Introduction
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| Wild at Heart | Pangs |
Riley and his friend Forrest are sitting at a table in a UCSunnydale cafeteria. Forrest is admiring the girls—and hoping that some of them will be showing up for their party—while Riley is trying to concentrate on grading a stack of papers. Forrest is particularly impressed by one girl. He thinks she’s hot.
Riley takes a look. “She’s Buffy.” He goes back to grading his papers.
Forrest thinks that Riley has just coined a new term for a really hot girl, until Riley tells him that’s her name. Forrest is impressed that Riley has made first contact with this girl. Riley isn’t interested in Buffy that way. He thinks she’s a bit peculiar.
They’re joined by Graham, and Forrest asks him his opinion of Buffy. He sides with Forrest.
Riley remains unconvinced. The times he has talked with her Buffy hasn’t seemed to be all there. There is something off about her.
“Maybe she’s Canadian,” says Graham.
Buffy has been passing through the cafeteria picking up a snack while the guys have been talking about her. She’s in klutz mode today. She overfills her soft drink. Then, when getting a cup of yogurt, she breaks the handle on the dispensing machine. She spends a little time trying to shut the machine off, but she can’t, so she just leaves it running. Buffy pays for her drink and yogurt, and starts to head toward a table.
“I’m not saying she’s not easy on the eyes,” says Riley, “I’m just saying…” Buffy trips and drops her snack. “…would you really want to go out with her?”
“Hell yes!” says Forrest. “I bet a lot of guys would like to get their hands on her.”
“Slayer,” mumbles Spike. “I’ll kill you…not so tough…kill…Slayer.”
Spike is lying semiconscious on the floor of a small, brightly lit cell. Three of the walls and the floor are featureless white tiles. The fourth is a plexiglass door. Spike wakes up, gets to his feet and puts his hands against the transparent door. He’s hit by an electrical shock which knocks him against the back wall of his cell.
A man in a lab coat walks by outside the cell. Spike’s cell is just one of many stretching down a long corridor. Each cell has a vampire, or some other sort of demon in it.
Giles finishes a sketch of the UCSCS commando Buffy bumped into in the woods, based on her description of him, and shows it to Xander, who is sitting in a chair in Giles’ apartment, reading a book. With the sketch done there doesn’t seem to be much left for them to do. Every indication is that the guy is human, so they won’t find him in any of their usual reference books.
At first Xander greets this as good news, until Giles points out that it means that once again, Buffy does not need their help. Xander is less pleased with this. He suggests that maybe they should break out a ouija board and conjure up some evil for them to fight. Giles points out that that would be a wee bit unethical.
Buffy shows up and takes a look at the sketch Giles has drawn. She agrees that Giles has captured an accurate likeness of the guy he and Xander are going to be hunting tonight. She’s going to a party.
Giles is a little surprised by this. He thinks that Buffy is neglecting her duties. Buffy has a higher calling tonight. Willow needs cheering up since Oz left, so Buffy is taking her to a party.
Spike paces back and forth in his cell. It only takes three steps each way. He pauses, and raises his hand to pound on the door, but then he thinks better of it. He goes back to pacing. A buzzer sounds and a small hatch opens in the cell’s ceiling. A packet of blood falls out of it. Spike snatches it up and starts to bite into it.
“Don’t drink it! It’s drugged,” warns the vampire in the next cell.
“Uh-huh,” Spike tosses the bag to the floor. “And who are you, mate?”
“I’m a rat. I’m a lab rat. Just like the others,” says the vampire. He is the first vamp that we saw the UCSCS collect. “They’re going to kill us you know.”
“And how are they going to do that?” asks Spike.
“They starve you. And when you’re ready to bite your own arm they shoot out one of those packets. You drink, and the next thing you’re gone. And that’s when they do the experiments.”
Spike goes back to examining his cell, looking for a weak spot. “And they are? The government? Nazis? A major cosmetics company?”
“Who cares?” asks the vamp. “All I know is one minute I’m running from the Slayer, and next thing I’m here.”
“The Slayer! I knew it! I knew it!” Spike slaps his hands against the cell door, but this time he’s expecting it, and the shock doesn’t affect him as much.
“She took apart my crew and lead me straight to these guys.”
“She set me up too!” says Spike. “I always worried what would happen when that bitch got some funding. She’s wised up a bit. Fine! I’ll take her apart. I don’t care how brilliant she is.”
The brilliant Slayer is in psychology class, having difficulty with a leaky pen. She has gotten ink all over her fingers. She wipes them off on her class notes, rendering them illegible.
Class breaks up, and Willow approaches Riley. He didn’t call out Oz’s name1 during role call. Riley has heard that Oz dropped out. Willow tries to tell him that Oz is only gone temporarily. He will be back.
“Not to my class he won’t,” says Professor Walsh. She waves Riley away. She doesn’t care what sort of exceptional circumstances Willow thinks apply, her rules are inflexible. Oz has missed too many classes, he’s out. She isn’t interested in hearing any sort of explanation for Oz’s absence from Willow.
Willow leaves, clearly upset. Buffy hangs behind. “You know, for someone who teaches human behaviour, you might try showing some.”
“It is not my job to coddle my students,” says Walsh.
“You’re right. A human being in pain has nothing to do with your job.” Buffy leaves to catch up with Willow.
Professor Walsh puts her lecture notes into her briefcase while she watches Buffy go. “I like her,” she tells Riley.
“Really?” asks Riley. “You don’t think she’s…a little peculiar?”
Xander and Giles gear up for their patrol in Xander’s basement apartment. Xander collected an impressive assortment of equipment back when he still remembered how to requisition stuff from the military. Unfortunately he no longer remembers much of what he once knew. He fumbles with a flare gun, trying to load it. Giles takes it and loads it for him.
Xander admits that his weapons skills have totally deserted him. “Might as well face it. Right now I don’t have the technical skills to join the Swiss Army. And all those guys ask you to do is uncork a couple of sassy cabernets.” He still has hopes for his hand to hand fighting skills though.
Riley tells Forrest about what Buffy told Professor Walsh while he’s tossing around a frisbee with Graham in a student lounge. Forrest is impressed by Buffy’s guts.
“Yeah, but she’s nuts!” says Riley.
Forrest spots Parker. He knows that Parker dated Buffy for a bit, so he asks him for the scoop on her.
“Buffy? She’s all right I guess,” says Parker. “I mean kind of whiney.”
“How’s that?” asks Forrest.
“Well, You know. Clingy.” Parker goes on to tell how he and Buffy got fully physical, and then how she was all over him like they were betrothed or something. He was impressed with her stamina though. “She was definitely a bunny in the sack, but later on, well, you know the difference between a freshman girl and a toilet seat? A toilet seat doesn’t follow you around after you use it.”
Riley decks Parker with a single punch.
Riley walks across the campus with Forrest and Graham. Riley can’t believe he did that. Forrest doesn’t really believe it either. If Parker reports him, Riley will be in a whole lot of trouble. Graham isn’t worried about Parker reporting it. He’ll be too embarrassed to tell anyone.
“I hit him!” says Riley.
“What the hell for?” asks Forrest.
“He was just being so crude!”
“Please!” says Forrest. “You’ve heard me say much grosser things than that.”
“And most of those were about your own mother,” says Riley. Forrest swats him on the back of the head.
“What is it?” Riley stops to consider his own question. “I just didn’t like hearing him talk about Buffy that way. I think I…well, I guess I like her.”
“You’re kind of like a moron,” says Forrest.
“So you knew that I had feelings for her?” asks Riley.
“Everybody knows man!” says Graham.
“‘Oh, she’s peculiar.’ Dead give away buddy,” says Forrest.
“I’m always the last to know,” says Riley.
“So what are you going to do?” asks Forrest.
“Well, I guess I’m going to go see a girl,” says Riley.
A pair of lab techs wheel a gurney up in front of Spike’s cell. Spike is lying on the floor with the empty blood bag beside him. One of them uses a pass card to open the door and the two techs lift Spike up onto the gurney and start to strap him down.
Spike reaches up and grabs one of the techs by the throat. “Sorry. Can’t stay. Got to go see a girl.”
Spike fights with the two lab techs as alarms begin to blare. He seems a little off his game. He doesn’t kill them immediately. He seems to be in pain as he fights.
The vampire who warned him about the drugged blood bag asks Spike to let him out too. He says he can show Spike the way out.
One of the techs attacks with a needle loaded with some drug. Spike swings the other tech around into him, causing the needle to go into the second tech’s neck. He passes out instantly. Spike grabs the first tech by his tie, and tosses him to the floor. He doesn’t get up.
Spike searches the pockets of the drugged tech and finds the pass card. He uses it to set the other vampire free. The vamp points the way toward the exit, and they start to run. They just make it under a door as it closes. They continue down the corridor to a T intersection, and turn left, but their path is blocked by another descending door.
Elevator doors open beside them and three UCSCS commandos wearing gas masks come out.
Spike grabs the other vampire. “New plan. We split up. You go that way!” He tosses the vamp into the commandos and runs the other way, ducking under another closing door just as the commandos stake his former companion.
Willow is alone in her and Buffy’s room listening to depressing music. There’s a knock on the door. “Come in.”
Riley comes into the room. He tells Willow that he’s looking for Buffy. He wants to ask her out. Willow points out that Buffy isn’t in.
Riley knows this. He has come to see Willow to learn a little bit about what Buffy likes, and he knows that Buffy likes Willow. He is hoping that Willow can tell him more about what Buffy likes.
Willow notices that Riley is standing beside Buffy’s bag of weapons, which is open, and sticking out from under Buffy’s bed. She gets up and tries to surreptitiously push the bag back under the bed with her foot so Riley won’t see what’s in it.
Riley notices Willow pushing at the bag and bends down and pushes it under the bed for her, without noticing its contents. He tells Willow he’s looking for a good topic to start a conversation. He doesn’t think “How about those Broncos?” will really cut it.
Willow sits back down on her bed, while Riley sits on the end of Buffy’s bed. She clutches a pillow in her arms. “Okay, say that I help, and you start a conversation. It goes great. You like Buffy, she likes you. You spend time together. Feelings grow deeper, and one day without even realizing it you find you’re in love. Time stops, and it feels like the whole world is made for you two, and you two alone. Until the day one of you leaves and rips the still beating heart from the other who is now a broken hollow mockery of the human condition.”
“Yep, that’s the plan,” says Riley.
“I figured it was.”
Riley understands that Willow really doesn’t want to talk about this now, and he tells her that if she wants him to go, he will, but he has never courted anyone like Buffy before. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like Buffy before.”
“Why should I trust you?” asks Willow.
“Just sort of hoping you’d think I have an honest face,” says Riley.
“I’ve seen honest faces before,” says Willow. “They usually come attached to liars.”
Riley gets up and starts to go. He figures he isn’t going to get anything useful from Willow. He likes that she wants to protect her friend though. He heads for the door.
“She likes cheese,” says Willow.
Riley stops, and looks a little confused. “What?”
“I’m not saying it’s the key to her heart, but Buffy, she likes cheese.” Willow goes on to tell Riley a couple of other things Buffy likes, such as her stuffed pig, named Mr. Gordo, and the Ice Capades. She also mentions that Buffy is dragging her to a party at Lowell House tonight. This is finally some good news for Riley. Lowell House is where he lives.
“Well it will give you a chance to interact,” says Willow. “But don’t get fresh!”
“Fresh?” asks Riley. “I don’t even know if we like each other yet.”
Riley asks Willow if Buffy ever talks about him, but the topic of Riley Finn has never come up between them. Still, Riley figures that now he has a chance, with the help of his new accomplice.
“I’m not your accomplice!” says Willow.
“No, no,” says Riley. “Of course not.”
“I’m not!”
“You’re not.”
“We’re clear?”
“We’re clear.”
Harmony is hanging a unicorn poster in her underground home when Spike comes in. She is not pleased to see him. She’s still mad about the way he tried to stake her and then just left. She has a bunch of other complaints too.
Spike tells Harmony that she left one thing out of her list. He missed her. Harmony instantly forgives him.
Spike tells Harmony he’s back to stay. He just has one little Slayer to kill first. Harmony is not pleased to hear that. She figures that Buffy will just slap Spike around some more, and she can do that.
Xander scans the woods with his binoculars. “Every man faces this moment. Here. Now. Watching. Waiting for an unseen enemy that has no face. Nerve endings screaming in silence. Never knowing which thought might be your last.”
“Oh shut up!” says Giles.
Buffy and Willow arrive at the Lowell House party. Buffy spots some of the people from their dorm, and Willow tells her to go join them. She’s going to grab a soda, and will catch up with her. They separate.
Willow crosses the crowded room to meet up with Riley. She stands with her back to him, so it won’t look like they’re talking as she briefs him on what Buffy is wearing. A halter top, and sensible shoes. That means that Buffy plans to dance. She suggests that he ask her. There’s just one problem. Riley can’t dance.
Willow and Riley stop pretending not to be talking with one another. Willow suggests light conversation. “Funny is good, but don’t be glib. Remember, if you hurt her, I will beat you to death with a shovel!” Riley looks at Willow in surprise. “A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.” Willow gives him a pat on the shoulder. “Have fun!”
Riley goes and finds Buffy by the snack table. He tries to start a conversation, but he finds he has nothing to say. He ends up asking her if she has done her reading assignment for class, and offering her some cheese.
Xander and Giles have split up to cover more territory, apparently at Giles’ insistence. Xander hears a noise as he moves through the woods. He moves in to investigate, and finds Harmony pouring gasoline on a pile of stuff. She turns around and sees him.
“Harmony!” says Xander.
Harmony steps toward him. “Xander?”
“That’s close enough.” Xander pulls out a stake. “I’m warning you. I’ve been highly trained to put this through your heart. No mercy. No warning.”
Harmony is not impressed. “I can kill you wear you stand!”
“Bring it on then.” Xander steps toward her.
Harmony steps up and slaps Xander in the face.
“Ow!” Xander kicks her in the shin.
“Ow! You sissy kicker!” Harmony moves in, and slaps Xander on the arm, making him drop the stake. Xander slaps back. It looks like a grade one schoolyard fight as they keep slapping at one another. They end up in a stand off, each with a hold on the other’s hair.
“Cut it out!” yells Xander.
“Ow!” says Harmony. “I’m so going to bite you!”
“Okay! Stop! Stop!” says Xander. “We should stop, okay?”
“I will if you will,” says Harmony.
“Okay,” says Xander, “on the count of three.”
“Uh-huh,” agrees Harmony.
Xander counts. “One. Two. Three!” They break away from one another. “Right, okay. Harmony it’s been great catching up. Really. I’m just going pick up the tattered shreds of my dignity and go home, leaving you with your…fire.”
“My fire? Yeah right! Like I’d listen to…” Harmony looks at one of the CDs in the pile of stuff, “The Sex Pistols. Eww. This crap belongs to Spike.”
Xander is dismayed. “Spike?”
“Can you believe him?” asks Harmony. “He comes back with all these big promises. Not that I believed him you know, but he could have spent one night. But no, everything was ‘Slayer this’ and ‘Slayer that.’ I mean he probably already killed her. I’m not taking him back.” She turns her attention back to the pile of stuff, and lights a match. “I just want to know why it is that men always…” She turns back, but there is no sign of Xander. “…leave?” She tosses the match onto the pile, igniting it.
Buffy is having a good time, dancing with some guys at the party. Riley and Willow are having less fun. They sit together on a sofa. Riley doesn’t believe the way he choked with Buffy.
Willow tries to reassure Riley. He failed extremely well. “You need to relax. I mean, you’re not proposing. You’re just making contact, getting a reaction. Any reaction is okay…except projectile vomiting, but, what are the chances of that—”
The song being played changes, and Willow instantly gets more depressed. The new song is a Dingos tune. Riley notices her reaction to it and signals the guy running the music to change it. Willow is grateful. She sends Riley off to find Buffy, to tell her that she’s going back to their dorm. That will at least give them something to talk about.
Riley finds Buffy and passes along the message. Buffy is a little worried about Willow, but he assures her that Willow’s okay. She’s kind of blue but she said not to worry. He starts to ask Buffy something, but they’re interrupted by Xander’s arrival. He needs to talk to Buffy about some unfinished business. Buffy realizes this is probably important, so she apologises to Riley, and leaves with Xander.
Forrest comes up behind Riley. “Denied!” Graham is with him.
“It’s not like she blew me off,” says Riley. “She just left. With another guy. That’s all.”
“We need you downstairs anyway,” says Forrest.
The trio heads into the back of the dorm. “You know I hate to say it, but they are probably on their way to make crazy naked sex,” says Forrest.
They stop in front of a mirror. “Is that necessary?” asks Riley.
“I’m protecting you buddy,” says Forrest. A green light scans over them. A recording of a familiar female voice announces that they have passed the retinal scan. “I don’t want to see you mooning over some freshman for the next three months.”
Graham is on Riley’s side. He likes Buffy.
The mirror slides aside and they enter an elevator car. It takes them down. Riley speaks into a microphone, for an additional voice print identification. Special Agent Finn, Riley is recognised.
The trio enters a large underground chamber.
“The problem is: what kind of girl is going to go out with a guy who’s acting all Joe Regular by day, and turns all demon hunter by night?” asks Riley.
“Maybe a peculiar one,” says Graham.
They continue through the complex, past where various scientists and lab techs are examining and performing experiments on vampires and other demons. They go straight to the person who seems to be running the operation: Professor Maggie Walsh. She is not a happy person right now. Hostile 17 has escaped.
Riley, Graham and Forrest suit up while Dr. Walsh briefs them on Hostile 17’s escape. His recapture is essential. If they don’t get him back everything the Initiative has worked for could fail tonight. Riley is determined that will not happen on his watch.
They are joined be two more UCSCS teams. Agent Finn is in charge of the field teams. He hands out their assignments. One team will set up a perimeter around the campus, try to keep Hostile 17 from escaping. A second will hit the sewers and tunnels to search for him there. Riley’s team will search above ground. The teams head out.
Buffy paces around Giles’ apartment. “What is wrong with him? Doesn’t Spike get that this is my town? And its my night off!”
Xander thinks that the current Spike situation is a little more important than Buffy’s new Teutonic boy toy. Buffy tells him that Riley isn’t Teutonic. He’s just a doof.
Buffy has had enough of Spike. Tonight she plans to kill him. Since Spike is looking for her, she’s going to let him find her. She doesn’t want Giles or Xander along to either get hurt, or maybe scare Spike off. She is going to face him alone. She gets up to go, but Xander stops her. He gives her the flare gun, just in case. If she gets into trouble he thinks she should use it to signal for help. Buffy takes it, mostly just to shut him up. She heads out.
“Do you think Spike will find her?” Xander asks Giles.
“I’m sure of it,” says Giles.
Spike has broken into a university office and is using the computer to search for Buffy’s dorm room number. He finds it.
Riley’s team searches the campus. They spot Buffy sitting alone on a secluded bench. They drop down, and hide in some bushes.
“Ah, damn!” says Riley.
“She’s compromising the area,” says Graham.
“At least she’s not making crazy naked sex,” says Forrest.
“Told you,” says Riley.
Riley is not pleased to see Buffy. She’s right in the middle of the danger zone. They have to clear her out. Forrest has another idea. Maybe they can use her as bait. Hostile 17 has to be hungry, and there is no way he would pass up that tender a morsel. Riley vetoes that idea. He isn’t using his new potential girlfriend as bait.
“So, how are we going to get her out of there?” asks Graham.
Buffy hears someone come walking up behind her. She jumps to her feet and spins around with a stake in her hand, raised and ready. She quick shoves her hand down behind her back when she sees it’s Riley. He has left all his military gear in the bushes.
Buffy asks Riley what he’s doing there, and Riley tells her that he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to her since she left the party so fast, with a boy.
Buffy really doesn’t want to talk about Xander right now. She just wants to be alone. Both of them are so busy looking around for Spike/Hostile 17 while they talk that neither of them notices that the other is doing it too.
Riley suggests that maybe if Buffy wants to be alone, she can do it back in her room. He offers to escort her there.
Buffy doesn’t want Riley’s help. She is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She tells Riley that if he were a real gentleman, he would just leave. Now. She sits back down on the bench and tries to shoo him away.
Riley isn’t going. He’s beginning to think that maybe Buffy’s a little drunk.
“Yes!” says Buffy, “Go and report me!”
“I’m taking you home now, come on!” Riley grabs Buffy by the arms and pulls her up off the bench.
Buffy pushes Riley away. “Oh, did you ever think maybe I’m going to take you home, huh?” Riley looks confused. “What? You think that boys can take care of themselves and girls need help?”
“Yeah,” says Riley.
“That is so Teutonic!”
Riley still has no intention of leaving Buffy out here alone. “Look, Buffy as long as you’re out here, I’m staying.”
“Well as long as you’re out here I’m staying,” says Buffy.
They both hear a girl scream.
“Got to go!” “See you!” they say simultaneously, and depart in opposite directions.
Riley returns to Graham and Forrest. They’ve picked up a signal on a tracking device. They radio in for the other units to converge on the signal’s origin.
“Let’s bag it before this gets ugly,” says Riley.
Willow is alone in her room, lying on her bed listening to her depressing music. There is a knock on the door. “Come in.”
Spike opens the door, and comes in.
Willow jumps out of bed, and tries to escape past Spike, but he grabs her and tosses her back onto her bed. He slowly walks toward her. “I’ll give you a choice. Now I’m going to kill you. No choice in that. But…I can let you stay dead, or…” He vamps out. “…bring you back. To be like me.”
“I’ll scream!” says Willow.
“Bonus!” Spike moves in to bite her.
Willow screams. Spike clamps his hand over her mouth, and turns up the volume on Willow’s stereo. He tosses her onto the bed and pins her down. His mouth closes on her neck.
Outside in the hallway, no one can hear Willow’s muffled screams over the sound of the music.
Willow lies on her bed, with a dejected Spike sitting on the end of it. “I don’t understand,” he says. “This sort of thing’s never happened to me before.”
“Maybe you were nervous,” says Willow.
“I felt alright when I started. Let’s try again.” Spike jumps on top of Willow, and tries to bite her again. He cries in pain, and quickly pulls away, holding his hand to his head. He tries a third time, with the same result. “Damn it!” He kicks the bedside table. He gets up off the bed and starts pacing around the room.
“Maybe you’re trying to hard,” says Willow. “Doesn’t this happen to every vampire?”
Spike continues to pace. “Not to me it doesn’t!”
“It’s me isn’t it,” says Willow.
“What are you talking about?”
“You came looking for Buffy, then settled! You didn’t want to bite me. I just happened to be around.”
“Piffle!”
“I know I’m not the kind of girl vamps like to sink their teeth into. It’s always like ‘Ooh, you’re like a sister to me.’ or ‘Oh, you’re such a good friend.’”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’d bite you in a heartbeat.” Spike sits back down on the bed, and tells Willow how good she looked last year, in the fuzzy pink number with the lilac underneath. If he could, he would.
Willow starts to feel a little better. “You know, this doesn’t make you any less terrifying.”
Spike sighs. “Don’t patronize me!”
Riley’s team is scanning the dorm room windows with an IR sensor. Most of the people are radiating at normal body temperature, until they come to a room on the second floor. One of the people in it is at room temperature. They pull on their masks and night vision goggles as Riley calls in for a lock down on the building.
Spike sits with his head in his hands. “I’m only 126!”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. Why don’t we wait a half an hour and try again? Or…” Willow grabs a lamp, bashes Spike on the head with it, and runs for the door. The bolt locks before she gets there. She can’t unlock it.
The bolts in the doors are locking all through the dorm. The lights go out as Riley’s team comes running in with their night vision goggles on. They run up the to the second floor, and straight to Buffy and Willow’s door. One of them uses a sledge hammer to break open the door’s lock.
Willow comes flying out of the room at them, thrown by Spike. Graham trains his weapon on her, but Riley calls him off. Spike rushes out of the room, and grabs the rifle barrel. He pulls it away from Graham, and tosses him into the wall.
Spike goes for Graham’s throat, but he suddenly cries in pain. His head is hurting again. Graham struggles with Spike while Riley and Forrest attack him from behind. They drop a bag over Spike’s head. They pull Spike off Graham and manage to pull Spike’s arms around behind his back where they secure them with a plastic tie. Riley tells them to collect the Hostile and all their stuff, and clear out.
Forrest picks up Willow. “Sir, the civilian. Could have turned.”
“Leave her!” orders Riley.
“We can’t neglect quarantine!” says Forrest.
Spike has used the distraction to free his hands. He pulls the bag off his head and attacks the commandos. He grabs a fire extinguisher to use as a weapon. Forrest fires his taser at him but Spike blocks it with the extinguisher’s tank. The tank ruptures, an the corridor fills with fog.
Willow tries to crawl away, and Graham calls out to stop her. Forrest grabs Willow and pulls her back. “She’s contained!”
“Contain this!” Buffy fires the flare gun at Forrest.
The flare bounces around the corridor, dazzling the UCSCS guys wearing their night vision gear. Buffy uses the confusion to help Willow into their room, and then she turns her full attention to the commandos who were attacking her friend.
Spike uses Buffy’s attack on the commandos to make his escape. He runs down the corridor, and jumps out through a window. Riley stays to fight Buffy while Forrest and Graham go after Spike. They can’t catch him.
Buffy knocks Riley up against the wall and pummels him. He manages to push her off, and throws her across the corridor, into a wooden chair. Buffy grabs the chair and bashes him with it.
Riley backs off. With Hostile 17 gone, he realizes there is no more point to sticking around here, and they have already called way too much attention to themselves. He orders his team to abort, and they pull out. Neither he nor Buffy has any idea who they were fighting with.
Dr. Walsh is not pleased with the team’s report. They think that Hostile 17 has found itself a smart aggressive accomplice, which they were totally unable to describe. Forrest and Graham think it was a big, strong guy. Riley is less sure about that. His eyesight was clearing up a bit toward the end of the fight, and he got a bit of a fuzzy look at Buffy. He knows that what he was fighting wasn’t ‘big’ but he doesn’t contradict them.
Riley does have some good news for Dr. Walsh. “The implant works. Hostile 17 can’t harm any living creature, in any way, without intense neurological pain. We’ll bag it.”
Dr. Walsh dismisses them.
Riley spots Buffy walking across campus next day, and he goes to apologise to her for the way he behaved last night. Buffy apologises too, she was rude. But sometimes its nice to just be out by herself at night.
Riley understands that. “Got to be careful though, a lot of strange…people out there.”
“Ooh yeah!” says Buffy.
Riley asks how Willow’s doing. Buffy tells him she’s okay, but that stupid fraternity stunt at their dorm last night didn’t help. Riley pretends to just remember that they live in the dorm that happened in.
Buffy is surprised to learn that Riley knows where she lives. He explains that he learned because he wanted Willow’s help with a project he’s working on.
“Really?” asks Buffy, “Did that work out for you?”
“Don’t know yet,” says Riley.
Buffy asks what it was he wanted to talk to her about at the party, just before she had to go.
Riley doesn’t remember, but he’s sure it was something fascinating and moving. “Did Willow tell you I like cheese?”
“You’re a little peculiar,” says Buffy.
“I can live with that,” says Riley.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | The Initiative’s labs | Staked by Initiative soldiers |