad. She did wonder what they would do when he got there. Then she got a brilliant idea...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Rio found Amy's house easily enough. He had never been there before, but the gargoyle-encrusted gate made the large house hard to miss.
He walked up the sidewalk to the front door, suddenly unsure of himself. What was he doing here? He barely knew Amy. Why did he want to help her? Going out of his way for someone was not something Rio indulged in any more. But he'd promised, and one of the things Rio had determined when rebuilding his life post-Watchers was that he would always be a man of his word.
And, honestly, Rio was also glad for a chance to get out of the house. Aidan was having too much fun with the Halloween thing. Aidan, Sonya, Oz and Doyle were doing the traditional scare the trick-or-treaters thing. Faith had vanished -- Aidan assumed for some quality time with her undead lover. The thought of that still gave Rio mild heebie-jeebies, but it was none of his business. Rio had heard tell that Buffy and Joyce were doing the Halloween thing at home, and that Cordelia was going to a party held by one of her elite crowd, but he hadn't paid too much attention.
The porchlight at the Madison house wasn't on when he got there. Apparently, Amy's Halloween phobia didn't allow her to do the trick-or-treat candy dispensing thing. Rio didn't mind. Aidan and the others had been so enthused about it (though, perhaps, they were really just enthused about the night off) that Rio had been glad to get out of the way.
Rio reached out and touched the old-fashioned doorbell. A deep ringing echoed in the house. He heard Amy's light footsteps immediately.
She opened the door and smiled shyly at him. "Hi." She opened the door wider and Rio stepped inside. They seldom, if ever, said the words "come in." Sort of a last-ditch, vampire security measure.
"Hey."
Amy closed the door behind him, and started walking down the hall, gesturing for him to follow. Rio did. He looked around and noted the expense of the furnishings in her house. The run under their feet had to be Oriental, and all the furniture screamed antique. However, the house wasn't stiff or uncomfortable. Somehow it blended expense with comfort with an appealing result.
Rio stopped in the doorway when they got to the kitchen. The cheery yellow cabinets made it feel like morning in there, even though it was nowhere near that time.
"I love yellow," Amy told him. "I painted this room myself after my mom... after they took her away to the sanitarium." She covered the hitch in her voice relatively well, and then turned to the table. "I got all the stuff ready."
"Stuff for what? A spell?" Rio walked over and looked with interest.
"No... not a spell." Amy held out a recipe card for him to see. "Brownies."
"Oh."
Amy pointed him to a chair and gave him the pecans to chop. He did so quietly, but seemed ill-at-ease in the kitchen. Amy felt uneasy, too, and wondered why things were suddenly so awkward. She added eggs to the mixture in her bowl, and they cooked in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, Amy couldn't take it any more. She reached into the flour jar, pulled out a small handful of the white stuff and flung it on Rio.
"Hey!" He stared at her, surprise and anger warring on his face.
Amy couldn't help but giggle. "Gocha."
Rio sat there in disbelief for a moment longer, and then he gave her a knowing look. "All right, Amy, you're going to regret that." He gestured down to the white streaks on his black shirt. "This was my favorite shirt."
"Uh-huh, I'm sure," Amy said, nodding. "I think you're just making that up." She flung another pinch of flour at him, and this one landed in his hair, making part of it in the middle white against the deep, natural black of the rest of it. Skunk images came to mind, and Amy laughed louder.
"That's it!" Rio confiscated the flour container and threw some back in her direction. It landed right in her face. Amy started coughing.
Rio set the flour jar down and moved over next to her, concern in his eyes. "I'm sorry... I didn't meant..."
Suddenly, Amy stopped coughing, grabbed the jar and dumped flour on his head.
That was the beginning of a full-scale kitchen war. No holds barred. They flung everything they could find, from flour to sugar to even eggs and water. Only the brownie batter was saved.
Ten minutes later, they finally called a truce, panting for breath between shouts and laughter. Even Rio had laughed, to Amy's delight. She'd never seen him so natural, or enjoying himself at all.
She bit her lip as she stared around the incredible mess that used to be her cheerful, yellow kitchen. "This is going to take forever to clean up."
Rio nodded. "Yeah, and while you're doing that, just remember, I didn't start this."
"You're not going to help?" Amy demanded. "I may have started it, but I didn't throw an egg, and then miss!" Her gaze turned to the window over the sink, now streaked with yolk and egg shells.
"All right, I guess I do bear some responsibility..." Rio agreed. He held out his hands. "Come here. I know a spell that will fix this all up, but I need your help to do it."
Amy's smile vanished and she gave him a look of horror. "Are you kidding? We can't do a spell on Halloween. It will probably backfire and then we'll both die in flames or something."
"Amy," Rio said gently, "I know you're scared of Halloween, and I can understand why. A lot of bad things have happened to you on Halloween, but it's not the day's fault. It's not magic's fault either."
"Then what was it? Bad luck?"
"Maybe."
"Then tempting the bad luck by doing magic now seems like a bad idea to me." Amy crossed her flour-coated arms across her chest.
Rio turned on the sink and held two papertowels under the stream of cool water. He used one to wipe the residue from his face and hands and then held the other out toward Amy. To his surprise, she didn't pull away. Instead, she let him gently wipe her face clean of the flour which had started to become a paste on her skin.
"Look," Rio said as he turned to put the dirty papertowels in the trash can. "I think you need to do this. What if something happens on a Halloween, and it's life and death, and you have to use your powers. I know you, Amy. You wouldn't want to let people down. But if you've never done it before, you might let them down anyway. This is a good first step."
Amy sighed. "I don't want to." But she uncrossed her arms and put her hands in his.
Rio took her gesture of acceptance, and closed his eyes. He focused on the dirty kitchen in his mind's eye. He took control of their joined powers easily. They had practiced combining forces several times during their lessons with Jenny. Rio whispered a few words in an ancient form of French and what looked like a ripple or a wave radiated out from them and flowed around the entire room. When they broke apart, everything was clean -- the floor, the table, the counters, even themselves.
"Wow," Amy remarked, looking around in amazement. "That's some spell." She turned to give him a happy smile. "And nothing went wrong. I guess that now I have to say you told me so..." Her voice trailed off when Rio wouldn't look at her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" His voice grated harshly.
Amy walked around until she could see his face. His cheeks were wet from tears. He scrubbed them off quickly and turned away from Amy again.
She reached out and touched his shoulder. He didn't respond, but he didn't shake her hand off.
"What's wrong, Rio?" she asked again. "Are you hurt? The spell did screw up, didn't it! What can I do to help? Are you hurt?" One of the risks of magic was what it could do to the user inside, when you were distracted by controlling the outer effects of the spell. Amy started to get very scared.
"I hurt, but there's nothing you can do about it."
"What are you talking about? I know healing spells..."
"It's not the kind of pain you can just zap away."
Suddenly, Amy knew Rio was talking about something more emotional. She guided him over to the kitchen table. One side was a bench, built into the wall. She sat down sideways, sitting on one leg, so she had a good view of his profile. She pulled him down after her. "Tell me."
He shook his head. "It was just the French. French always does that to me."
Amy's brow furrowed. "French?" She couldn't think of any reason French would upset him. It was just a language... unless... "Nicole was French. Is that it? Was there...?"
Rio looked over at her, grief etching long lines in his narrow face. "Nicole was French. She taught me to speak French."
"You and she were...?"
"Lovers," Rio confirmed. "Yes. It started before she had the procedure done. We didn't know, back then, what it would do. And once we found out... I promised her I would find a way to reverse it. I promised her."
"So it wasn't just the blood oath..." Amy flashed back to that time in the warehouse. The blood of a potential Slayer. The commandos had set a trap for Faith to get it for Terrance and Nicole, but he had failed. Nicole had died. She burned up from the inside because she didn't get to feed. Having the pyrotechnic powers of a demon put in her body caused her to need the life force from others to survive.
"Not just the blood oath," Rio confirmed. "Or, rather, if my ancestor hadn't made that blood oath, I still would have been bound to that group." He paused, his throat tightening. He expected to see condemnation on Amy's face, but when he took a peek, there wasn't any. She was just listening. Somehow that made it easier to talk about the secret he'd been keeping for months.
"Nicole was different than Terrance. He liked the killing. Demon, human, it didn't really matter to him. Nicole... she would put it off as long as possible. When she could, she would feed off the guilty. She would find thieves and that ilk loitering around at night... but it was still killing." Rio looked up and met Amy's eyes. "I wanted to find the cure for her. I didn't want to hurt Faith, but I had to save her. And I was bound to do what Terrance wanted." He shook his head. "It's like a nightmare now, those days. My emotions were so high all the time. I didn't know what to do. Or what I could do. I just knew what I had to do. I tried to block every thing else out. And then when it was over, when Nicole was gone and Terrance... Everything came back to me so clearly. Every life I'd helped them take. I've got a double debt to repay. Mine and hers."
"But..." Amy wasn't quite sure how to phrase her question so it sounded tactful, but she plunged ahead anyway. "That day in the library, you didn't seem to care one way or another about Nicole. You were so diffident."
"What would you have done in my situation? Admitted you loved one of the 'bad guys'? Not a wise choice, especially with Faith ready to murder me where I stood in retribution. I saved my grief for a more private time and place."
Amy reached out and touched his long, slender-fingered hand with her own. "I'm really sorry, Rio. I wish I could do something..."
"You have."
Amy looked at him in surprised. She was more surprised to see the depths in his dark eyes.
"You and Buffy were the first to really accept me. I will always remember that."
"But I didn't..."
Rio nodded. "You did. At least, you didn't make me feel uncomfortable all the time. You didn't refer to the past. You tried to make me feel at home. We didn't bond right away, sure, but, I don't do bonding."
Amy smiled softly. "I hate to break it to you, bud, but this... this is bonding."
A faint smile crossed his lips. "Maybe it is."
A loud buzzing interrupted their tete-a-tete. Amy jumped and practically pushed Rio out of the booth.
"What is it?" Rio asked as Amy ran over to the stove.
"The oven's done pre-heating," Amy explained. "We can put the brownies in now."
"Oh." Rio did his best to help. He held the pan as Amy poured the batter in, and opened the oven door for her so she could slid the gooey mess inside. But he just didn't get what the importance was. Finally he asked her.
Amy gave him an incredulous look. "Have you never had brownies before?"
"No." Rio shook his head.
Amy grinned. "Well, then, ask me that question again *after* you taste one. It should be self-explanatory, though."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"What was that?" Amy couldn't help laughing at the blissful expression on Rio's face as he took another bite of the still-warm-from-the-oven, perfectly-gooey brownie.
After swallowing, Rio repeated himself. "I said, this is the best thing I've ever eaten. I didn't know you could do this to chocolate."
"Your family wasn't the brownie-baking kind?" Amy asked.
Rio shook his head. "A bit too preoccupied with magic for that. And also preoccupied with health. We ate a lot of vegetables."
"Poor you." Amy offered him the knife she'd used to cut the first brownies. Rio had already finished his generous square. "Feel free to have another."
"Thank you, I think I will."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Later that evening, Rio sat on the couch in Amy's living room. The TV was on, but he wasn't really paying attention to it. They had eaten brownies until they couldn't stand any more. Then they had gone into what Amy termed "veggie mode" and watched movies until she fell asleep.
He glanced over at Amy. She was curled up on the other end of the couch, breathing in and out peacefully. One would never know by looking at her that a few hours before she had been deathly afraid that she wouldn't live out the day.
The clock on the mantle began to chime. Rio felt a bit of relief when he heard the twelfth chime.
He moved over next to Amy and gently shook her shoulder. "Amy. Wake up."
Amy mumbled something unintelligible and then opened her eyes. They widened dramatically when she looked at him and she shot into a sitting position. "What is it? Did the house fall in? Did a vamp come knocking at the door? What?"
"I just wanted to tell you that it's all over." Rio pointed at the clock. "It's midnight. Halloween is over."
Amy sat back and stared at the clock. "It's over. Halloween is over and nothing bad happened to me."
"Well..." Rio shrugged. "You did have to put up with me for six hours. Some would say that was punishment enough." He unfolded his lanky limbs and rose to a standing position. "Now, though, I'd better be going."
Amy hurried to stand, too, and walked him to the door. "Rio, I... I just wanted to say thank you for staying here with me tonight. I can't believe it, but I actually had fun."
"I don't believe it either," Rio said sarcastically.
"You're not such a bad guy to hang out with," Amy told him. "And if you ever want to do this again when it's not Halloween, well, we could." She shrugged. "I mean, if you want to get out of the house when Aidan and Buffy are training, or when Sonya and Oz are making out, or when Faith is giving you crap."
"Or when I just want to spend time with my friend."
Amy looked up, surprised. "Really?"
"Really."
Rio leaned down and gave Amy a quick hug. It didn't last very long. It had been a long time since Rio had hugged anyone, and it felt strange. But it was also nice. It was nice to have a real friend again, and, Rio realized, that was exactly what Amy was.
He turned to go.
"Rio?"
"Yes?" He turned back, standing in the threshold. The half-moon shone down, illuminating his face.
"It was a good night. Thank you. For everything." She knew she had said it before, but she wanted to make sure Rio knew how much she appreciated what he had done.
"Thank you, too, Amy." He lingered for a second, unused to actually having a place he felt reluctant to leave. "Good night." He started walking down the side walk.
"Good night," Amy called. "And be careful out there. Don't let anything get you. And... give me a call to make sure you got home all right."
"I will," Rio promised. He walked out of the gate with a small smile on his lips. Amy was the first person in Sunnydale who'd cared so much that he got home all right that she asked him to call. It was a nice feeling.