“Freeze! Nobody move!”

One of the dozen or so soldiers who had just entered the room gave the order sharply, his gun drawn and ready, but not really aimed at any particular person, as he quickly scanned the room to assess the situation.

Buffy felt Spike’s tension rising beside her, and knew that although these men were clearly not Riley’s, and his chip was no longer functioning, allowing him to defend himself if necessary – after all he had been through, she was not surprised by his negative reaction to the sight of any armed man in uniform.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, low enough that only he could hear her, as two of the soldiers approached them cautiously from the side, weapons aimed at them, and a third, who carried himself with an air of importance, holstered his own weapon and moved in close to them, apparently to search them for weapons. “They’re not gonna hurt us, Spike…”

“Bloody well right, they’re not,” he muttered in response, his eyes focused on the approaching soldier, his body tensed and ready to react.

“Easy,” Buffy murmured, alarmed. These soldiers were the good guys – at least, if all had gone according to her plan – but the ideas about vampires that abounded in the general public had surely not left these men untouched, and the last thing they needed was to give them any reason to get nervous or trigger happy. “Easy…”

Buffy slowly raised her arms and allowed the soldier to search her for weapons, and Spike reluctantly followed her example, forcing himself as he did so to revert to his human face. He was not about to trust these men – not until they had earned it – but he recognized the wisdom of making it very clear to them that they were all on the same side.

The soldier searching Buffy stared down at the pile of various weapons that had accumulated on the floor as a result of his search. His eyebrows raised in suspicion, he took in the stack that included two stakes, three daggers, and nearly a dozen guns of various sorts and sizes.

“Do you always carry around…” He paused to count again before finishing pointedly, “*eleven* semi-automatic weapons with you?”

Buffy’s smile was a bit cynical, but calm and even as she replied dryly, “Only after eleven armed men have tried to shoot me.”

“Was actually a bit more than that,” Spike pointed out with clear resentment in his tone at the man’s suspicious demeanor.

Buffy shrugged her acknowledgment of the truth of his words. “Ran out of places to keep them,” she quipped. “My waistband’s only a size six.”

She noticed with an optimistic feeling that the soldier, who seemed to be the man in charge at the moment, had to suppress a smile at her cheeky response, in his effort to look stern and commanding, at least until he could determine that this calm, in control, and heavily armed girl and her vampire slave were indeed the victims in this scenario, as he had been told.

The bloodied, badly injured man chained to the wall across the room made that a bit difficult to believe.

“So,” the soldier said calmly, as he moved past Buffy to search Spike as well, with a bit more caution than he had used with her, Buffy noticed. “Mind telling me what happened here?”

Buffy’s eyes were focused on Spike’s face, his expression taut and strained with apprehension as the soldier’s hands moved swiftly and expertly over his body, removing and discarding the few weapons he hand been armed with. She could see that he was clearly fighting not to – well, fight – now that he was free to do so.

For so long he had been subject to the whim of any human who felt like touching him, in any way they chose to do so. Now, the simple ordinary search, which was only a matter of procedure, brought the long dormant instinct screaming to the surface, demanding that he attack the soldier who was manhandling him, make him pay for daring to think that he could put his hands on a master vampire.

Because that was what he was, once again – though he was still getting used to the fact.

“Miss Summers?” the soldier prompted, giving her a questioning glance as he finished his search, completely unaware of the danger he had been in every moment that his hands had touched Spike.

Only when the soldier’s attention turned fully to her, and she saw Spike visibly relax – albeit with an effort -- could Buffy focus enough to pay attention to the question the soldier was trying to ask her.

“I’m sorry – what did you say?” she asked distractedly.

“What happened?” the soldier repeated slowly, a bit impatiently. He paused, glancing back at Riley’s battered, unconscious form, being carefully lowered to the floor by a few of the other soldiers. “What happened to Mr. Finn?” he clarified in a slightly darker tone, his light blue eyes piercing as they met hers appraisingly.

Buffy looked over at the wreckage that her vampire had left of the man who had destroyed each of their lives, separately, and thoroughly – but not completely. She knew that she should feel something – some pang of guilt, some horror at the physical damage that had been done to him – but all she could feel was a sense of fulfillment at the triumph over an enemy every bit as dangerous as any demon she had ever slain.

Spike was watching silently, waiting for her to answer the question, prepared to follow her lead in whatever explanation she chose to give for Riley’s condition. Buffy took a deep breath, looking down at the floor for a moment, before meeting the soldier’s eyes and speaking clearly and boldly, with no trace of guilt or regret.

“My husband kidnapped one of my friends – a human girl. He brought her here and held her captive. Spike and I came here looking for her.”

“I know about that,” the man waved away the beginnings of her story dismissively, much to her surprise. “I’ve heard all about the video feed that was sent to the governor, and what we’ve seen on our way to this room pretty much confirms that the feed was real – not doctored or fixed up in any way. So I’m pretty sure I know most of the story, and as for the rest of it – well, the governor wants to hear it for himself. Straight from you. Tonight.”

Buffy’s eyes widened in surprise at those words, and she opened her mouth to speak.

But before she could, the soldier held up a hand, a stern, troubled frown on his face. “Only trouble is – I need to know what sort of precautions to take in delivering you to him. Seems to me the two of you might be pretty dangerous characters.”

“If you’ve seen the video,” Buffy objected, shaking her head with a frown, “then you should know that he was attacking us. It was self-defense.”

The soldier glanced back at Riley’s still form on the floor, pale from blood loss, covered in bruises and bite marks, the red glaring marks where the chains had cut into his wrists a testament to the not-quite-truth of Buffy’s story.

“That’s not exactly what it looks like.”

Looking the soldier straight in the eye, hoping against hope that she appeared to be telling the truth, Buffy replied without hesitation, “He was attacking me. He was going to kill me, and have me turned into a vampire so he could keep me as his slave. Spike attacked him to defend me. That’s how he got hurt so bad. And it was after that, that we chained him up. To keep him from trying it again when he woke up.”

The soldier stared at her hard for a long moment, obviously struggling with the decision. Buffy was surprised to see in his eyes that he wanted to accept her story. It *could* have happened like that – almost.

It sounded so simple – too simple.

The soldier had seen enough of combat and crime to know that any man would have ceased attacking, not even been capable of attacking, having sustained only a fraction of the wounds that covered Riley’s body now – which told him that the vampire’s attack had continued long after the point of self-defense.

And yet, he knew from the video feed that had been shown to him that what Buffy said about Riley’s threat to turn her was true – as well as what she had said about her vampire’s desire to protect her. He could see the pain behind the brave front the young woman was trying to put up, and felt a deep sense of sympathy for what she must be feeling, after the extent of the betrayal her husband had committed against her.

“Your, um,” he began slowly, figuring out the easiest solution to the dilemma as he went along. “Your slave’s chip malfunctioned – obviously – and you were unable to control his actions. Therefore you’re not responsible for what happened to Mr. Finn. We put the vamp down, and…”

“*No*.”

Buffy’s voice was firm, emphatic, with a note of warning that sent a chill down the man’s spine in spite of his years of military training, making him wonder with a sense of awe at the power he felt emanating from this small girl, who had managed to overwhelm an entire military base’s worth of men almost single-handedly – and was now stating her position on his attempt at helpfulness in no uncertain terms.

“I am *completely* responsible for everything Spike did tonight. *I* told him to do it. It was self-defense, and if you want to charge me with something, go right ahead. I’ll prove it was self-defense in court,” she bluffed, hoping it was convincing. “But you’re not gonna use him as a scapegoat for this. Nothing happened to Riley Finn that I was not responsible for.”

The soldier was silent for a moment, taking that in rather unhappily. He would so much have preferred to have a neat little story to sew up the whole situation, absolving the prominent woman and eliminating the whole messy affair with the simple dusting of the vampire in question.

But the woman would have none of it.

“If you’re worried about security,” Buffy went on, her voice softer, but still with an air of authority about it that surprised the soldier. “I can promise you that the governor would be in no danger from either me or Spike. If he wants us to explain what’s happened, I’ll be glad to, and no harm will come to him, I promise. But I’m not going to let you blame this on him. It’s not his fault.”

“He’s obviously dangerous,” the soldier pointed out quietly, his tone cautious and respectful, but determined. “His chip…”

“Yeah,” Buffy interrupted again with a dark, knowing little laugh. “The chips. That’s another thing the governor needs to hear about right away. Because that’s a situation that really *could* be dangerous – and I’m not just talking about *Spike’s* chip.”

The soldier’s eyes widened as he realized what it was that she was saying. “You mean…”

“Every minute we waste arguing over it is dangerous,” Buffy informed him matter-of-factly. “Bottom line is this. The governor wants to talk to me? Fine. I want to talk to him. There’s a lot of things he needs to know. But Spike goes with me.”

When the soldier frowned, obviously not liking her terms, she went on, “Like I said, we’re not going to cause any trouble. But there won’t be any handcuffs or restraints of any kind – for either of us. And Spike will be with me at all times. I’m not going to have anyone going behind my back, thinking they’re doing the best thing for the so-called ‘greater good’. We go to the governor, tell him our story, and let *him* decide what he thinks. Then, you can do whatever he says.”

She paused, her piercing emerald gaze unfaltering, before concluding firmly, “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Just when and how she had ended up in a position to be the one quoting the terms, Buffy really didn’t know – but the soldier seemed to be going for it.

He nodded slowly. “I believe you,” he said quietly. “I know you’re not going to do anything to hurt the governor.” He looked over his shoulder at the soldiers, who had loaded Riley onto a stretcher and were carrying him out of the room.

“Mr. Finn will go to the hospital, but under heavy guard until we get this whole thing straightened out. We’ll need to round up the men in his employ, see if we can figure out just how far this whole mess has gone.” He was quiet for a moment, before looking up at her with interest in his eyes. “Oh, yes…the video feed showed some evidence – documents – you have against Finn and his organization?” As he spoke, he held out his hand as if to receive them from her.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Buffy shook her head emphatically with an apologetic but firm smile. “Sorry. I’m placing those documents directly into the governor’s hands. No one else’s.”

The soldier considered that, then nodded slowly, understanding why she would feel that way about it. “Well, then,” he said, the change in his tone indicating that the discussion was over for the moment. “We’d better get going. The governor is waiting.”

He stepped back, allowing Buffy and Spike to walk ahead of him toward the door, and though Spike was clearly uncomfortable with that, he complied as Buffy did. This soldier was making quite a few concessions for them already, it seemed, and it did not make sense to press their luck over such a small issue.

Overall, the situation looked better than they could have hoped for. From all accounts, the governor seemed to be a reasonable man who would likely listen to what they had to say, and if anyone had the power to absolve them of any potential guilt regarding what had happened to Riley, without involving actual legal charges against them, it would be him.

With any luck, within a few hours, things would be well on their way to back to normal – much better than “normal”, in fact.

At the door, however, Buffy suddenly stopped, frowning, as something else occurred to her. “Wait,” she began, turning to face the soldier and address him with serious eyes. “There is one more thing I need you to do…”