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]

"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."

[herotypical]

She reached for that coat, now. Shaking it out.

"We'll just have to share the goodies at home, instead."

[all7seas]

"Mmmm? Eh? Goodies?"

He eased into the garment.

[herotypical]

"Candied apples."

Gently, she gathered his mane of hair and eased it out from under the jacket's collar.

[all7seas]

"Mmmmmm. Because you love me."

Eat your heart out, Hector Barbossa -- wherever you were.

[herotypical]

"Because Ikki -- Katara's granddaughter? -- was offering them and I was too polite to say no."

Because I love you, you goof. She carefully turned him about and leaned upwards to kiss his cheek.

[all7seas]

"You, too polite?" Oh what a lovely kiss. "Take me home, woman."

[herotypical]

"The politest."

She followed up her kiss with a pat on that same cheek. "Am I gonna have to fight off any angry healthcare professionals to get you there?"

[all7seas]

"Adele, possibly?"

Though no healthcare professional could hold a candle to McCoy's anger on any given day.

[herotypical]

A moment of silence as Buffy thought about it.

"I could take her." She looped her arm through his good arm. "Come on, then."

[all7seas]

"Supposed to be good for me to be up an' around anyway," Jack explained. "More better."

Though it was intensely uncomfortable at this point.


"She did save my life."

[herotypical]

...Buffy's acknowledgement -- nay, her gratitude -- was grudging at best. She simply didn't like doctors. Especially not nosy ones who had made as poor a first impression as Adele had. It had taken Bones months and months for Buffy to properly warm up to him. He -- and perhaps Maturin -- were the only physicians she deigned to trust.

"Then we'll take the scenic route home," she declared as she herded him out the door. It was an easy promise to make. The scenic route and the short route were one in the same, in a village as picturesque as this.

[all7seas]

There would have to be frequent rests. At one point, Jack would take another pill; there was nothing to chase it with. He leaned heavily on the Slayer and tried to focus on Seven. On home. No more zombies; no more infection; no more victims.

[herotypical]

At one of these rest-points -- on his infamous bridge -- she left him leaning on the rail while she stepped back. Gave him a bit of space. Buffy was beginning to wonder if this had been the best idea.

"In a few days, when the dust settles? The healers will come out of the woodwork. They'll be tripping over themselves wanting to heal you. Busybodies. Y'know. They all are."

Buffy hadn't let anyone but Jack try any of Nala's arts on her own injuries during the draft before this on, but she suspected Jack would not have as many scruples. Even still, she ached for Willow's healing instead. Buffy would have gladly delivered the pirate into her care.

At least there was Bones.

"How much does it hurt?" She asked as she eyed the pill.

[all7seas]

Would Buffy even understand an answer to that kind of question?

"No worse than any other gunshot wound I've ever had. No worries, love."

Jack hunched against the bridge railing; cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck and beneath his arms. Standing upright was becoming a real challenge -- it was so much more comfortable to lean and to slump. He needed to climb back into bed. But he was a pirate: pirates were used to that sort of injury.

[herotypical]

"...What a relief," she said with no relief at all in her tone. Her head turned. She could see Seven from here. It wasn't far. Not really. And maybe she need only do a better job supporting him. A better job being there for him. A better job doing all but carrying him.

But a glimpse of red in her periphery caught her eye. Buffy started to stare at his shoulder. "Your dressings..."

Crap. She dragged a hand over her face before holding it out. Offering it. "Not long, now. I'll get you cleaned up and coagulating once again."

[all7seas]

He reached up to touch a wet shoulder, suddenly circumspect...too much so to sound as miserable as he knew he could feel. "Is it just me, sweetness, or is autumn a particularly bad season for Captain Jack Sparrow in Luceti? A man can be careful. He can be so careful, and he can know just when to run, and then..."

And then a stricken, traumatized teenage girl can turn on him and shoot him. And he would never see it coming.

"Maybe he's just losing his touch, eh?" he added softly.