herotypical | voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

[ after a week of agonizing combat, buffy summers returns home with only exhaustion on her mind. despite all the excitement and crisis, there's little left to do other than collapse onto her bed and fall into a sleep fit for a weary, worn-out soul. morning sees her feeling no less -- shudder -- zombieish. the horror of the last week is bone-and-marrow deep and has yet to fully make itself known in her system. the slayer is running on auxillery humanity, stringing herself along from second to second until she can find a friendly face. find willow and...

and all she finds is an empty room. an empty closet. empty drawers. her best friend is gone. deported while she wasn't even looking. come the afternoon, after she's gotten the first onslaught of emotions out of her system, buffy sits alone on the empty bed. she addresses her journal: ]

Willow and I have this game we like to play. Willow Rosenberg. She was in town...but now she's not. [ a pause allows buffy to catch her breath. to stay strong. ] We call it 'Anywhere But Here' -- self-explanatory, really. Pick a fantasty-elsewhere to be and a fantasy-someone to share it with. I'm not talking about the obvious ones: home or family or anything even remotely whiffing of responsibility. I'm talking about fun. I'm talking about pure escapism. I'm talking Daniel Craig on the beach or Amy Yip at the waterpark.

I'll go first. Show you how it's done. [ but which escape route from reality should she take? ] The '88 Winter Olympics. The Saddledome. Calgary, of all places. Brian Boitano is taking the time to personally skate me through his gold medal routine. Perhaps there's hot chocolate involved. I, being made entirely of my own imagination, copy each move perfectly.

Got it? Good. Because now it's your turn.

[ when her broken little tribute to an absent friend is finished, she'll be searching out her injured pirate (wherever he may be convalescing) and it's off to good spirits, where she can be found working a shift behind the bar. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Reacquainted?

I'd been dying for a shower that entire bloody draft.

Oh--

[ crap. she doesn't want to talk about the draft. she'd hoped he'd merely been referencing something from his home. ] Well. Hygiene. It's important. When it comes to...

Disease.

A topic better not discussed in such polite conversation as this, I think.

But yes. Longest shower I think I've taken in my life.

Hope you live alone, or else you probably ticked someone off in using up all the water.

Thankfully, my housemate is an understanding sort. I hope you had similar luck.

There was a bit of grumbling. But -- mostly? I think they were just glad to have us back. There were bigger concerns at the homestead.

I am glad for that. Though I hope the bigger concerns have been resolved satisfactorily.

Someone went home. I'm not sure they can get any more resolved than that.

Ah, I see.

Presumably it is better to not be here?

It depends, I think. On the person. And on the elsewhere. And who they leave behind.

I suppose that makes sense. It would not be the same for everyone.

There are those who are dead, in their homes. And those who're from worlds worse than this. [ buffy thought she was one of those people, until this last draft. ]

And then there are those of us who have simply been here too long not to mourn the absent.

Understood.

I've work waiting for me. But it would be foolish to assume many would be in my same situation.

I know people who like to think of here as a...well -- not a second chance, really. But a parallel one. A timeline-y vacation.

It's a nice thought.

[ so...she likely doesn't agree. ]

I suppose it is a better reference frame than feeling it is something simply to be endured.

[He sure doesn't agree either.]

Working just to endure ends up being too exhausting. Sometimes.

It depends upon how much practice one has had at it, I think.

What angle do you approach it from?

I--

[ time passes. finally: ] I thought I knew. But now I think I don't know anything at all. I've been here so long.

Unfortunately I can offer nothing from the perspective of relatively fresh meat.

Do you still desire escape?

I desire...something different. Stability, maybe. Or a normal life. [ or a wholly abnormal one, instead. but nothing in the middle. the middle ground is too painful. ]

Still trying to figure out if 'escape' is the answer that provides those things.

You may have to define normal. Everyone seems to have a different view on what it actually is.

...I can tell you what normal isn't. That might be easiest.

All right.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that feeling helpless should never be a normality.

[Written]

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