CHAPTER THIRTEEN: FUCHSIA

There were tears on the morning that would have otherwise been a happy occasion.  Stephen was grief-stricken.  For someone who had been killing demons for nearly fifteen years, he was certainly ignorant when it came to death.  Holtz's death hit him incredibly hard and for nearly two days straight, all he could do was sob in Buffy's arms.

She would stroke his back and his hair gently, letting him get out all of his sadness and his frustrations.  She would kiss him gently and allow him to cling to her.  She relayed Holtz's message to her new husband, tears in her eyes and her heart in her throat.

They cried together and worked as a team to bury Holtz just beside their small hut, a marker placed above the gravesite.  The hut wasn't the same without his quiet presence there any longer. 

Buffy waited until the third day before she told Stephen of what Whistler had said.

"Go back?  To L.A?" he asked.

She nodded, her heart in her throat.  There was nothing more that she wanted in this world than to be able to go back to her home and see her friends and her sister once more.

Stephen was hesitant for a moment, but finally his eyes hardened and Buffy's heart sank.  He didn't want to go back.

"We'll go," he said, malice in his voice.  The tone scared her.  She hadn't heard him speak like that for months now, and she was immediately on guard.

"Stephen?" she whispered.

He smiled at her and pulled her in for a gentle kiss.

"I can kill the creature who murdered my father's family.  Make him pay for what he did," Stephen said, his voice low and dangerous.

Buffy took Stephen's hands in her own.

"Your dad told me about Angelus," Buffy said.  It wasn't entirely a lie.  Holtz had spoken about Angelus.  Somehow, she was even more nervous about bringing Angel up with Stephen than she had been bringing it up with Holtz.

"He's a murderer.  God gave me to dad so I could be free of him," Stephen said quietly.

Buffy kissed her husbands hands and gently took his face so he could look at her.

"Do you trust me?" she whispered.

He looked surprised at her question.

"With my life."

She smiled and kissed him again.

"Then I have to tell you something and I need you to believe me," she said quietly.

"Of course," he replied.

She breathed in deeply and tried to think about her worse before launching into a possibly painful topic.

She explained the conversation she had had with Holtz the morning he had passed away.  She explained how Holtz had requested that they not kill Angel so that Holtz's revenge could be more permanent.  Then she launched into what her friends had always labelled the ' Buffy and Angel' saga.

He had made to let go of her hands when she had told him about falling in love with Angel, but she refused to let his hands go.  He had struggled for a moment but had given in and continued to listen to her.  He had tried interrupting several times but each time, he had found himself being silenced with a gentle finger to the lips.

There were tears on his face by the time she had finished her explanations and eventually Stephen nodded.

"I don't agree, but I will honour his wishes," he whispered.

Buffy smiled and kissed him gently, leading him back inside the hut to their room.  They only had four more days until they could do the ritual, and for those days, they spoke and made love, both of them wishing that they could remain in Quortoth in their own private world, while at the same time wanting to be away from the hell dimension.

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On the sixth day, they came across trouble at their usual water hole.  Most of the demons had learnt to stay away from the hole in the last two years, but there were always new demons to the area that didn't realise that they would be in a world of trouble for going near the Holtz's water supply.

It had been near mid-day, twenty minutes after the newly weds had made themselves get out of bed.  Buffy still hadn't told Stephen of the pregnancy, but she didn't wish to say anything in case Whistler had been wrong, or in case anything went wrong when they went through the portal.  She sincerely hoped that there wouldn't be any problems, but until she could be sure, he kept the news to herself.

There hadn't been a sound in the air when they had made their trip to the hole, going for sentimental reasons as well as a practicality.  They hadn't quiet been out of water, there would have been enough to tide them over until the portal opened, but they both wished to go one last time.

They had taken their weapons, though in the last two years there had only been six fights over the water.  They hadn't expected there to be any trouble, but that was usually when trouble happened.

Buffy had shouldered her crossbow, Stephen had a crude sword in his free hand, and the couple made their way to the water hole hand-in-hand.  They had gathered water in the nearly worn-out bucket that Holtz had fashioned in the first year.  It was still in surprisingly good condition, especially seeing as Stephen had often brandished it as a weapon when he had been hard-pressed in fights.

They were about to head back when they heard a crackling in the air.  Buffy had taught Stephen how to sense the air changing, and with his already advanced hearing that seemed to be a trait he had picked up from his biological parents, he was a natural at telling when things were about to become uncomfortable.  Buffy put the bucket of water to one side and turned, her face suddenly going white.

The creature that stood before them was as tall as it was wide.  It towered above Buffy, though with her diminutive height, that wasn't a hard feat.  The creature stood at nearly six feet and was holding a weapon that looked to be incredibly advanced.

Most of the demons and creatures that Buffy had fought in the last four centuries had only been holding their natural weapons; fists, fangs, skewers, tails, horns and the like.  This creature was holding something that resembled an automatic weapon. 

Buffy wasn't half-wrong in her guess of it being automatic when the creature fired a round of shots in quick succession.

Both Buffy and Stephen ducked and dodged quickly, Buffy having the advantage of speed and size over her husband.  She tackled him to the ground, covering his body with hers.  She couldn't die here, but her husband certainly could.

They simultaneously rolled and jumped to their feet, looking for all the world as though they had been fighting side-by-side for the last fifty years, even though it hadn't even been two.  They fought well together, each of them knowing and understanding the others strengths and weaknesses. 

Stephen surged forward, his sword at the ready, aiming at where the creatures heart should have been, but the creature looked as tough the blow to its chest had done nothing at all.  Buffy's eyes widened in panic and she immediately rushed forward in a diversionary tactic, trying to keep the creatures eyes aimed at her, rather than on Stephen.

She grabbed the creature by its tail, holding it tightly even as it tried to shake her off.  She grabbed her hand-made dagger from the inside of her jacket where Mr Pointy usually lived and drove the metal into the top of the creatures tail.  It screeched loudly and tried once more to shake her off.

She clung on tightly and launched herself into the air, suddenly finding herself on the creatures back, holding onto its scales as a grip.  She thrust her dagger into its back and winced when it screeched once more.  The creature doubled over when she thrust the dagger once more.  Stephen saw his chance for a facial attack while it was so close to the ground and jumped at the opportunity. 

His sword thrust into the creatures left eye and Stephen quickly pulled his sword out to do the same to the left eye.  The creature stumbled blindly, only just missing Stephen as he threw himself into a forward roll to avoid being crushed. 

"Stephen!" Buffy yelled.

Stephen turned and knew automatically what Buffy wanted of him.  He threw his sword up to her, his wife catching it deftly and slitting the creatures throat while it clutched at its eyes in agony.  The creature fell to the ground, bleeding profusely.  It rolled onto its back and discarded its weapon on the side.  After several more sword thrusts from Buffy, the creature stilled.

Stephen grinned at her and she handed him his sword.

"Nice work on the eyes," she complimented.

"And you with the back-stabbing," he replied.

She grinned and stepped away from the dead creature.  She moved to its weapon and picked it up cautiously, almost expecting it to explode the second she touched it.

It seemed to be perfectly safe and she shifted it in her hands.  It was extremely light and in the shape of a gun with three barrels.  It had an armband around it and an easy trigger-mechanism.

"What is it?" Stephen asked curiously, peering over her shoulder.

"It looks like a gun," she replied.

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he took it from her.

"A gun?"

He aimed it at her and she quickly brought his arm down. 

"You trying to kill me?  This thing's dangerous.  It looks like it could do some serious damage," she explained.

Stephen grinned at her and she smiled back. 

"Guess that makes it my new toy," he said.

She laughed and shook her head.  "Bys and their toys.  Come on, we should get back before it gets too dark."

He grinned again and helped her carry the water back to their hut.

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Inside, he regarded the new weapon curiously.  He turned it every-which-way in his hands, careful to not point the barrels at himself or at Buffy.

Buffy sat beside him and looked at it curiously.

"That woulda been cool on patrol.  You could probably shoot stakes from the barrels," she said.

He looked at her with eyebrows raised and she just rolled her eyes in return.  She stood up and retrieved her favoured stake from underneath the bed where she kept the stake and Giles' journal and her shoes.  She threw Stephen the stake from behind, her husband catching it without a warning and without even looking.

He loaded it into the weapon and stood up, taking aim.

"Hey, take it outside.  You'll break something," Buffy cautioned.

Stephen just rolled his eyes, but complied with her wishes, Buffy following him, wanting to see the type of damage the weapon could do with a stake in its barrel.

Stephen aimed carefully at the tree stump that lay thirty feet away from the hut.  It was a little hard to see in the coming darkness, but he had learned to fight in the dark, so shotting a target shouldn't have been too much trouble.

He shot and watched in amazement as the stake not only hit its target but managed to obliterate the stump into smaller pieces.  Buffy's eyes widened and they just looked at each other before racing to what had been the tree stump and looking at it.

"That things got some serious force behind it," Buffy commented, picking up her stake among the other bits of wood.

"S' fun too," he added.

Buffy grinned and pocketed the stake.

"You wanna shoot more stuff, then you're gonna hafta make your own stakes.  We've kinda got the wood for it now as well," she said with a smile.

They picked up the shards of wood, taking the bigger pieces back to the hut and grabbing the carving tools that Holtz had made the house from and methodically whittled several stakes.

"I can't wait to try this on Angelus," Stephen said with a grin.

Buffy smiled at him cautiously.  He had said he wouldn't kill Angelus, but that he would attack and make his identity known to his biological father.  Buffy had agreed to it, and had been willing to make herself known to her ex-lover as well.  She wasn't looking forward to the confrontation, but something told her that it wasn't going to end the way that anyone imagined it would.