Old Friends:

Ch 5- Blow Out

Buffy and Riley stood gazing in the direction that Adam had vanished to. She still couldn't believe that he'd disengaged when he'd had them at such a disadvantage. A quick glance at Riley told her that he was puzzling out the same thing.

"That was weird," she said. Grimacing, she tugged at her top. When Riley saw her injury, he immediately bent to one knee to get a closer look.

"You're hurt. It looks like a puncture wound."

"Yeah. It was his Polgara stake thingie from the wrist. I should have broken it a bit higher up the first time around."

"We need to get you home and get this packed and bandaged. That cut on your head isn't looking real great either."

"I'm fine," Buffy said, "I want to know how the hell they got him up and walking around without a uranium core."

"Well, we'll figure that one out later after I stop him," Riley said.

Buffy was still musing on Adam's appearance. She brushed his hands away from her abdomen in irritation. "He wasn't…there was something strange with him. I mean, before Adam couldn't keep his mouth shut, this time he was silent. And his skin? It was…it was like he'd been captured by headhunters and they did that shrunken head thing to him."

"Giles and Willow can figure out everything after I get him," Riley repeated. "Can you make it home? I'll track him down and take him out for good."

"Don't be stupid, Riley! Whether he's himself or some kinda zombie now, you saw what he did to me! He's too strong for you take on by yourself."

Spike had managed to regain consciousness moments before. As Buffy was just telling Riley not to be stupid, he wandered up. He peered closely at her, concerned with the gut wound she was sporting and seeing half of her face bathed in blood. Riley in the meantime grabbed his baton from one of his cargo pockets. He extended it now and pointed it toward her, accentuating his words.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're the 'Slayer'; let all men feel inadequate before you."

"Oh my God! Did you just wake up this morning and turn into a twelve year old? Or is this another temper tantrum because of whatever is going on with this whole puffy-man thing? Look, you know what? I don't have time to argue with you. I'm bleeding here, in case you didn't notice. You're going to the hospital tomorrow. We're going to find out what the hell is going on with your muscles; and your attitude."

"Don't tell me what to do," Riley raged. "You're not my fucking baby sitter! I was a soldier long before you came along and I can take care of myself!"

Buffy's anger evaporated as she realized that Riley looked even more swollen than before. His biceps, chest, and waist were distended until his skin looked like it would split. At the same time, sweat literally flew off of him in fat drops every time he moved. And he was constantly moving as he was literally shaking and shivering in front of her. Xander hadn't mentioned that Riley looked like he was going to explode nor his sudden temper. Whatever was happening, it seemed to be getting worse; and fast.

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Spike couldn't believe his luck. All of his scheming to find a way to get between the two of them, and here they were self-destructing. And he hadn't had to do a thing! He couldn't keep the smirk from his face as he watched his chances with Buffy triple or hell quintuple in front of him. Riley was looking like he was ready to fly apart at the seams and Spike began running through a scenario in his head where he would be there to comfort the grieving Slayer. Of course, comfort would quickly turn to romance.

Being Spike, he also couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Like you protected your bird, wanker? Adam almost shish-kabobbed her! Where the hell were you when she needed you?"

Riley spun on his heel and Spike felt but never saw the wood baton smash into his face. His nose exploded in a torrent of blood and he felt the cartilage snap under the force of the blow. He hit the ground on his back, a mushroom cloud of pain blossoming between his eyes.

Unable to think or react, Riley was on him before he could do anything. He saw the cargo-lad raise the now snapped half of the baton over his head. Spike's entire being was focused on the lethal ragged point of the ruined baton. Riley's arm stroked downward and Spike knew he was dust. He'd finally pushed his luck over the edge.

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Buffy grabbed Riley's wrist as his down-stroke took the jagged edge of his broken baton within inches of Spike's vulnerable chest. Later, she'd wonder why the hell she'd bothered, but at the moment things were moving too quickly for her to think. Plus the whole bleeding and pain thing was taking up a lot of her attention.

"Riley, don't!"

Riley reacted by snapping his arm from her grasp. With him forearming her, she fell hard to the ground, biting her lip to keep from screaming as her abdomen wound let her know it was still there and still wanted attention.

She looked up and found Riley practically blowing steam out of his nose and ears. His eyes blazed with rage and the sweat that had been a torrent before was now a Noah-sized flood. Every word he yelled was accented with spittle and she wasn't sure he even realized what he was doing anymore.

"Get off of me you bitch! You know, for being the Slayer you sure do spend a lot of time defending them!"

"Riley, calm down! Can't you see you're out of control?"

"The only thing wrong with me is that you keep stopping me from doing to Spike what you should have already done a long time ago! And now that we're 'talking', your whole need to control me instead of letting me do what I've been trained to do is really pissing me off, too!"

Riley felt his heart slamming against his ribs. He was light headed from the water he was losing through his sweat and every muscle in his body was burning unpleasantly. He chest hurt like a knife was plunging, withdrawing, and plunging again into his heart and lungs. He could hear himself breathing heavily in and out and some tiny rational portion of his mind thought of a raging bull.

Taking a ragged breath, he could feel himself struggling not to kick Buffy while she lay on the ground. He knew that he was in the right, but he didn't really want to hurt her. He wouldn't have hit her, if she'd just kept her hands off him. "Screw this shit," he spit at her before stomping off.

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Buffy struggled to her feet, watching Riley storm off. She was shaking from head to toe, but whether from blood loss or adrenaline or just plain fear she didn't know. She never, in a million years, would have thought he'd try to strong arm her; especially when she was already hurt. And his raging? It was like he'd become another man altogether. One who was way more terrifying than any demon.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to give in to the impulse to cry. She had to get herself patched up. Dawnie and her mom were going to be basket cases when they saw her, and Giles would no doubt be doubling her martial arts training once she was healed.

She put her hand to her forehead and brought back fresh blood on her fingers. She was still bleeding from the cut on her head, but it wasn't bad. The bleeding from her abdomen had also slowed to a trickle. Slayer healing finally doing its thing, she thought with relief. There's no amount of washing that's going to save these pants or my top, though.

Spike walked up to her, his nose swollen and misshapen. "Looks like muscle-boy's finally lost his mind, huh? So…guess this means you two are exes now, yeah?"

Buffy glared at him. Bringing up a fist, she hit him deliberately in the nose that was clearly broken. She watched with just a trace of satisfaction as he bellowed to the ground and blacked out.

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Once Buffy had returned home and after getting Joyce calmed down, she was able to get the story out about what had happened tonight. She called Giles and warned him that Adam was once again up and running, including the information that he seemed to be more of a robot than before. No, he didn't have a core, she could still see the hole in his guts where she'd pulled it out before. Yes, he was still just as strong and he seemed faster now. She'd never seen him run before, but the way he took off he was probably hitting forty or fifty miles an hour. She told him that he seemed to be protecting the vampires, like he might have been under their control.

After returning upstairs to her mother's room where her and Dawn were waiting, she set to packing and bandaging her wounds. Dawn assisted her with taping up the cut on her head, while her mother insisted on helping her wind bandages around her middle. As they worked, Buffy told them everything she'd noticed about Riley.

"It wasn't just mental or emotional. It was physical, too. He was so pumped up, like I've never seen him even after working out. I mean, this was just…wrong."

"Like the Incredible Hulk," Dawn asked.

"Kind of, I guess. But way more scary."

"Well, we need to get him help, obviously," Joyce offered. "You need to make him go to the hospital, Buffy. Force him if you have to."

Buffy shrugged. "I don't think they could help, mom. This is definitely wonky Initiative science at work. And I don't know how to get in touch with them anymore."

"What about the army base outside of town," Joyce wondered. "I mean, isn't the Initiative part of the army, or was anyway?"

"I don't know. I don't trust the military guys. There's already too many of them now that know I'm the Slayer. I don't think I want to show up on their turf."

"Yeah, mom," Dawn said. "You can't trust the government. Their always doing shady things. Trying to topple governments or assassination attempts on Castro and stuff."

Joyce frowned at Dawn before addressing Buffy again. "Well, you have to try something Buffy. We can't just wait around to see if Riley completely melts down."

"You know, just because the Initiative isn't active here anymore, doesn't mean they're not keeping tabs on Riley," Dawn mused. "They probably have hidden microphones all over the place. That's the kind of stuff that black ops do all the time," she nodded sagely.

Joyce looked at Dawn with a mixture of disturbance and amusement. "When did you become an anti-government radical?"

Dawn shrugged. "Oh, we're studying the things Nixon did that got him impeached in History. And, well, I started to surf the internet and I found all these conspiracies. I mean, some of them are just stupid. Like how supposedly NASA faked the moon walks. I mean, how could that have been faked when the President is using the shuttle missions to build a giant laser on the moon to target China and the Middle East?"

"Actually," Buffy said, "scary as it sounds, I think Dawn is making some sense." In response to Dawn's self-pleased expression, she added, "But not about the laser thing; that's just nuts. But if the Initiative is keeping tabs on Riley or the rest of us, I bet they have his phone tapped. I gotta run, mom."

"Wait just a minute! Buffy you're hurt."

"I know, but it's not really as bad as it looks. Believe me, Slayer healing will have it fixed in two, three days tops. Meanwhile, Riley is running around out there half out of his head with his body doing all kinds of bizarro-world stuff. I've gotta get him help…now."

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Buffy opened the door to Riley's apartment. She half hoped and half feared that he'd be home. After entering the place and finding it empty, she felt tears prick at her eyes again. There was no telling where he was, or in what shape. She remained afraid that he'd go after Adam on his own, or that whatever was happening to his body would end up fatal before she could get him help.

She walked over to the kitchen phone hanging on the wall. Picking it up, she tried to hear any sort of clicking. She saw in a movie once that if you were being bugged, your phone clicked. All she could hear was a dial tone, however.

Taking a deep breath and swallowing over the lump in her throat, she listened a moment to the plaintive dial tone. Finally she said into it, "I don't know if you're there. If you are, Riley is in trouble. It's bad. I can't help him."

The phone went into a series of beeping, complaining that she had the device off the hook, but hadn't punched any numbers. There was no indication that anyone was there, but she didn't know what else to do.

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End Ch5

Spanderverse Series:

To Dream

After 314

Spike

Dracula

Burial

Confusion of Three

Preludes

Tensions