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

[herotypical]

"How...sweet of you to say."

Wait. Was she supposed to compliment him in turn? Buffy wasn't very good at this. Spoken flattery never sounded sincere enough, even when she meant it. She bestowed her favour with actions and glances, not words.

Still! She tried: "A-and your slight-of-hand is way more awe-inspiring. Than Tom's. Ethan's. Whatever."

[all7seas]

She was right. "Course it is!" Jack made a mental note to find a coin in her ear later. Or perhaps something prettier....

[herotypical]

"But -- hey! Look!"

Because a familiar face was on-screen. Plot was afoot. Jim was back.

[all7seas]

"Mmmmmm. I'm smellin' a rat, me."

Jack wrapped his good arm firmly around Buffy again. If there was a grand conclusion to this film, he wanted to watch it close to her. And at least no one else seemed to be about to vomit.

[herotypical]

He was still sticky. Caramel and honey. She didn't mind so much, though. Not now. Even the Willowless ache in her organs and bones lessened in the face of someone else's very fictional story. And when Claire took Ethan's hand, she wasn't wrapped up in her own disastrous life. She was wrapped up in theirs. No -- his. She willed herself to believe that even in the world of Hollywood Make-Believe, there was worse pain than knowing a dear friend had gone safely home.

She didn't mean to, but she mimicked the on-screen affection. She lifted the back of his hand and kissed his knuckled. Scenes changed. And...

"...Ugh. Train scenes."

[all7seas]

Fast trains. Going through tunnels. She was kissing his hand. And then, after harrowing laptop and malfunctioning modem intrigue:

"Oh. She's....she's betrayed him..."

He hadn't seen THAT coming. It was telling.

[herotypical]

But deep down -- somewhere in the truly conflicted parts of her soul -- Buffy wondered whether it would have been more surprising for the woman to have betrayed her husband. A long-time love.

Ah. The expected and anticipated and thrill-packed train roof scene. She'd seen it a dozen times before -- with Joyce, with Dawn, with Xander, with Willow. Willow always shut her eyes.

Buffy never could. So instead she moved from kissing his hand to nibbling anxiously on the edge of Jack's thumb.

"Surprising difficult to do, that. Jump and grab hold of a helicopter," she muttered.

[all7seas]

She knew he was alive!? All that time? But then there was leaping off of trains and helicopters crashing into trains and he buried the lower half of his face into her hair. Still watching. Would he survive this? She would, of course. Would he?


He would. If Ethan Hunt could live through that, then Jack could...

"Cinema of the Caribbean?!"

And then the music played. Bum bum BUM BUM bum bum BUM BUM bum bum BUM BUM.

"He goes to the Caribbean?!"

[herotypical]

"He goes everywhere. Such is the life of a spy. I guess."

Now and again, she turned her head -- temporarily abandoning the gnaw-work on his thumb -- to not so much kiss his forehead but to simply press her lips against his skin. Almost kisses. Small blessings, perhaps. Gratitude crumbs.

"But the second one's more...Australia-based."

[all7seas]

"Makes a man want to be a spy, that."

[herotypical]

"What? All that mayhem and betrayal and violence and near-dying? Oh. Yes. Quite the incentive package, that."

[all7seas]

Jack quieted for a moment, trying to sort out how any of that was different from his usual life.

[herotypical]

That, of course, was the point.

"...Anyway. Spies work for governments and I can't really see that as your bag, hun."

[all7seas]

"Mmmmm. Some king or other wanted me to work for him, once. Said no."

[herotypical]

"And my government wanted the same." A beat. "I should've said no sooner."

[all7seas]

"Well. You know, now."

And here they were, both serving an organization of sorts with little choice in the matter.

[herotypical]

"Mmhm. Now."

She downed the rest of her coffee in one anxious swallow. "I don't know about kings and corporations, but the American government? Can't really be trusted to deal with demons. The head of the Initiative didn't even believe I existed."

[all7seas]

The pirate knew nothing of the American government. He stretched and resettled on the couch beside her.

"Sounds safer that way -- for a slayer not to be believed in."

[herotypical]

"...Probably. I suppose that was the point."

With a sigh, she picked an unpopped kernel off his shirt. "Not that...I mean, they never tried...I was treated much better than the demons, I can assure you."

[all7seas]

"Good. Because you? Deserve to be treated well. Always. Always always."

[herotypical]

"Believe it or not? So do some of the demons."

[all7seas]

"Erm..............what?"

Because .... demons.

[herotypical]

"Demons. They're not all...demonic."

Bad choice in words. Buffy dropped her chin against Jack's shoulder. "Werewolves, for example. And others are harmless. Friendly, even."

[all7seas]

"'S not quite what we're taught about 'em where I'm from," he explained. "That Oz fellow, though -- he weren't so bad. Even if I did have to shoot him."

1/2

[herotypical]

Oh! A smile.

"Oz's a mostly good egg." She knew she ought to hold a grudge for what had happened with Veruca, but Willow had forgiven him. So too could Buffy. And..."Always let us borrow his van when we needed wheels. And he was so good for..."