CHAPTER NINE: JADE
She stayed with Stephen and Holtz for nearly a week before the wound in her stomach had completely healed, something that Stephen was highly amazed at. He didn't understand the differences between himself and this girl and had often been caught staring at her. The sudden rush of blood to his cheeks had startled him at first, but under Buffy's scrutinising gaze, he had become used to being flushed around her.
Buffy had to admit that staying inside the hut was far better than the land that had been her bed for the last few centuries. She had never been bothered to set up in one particular area, and the only time she had tried, her efforts had been completely destroyed by a rather large, rather angry demon.
When she was completely healed, she was hesitant to leave. The complete isolation had very nearly driven her mad, and she knew without a doubt that she didn't want to walk away from the only human contact that she had.
On the sixth day of her stay, she had resigned herself to the fact that she could no longer impose on the Holtz's generosity and was prepared to leave.
Stephen had looked so completely distraught at the thought of no longer having someone else to talk to that Holtz had offered her a permanent standing in the small hut. It wasn't much, but it was all he had to offer. With only a slight amount of hesitation, she had accepted.
Stephen had grinned wildly, an expression that he wasn't entirely familiar with, but had gone with it when he saw Buffy smile back at him.
It was late afternoon when Stephen went to retrieve more water, insisting that Buffy stay at the hut with Holtz.
"Do you ever regret it?" Holtz asked, breaking the silence that hung between them.
She looked over at him, a peaceful look on her face. She hadn't felt much peace since she had been thrown in Quortoth, but she was slowly becoming reaccustomed to the feeling.
"Regret what?"
"Coming here? Saving your sister?" he clarified.
Buffy thought about her answer carefully. She had often wondered what would have happened if she had have let her sister jump off the tower, and the thought of it made her sick to the stomach, even after all these years.
"I would rather spend a thousand years here than let me my sister spend even an hour in this place," she said.
He was taken aback by the answer. He could hear the honesty in the Slayer's voice, could tell that the girl was indeed telling the truth. She knew how to love with her whole heart, even after all these years.
"And you?" Buffy asked.
Holtz looked at her, a little startled.
"Do I regret coming here?"
Buffy nodded.
"I regret that Stephen won't get to see the world. That all he'll ever know is fighting demons and monsters. He'll never get to see the few things that made the world a slightly acceptable place," Holtz said.
Buffy nodded, understanding that. She couldn't imagine growing up in this hell dimension. She had memories, dim memories, of what the world was meant to be like. But to have never seen the blue of the sky or the green of the grass, or the hazel of her sisters eyes…that was torture.
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The heat was sweltering, and in the leather ensemble that had been her uniform for so many centuries was far too constricting. She couldn't explain how her clothes and weapons were still in tact, though she had had to retire Mr Pointy and had begun fashioning her own stakes so as not to completely ruin Kendra's favoured stake.
Her crossbow had spots of rust on it, but was otherwise still in good working order. After so many years of training with Giles and from having to survive purely on herself for centuries, crafting bolts for the crossbow came as almost a second nature to her.
The dress that she had transformed into a backpack hadn't been worn since the first day in the cave. It had been unwrapped so many times so that Buffy could read the words in her Watcher's Journal, but other than that, the dress was still completely wearable.
She unwrapped the dress, placing the book and shoes on the floor carefully. She wriggled out of her leather pants and stripped herself of the black cotton tee. She ran some water over her front and back, washing the sweat from her body before slipping the once-white dress on.
She heard someone falter behind her and she turned, surprised to see a wide-eyed Stephen standing there, his jaw dropped almost comically.
He stuttered for a moment, the colour rushing to his cheeks before he ran from the room, trying to understand what had just happened. He had walked into the room when his father was changing but never before had he considered the human body to be…exquisite.
The reactions of his body were scaring him, the flush on his face and the sudden rushing of blood to another portion of his body was making him worried. He had never experienced anything like this before, and it was making him uncomfortable.
He ran out the front door only to very nearly collide with his father. Holtz put his hands on his son's shoulders to steady the boy, automatically becoming worried.
"What's wrong Stephen?"
His face went a brighter shade of red as he thought back to what he had just walked in on. Holtz smiled gently and led his son to the two old wooden chairs on the home-made porch. Stephen sat down, wiggling nervously, beginning to become worried about the state he was in.
"What happened?"
Stephen looked down, suddenly feeling extremely embarrassed even though he wasn't really aware of what had happened.
"I uh…Buffy, she…she was…she was changing," Stephen managed to get out.
"You walked in when she was naked?" Holtz asked gently. His son was so very innocent, so ignorant about these things. He had never felt the need to explain love and sex to Stephen, he had thought it cruel to even try to explain something that his son may never experience.
"Dad, I don't understand what's happening to me. I mean…whenever I see her…it's like…my heart starts beating faster and…my…" he gestured to his crotch and Holtz managed to hold in a slight chuckle. "It's not funny. I…I think I'm sick."
Holtz shook his head slightly and gave his son's hand a fatherly squeeze.
"You're not sick Stephen. You're…you're reacting in a perfectly normal way for a young man who's attracted to a beautiful woman."
Stephen regarded his father with curiousity.
"Attracted?"
Holtz took a deep breath and held back a smile as he began to explain to his son the world of love and sex and relationships, trying his best to explain the reactions that Stephen was having.
An hour later, Stephen was still sitting wide-eyed and anxious. His father had just spoken of a completely new world of emotions that he had never known existed. He knew of love of course, for he loved his father dearly. But attraction and laughter and freedom and sexuality seemed to be so new.
He heard Buffy come out the door, deliberately loud to give the Holtz men time to regroup after their discussion. She would have walked out earlier but she had heard how curious Stephen had been, firing questions to his father in no particular order. It had seemed so private, so personal that she hadn't even listened to the entire conversation.
When Stephen saw her, his cheeks which had finally returned to their tanned brown, flamed up to a brighter red. He averted his gaze but Buffy just smiled and sat in third seat beside Holtz.
Her white dress came to mid thigh, longer than what she had worn in high school, but far more revealing than she was used to here in Quortoth. While she had been living off the land, she would have taken a dip in the ponds to cool herself off rather than don the dress, but it just seemed right to put the dress on.
She sat elegantly and couldn't help but notice the way that Stephen ran his eyes over her body appreciatively. She also couldn't help but feel slightly like some sort of science experiment. She knew that if they had been in LA, he wouldn't have given her a second thought. But here in Quortoth, where she was the first and only girl in the dimension, she knew he had the right to be curious.
She stifled a smile at the thought of what Stephen would have done if she hadn't been female. His reaction to seeing another human had been rather interesting and if she had been a male, she wondered if the fascination would still be there.
Holtz saw the smile on Buffy's face and thought it was for completely different reasons. He couldn't help but wonder what the girl who had entered their lives really was. She hadn't really explained how she had saved her sister or why she had needed to. She had never explained her fighting skills, except for the survival instinct that was very obviously ingrained in all Quortoth dwellers.
Then again, Holtz couldn't really judge her for not opening up to them with the truth about why she was in Quortoth. He hadn't explained Angelus and his needed for vengeance, for justice. Although, he had a feeling if he told the young woman his son was so interested in, she would probably understand.
Holtz smiled again and thought, not for the first time, that things would be interesting from now on.
