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

[herotypical]

[ 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. ]

Comments

[all7seas]

"What're you doing in that chair?" Jack faux-grumped, trying to shift over so she could climb into bed beside him. It was a narrow metal cot, like something out of a 1950s hospital, but that wasn't fazing him.

[herotypical]

"Sitting," she answered with her characteristic, wilful unhelpfulness. Buffy did at least lean forward and prop her elbows up on the edge of his cot, but not before dropping the basket gently to the ground at her feet.

"Sitting and visiting. And checking in." She reached for a stray thread on his blanket. "That's what I'm doing in this chair."

[all7seas]

This visit was turning out to be maddeningly unhelpful apart from the pure joy at seeing her again, unscathed. He reached out his unbound hand to pat her cheek. "Checking in.



Glad. 'M glad you're checking in. How're the others, love?"

[herotypical]

"Everyone's a little spooked all around, I think. Spooked and tired. Or maybe just overdosed on candy. Sounds like things weren't so awful on this side of the divide."

Wistful. Buffy had never before found herself so viscously regretting an entire battle.

[all7seas]

Things couldn't have possibly been more awful on this side of the barrier: of that, Jack was certain.

He closed his eyes briefly and tried to think -- ah -- yes: "A cure? Adele told me -- they found a cure? No bomb after all?"

[herotypical]

Buffy nodded.

"In the nick of time. I -- I don't know how it went down. Kinda not looking to chat to too many people about the last week. You know how it is."

All she'd wanted over the journal were distractions. Games. "Are you in much pain?" She tilted her head towards the bandaged bits of him.

[all7seas]

"Numb, really. Lovely pills." He nodded at a mostly-full bottle on the nightstand. "They take away pain even more better than rum does. No worries."

Did he know how it was? Yes, he knew. And he was desperate for better distractions than a cartoon Batman.

"I want to come home, me."

[herotypical]

Numb. Her mouth twitched.

"And I want you home. It's..." She touched her fingertips to the back of his hand. "Did the doc say how long you should be staying here?"

[all7seas]

"Ten days. And...got to wear some version of this -- " he released her to tap the sling -- "for three months. Might be able to shorten that with some magical healing, possibly. Nala could help."

He thought then about the slow-spreading pool of crimson under the dead girl. For some reason, that detail above all the rest of the horrors stood out in Jack's mind.

"Should make a full recovery."

[herotypical]

A deep breath. They were both such complex creatures -- physically. But she was the one who, despite the bruises and the fractures, only had to sleep off a week of being bashed about. Good as new, she was. On the outside. But he had to wait three months. And even then? There would be scar tissue.

But Nala could help. Willow, too, could have helped. A dozen other magical healers in town could have done the same or more but Buffy focused on the missing red-head.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there. I..." Buffy didn't know what she could have done. What difference she could have made. Guns..."I guess I thought you'd already made it that far. The tunnels were right there. The end in sight."

[all7seas]

"Well. Can't be helped now, love. Annie."

If anything should happen...

"Been shot before, me. This isn't near as bad as those other times."

This time he had a clean hospital and modern medicine and those wonder-painkillers. Magical healers.

"Bet I'll recover in half the time! By the Christmas ball, I'll be dancing you around the sparkly tree once again."

It was ambitious, really. Slowly he shifted over and rose from the bed. His physicians had insisted on as much movement as was comfortable, and Jack was hardly the sitting type.

That had been John.

He thought of the other man and his cane and his injuries, imagined or no. The pirate did not want to turn out like that, thinking himself into an infirmity. No. No, never.

[herotypical]

She sat back. Watched him. Felt for him. And felt that sinking feeling of knowing just how much worse an already horrific battle could have been.

"A slow dance, maybe. Nothing too lively."

[all7seas]

"Oi! I can still be lively, me! Captain Jack Sparrow! He's lively!"

Right now he had to be content with walking the halls of the clinic.

"Need to get out soon anyhow -- visit the Joanna."

[herotypical]

"If you tell me when...?" A shrug. She would take him. God, she would take him anywhere. If it hurt this much to lose someone she was guaranteed to see once more? Then how could she entertain the thought of losing him without being as present as possible in the meantime?

Because I'm the Slayer. Because I can't afford this happiness. Because he probably would have left the field entirely if I hadn't stayed.

"But until then, I could check on her. For you. If you wanted. I haven't -- I mean, maybe I should have. This morning. Only I slept in and..."

[all7seas]

"So much work to do," he muttered, pressing a palm against the wall. "James knows. Got to haul her out and get her ready for the winter. I've neglected her, poor lass."

The pirate was sore, in spite of the numbing pills. It was so much easier to stay in bed. That made it so much more imperative to walk as much as he could.

"And shut it. You needed sleep. You're tired from the battle." He side-eyed her, wondering if her power was back; he hadn't even asked, yet.

[herotypical]

Instead of shutting it, exactly, she fished for that basket she'd brought and placed it on the newly vacant cot.

"I'm more than just tired. I'm...roadkill. This must be what roadkill feels like. But you're the one who's been shot."

[all7seas]

"You want a hug or some sort of snugglesome gesture?"

Because God, did he want one.

[herotypical]

"Or some sort," she acknowledged as she kicked back her lonely little visitor chair and regained her feet. Pacing her way around the cot wasn't the tough part, but reaching for his unbound arm? Yes. Harder than she had anticipated.

Because she understood better than ever, now, just how pricey that happiness she couldn't afford was. Or so she thought.

[all7seas]

Jack closed his eyes and folded around her, resting his chin on the crown of her golden hair. This. Best sort of healing.

"What can a man do to help his woman feel less like something killed in a road?" he asked quietly. "To help her heal up?"

[herotypical]

She slotted herself against his uninjured side -- terrified of treating him too roughly. "Simple. Play a game with me. If you could be anywhere but here..."

Buffy waited. Breath held.

[all7seas]

"Anywhere?" A pause. "What's the conditions?"

[herotypical]

"It's gotta be a choice based on pretty much pure indulgence. All fantasy and no responsibility. You lose the game at the first sign of nostalgia, heartache, or seriousness."

[all7seas]

"What if I told you that I've learned to like best and make do with where I'm at, hmm? Over the past few years?"

It's a pirate's life for me, Gibbs; I've no say in it....

[herotypical]

"...Then I'd have to tell you that's pretty much against the rules. And you have thirty seconds to give me a much better answer."

In reality, Jack's answer was heartwarming. She nuzzled closer -- glad to hear it. But it didn't satisfy the game's parameters. It didn't fit the rules she and Willow had once agreed upon.

[all7seas]

"Cancun."