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]

"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."

[herotypical]

"Mexico!" Not surprised, no. But self-proud at matching the place to the country. "Sounds about right. I haven't been, but it's hard not to know people who have. California and Mexico share a border, you know."

Somehow, clinging to geographical facts was just about the safest and most acceptable coping mechanism. Back-home knowledge was a comfort. None of this awkward Luceti-and-its-surroundings junk.

[all7seas]

"So I might meet you there, then? Without much trouble?"

[herotypical]

"Tijuana, maybe. Something tells me you'd like Tijuana."

Buffy pulled back. Bolstered, perhaps, by simple contact and kind words. But she had to be responsible, now. She had to tell him. He deserved to know as much as anyone else. Only...she wanted to avoid the pity. Avoid his predictable attempt to look after her when he was all cracked and broken himself.

[all7seas]

"What?"

Cracked and broken maybe, but mostly only physically -- he was doing his utmost not to think too hard about what had gone on in that draft, especially when he was around Buffy Summers. She was light, and drove the dark things out of his mind.

"What is it, love?"

[herotypical]

"Willow. She..."

Buffy fell back to the bedside and picked at the gingham cloth covering her basket of goodies. Little Red, coming to visit her ailing Captain Woodsman. Just like in the story she'd spun for Ikki -- only darker and less pleasant by far. "She's gone again. Must've happened while we were away."

[all7seas]

"Oh, love. Annie."

Every time Willow left, Jack knew that a certain particular little blade twisted deep in Buffy Summers's heart. It made his own ache in that strange sympathy that he sometimes could access, and more often with her than anyone else. Elizabeth Swann could awaken it, too -- that time, on the Pearl, with her dead father floating by....

"Oh my love. 'M sorry."

He sat beside her.

[herotypical]

Her bones felt heavy. The cloth twisted and frayed under her fingers, revealing flashes of caramel and candy below.

"It's not the worst. I know what she's going back to. Willow has a lot of good things ahead of her."

...But.

[all7seas]

"Mmmmmm?" He tried to catch her fingers in his own, to still them. Steady them. Or just give them something more familiar to twist.

[herotypical]

"Gonna miss her. That's all." Her ring bumped against on of his with a solid, familiar click. She'd wanted to make sense of the draft's madness with her best friend. Talk through what she'd seen. What she'd done. "It's selfish. 'Cause back home she's gonna fall in love and she's gonna pull off the spell that shares out the Slayer powers. She didn't have much peace, here."

[all7seas]

"Me too. Missing her, I mean."

Not going home to fall in love and share Slayer powers. Not that.

Not having no peace here. Jack had so much peace here, comparatively.

He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles.

"Going to miss her lots."

[herotypical]

"She liked you." Sad laughter. "I can always count on Willow and Dawn to be the ones who'll like you."

There were others who would approve, but they either they hadn't been around town or else Buffy didn't require their opinion as much as she did those two.

[all7seas]

So now it hit Jack Sparrow: Jilly, McCoy, and Buffy were in Seven alone. Willow, Spike, and Lizzie were all gone. And himself. All gone.

"Come on -- comin' home with you, now."

[herotypical]

"What?"

She tore her hands away to brandish a finger. One imperious finger. "Oh, nah. No way. You're supposed to stay put. At least leave it twenty-four hours before you make your escape."

[all7seas]

He turned to rifle through the drawer, rattling several bottles of medication on the way. These he began stuffing into a bag.

"Nah -- escape time is now. Perfect time for it, really."

[herotypical]

A long long long pause. Then?

A nod. "I'll help."

After all, they had a doctor at the house. A better one, she thought, than any other in the enclosure. One she'd sooner trust the pirate's care to.

[all7seas]

There. Six little yellow white-capped rattling bottles of painlessness, all told -- tucked away. He'd need Buffy's help to drape his coat over his shoulders. Otherwise he could get along quite well for himself as he'd done after being shot in the past. Small kindnesses wouldn't go amiss, but Jack Sparrow was a lot tougher than he looked, and had a robust constitution.

"Ta, Annielove."