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]

"Her. The girl. The young one."

If he wasn't making sense it wasn't entirely Jack's fault; he was still quite woozy, after all.

[herotypical]

"The girl..."

Well. It had only been yesterday, after all. And her memory was too fresh. "She did this?"

A new kind of horror entered her voice.

[all7seas]

"Accident," he said, rushed. Buffy sounded...upset. "She didn't mean it!"

She had meant it. He'd seen it as she'd died. She'd meant it.

[herotypical]

"A-an accident?"

She laboured to understand, eyes narrowing in the yellowy, electric lamp light. "What? Bad aim? A misfire? Someone forgot to keep the safety on?"

[all7seas]

"I...can't recall, love."

If she knew him well, she would know he was lying.

"...Rum?" Please?

[herotypical]

Oh, she suspected. Maybe even a year ago, Jack could have duped her with a lie like that. But not now. Not after she'd had such ample opportunity to study his face in happiness, in desperation, in determination, and -- like now -- in pain. Buffy was at least a half more clever and observant than she ever gave herself credit for, and she had learned him.

But she wasn't his inquisitor. It was late and he was hurting and she...well, she didn't really know what she would do with the truth, anyway. Other than to call an absent girl names that even Buffy realized she didn't deserve.

With a disappointed hum, the Slayer reached for the flask. She balanced it against her chest as she unscrewed its top.

"I wasn't lying when I said you could only have a bit..."

[all7seas]

"Fine. Fine fine." Jack rubbed his temple and then glanced across at Buffy. "Not going to break my promise. Just a little bit, eh?"

[herotypical]

"Here," she scooted nearer and lifted the flask to his lips. There was no indignity to it. She'd long ago gotten over nursing Jack Sparrow. Gotten over it even before she'd loved him. Truly, she'd leapt whole-heartedly into one vow -- in sickness and in health -- years ago.

"Small sips," she warned.

[all7seas]

Small sips, as promised -- Jack tried to let the flavor wash away some of that dream. It wouldn't do to dwell on any of it. But of all people he could speak to about it, surely Buffy would be the most important...surely.

He was a little surprised that Adele hadn't told her.

[herotypical]

Between his sips, she stole a few of her own. Nothing brutal. Nothing game-changey. Just something to keep her warm, she told herself. And for the seconds when her face screwed up in disgust, she fancied she could forget that Willow wasn't here.

At not-long last, and when she'd felt he'd had enough, she nudged the flask's lid back into place.

"I should be the one shot for letting you have any of this," she confessed.

[all7seas]

"Shhhhh...no. No."

[herotypical]

"I mean it. Those pills you're on? Not to be mixed with booze. Which means it's time to cut you off."

She spun the lid until it was tightly shut. "I don't want to you make you worse. Not ever."

[all7seas]

"Annie. Meant you should never be shot. Not ever. Not ever never ever."

Yeah -- pills and booze? Not to be mixed.

[herotypical]

"You're a little late on that count. Remember?"

Warren. Nina, too. She'd never even told him about the time Crichton had drawn a gun on her. And then kissed her. And why should she have, of course -- it wasn't as though they'd been dating. Not then. Not yet.

[all7seas]

"Too late, me." Misery pooled in those three words. "And being all heroical's too difficult. Too much."

Too hard. Too painful.

[herotypical]

"Anyone who tried to tell you it was easy? Lying. Lying right down to the bone. Liar, liar. Pants on fire."

Well. That cleared it up well enough, didn't it? Jack had lied, too. But not enough to reveal the truth. But these new words had that sting of betrayal in them. The girl had meant it, then.

And Buffy wondered if Jack couldn't understand a scenario where his perfect little ledger filled with saved souls and karmic dividends didn't pay out.

"...We can't help everyone. We can try. But there's never any money-back guarantee on doing the right thing." Buffy set aside the flask and finally -- finally -- drew him carefully into her arms.

[all7seas]

The pirate rested his head on her chest. He was content to be held like this for as long as she was willing. "Never any guarantees with helpin'."

[herotypical]

"Every new moment's a gamble. Some -- oh, God -- some seem so far gone. Some work out. Some don't want you at all. Some want you for the wrong reasons. Some would rather do it on their own. Some are just...doomed from the get-go."

Ford. Cassie. Faith. Spike. Jonathan. Andrew. Anya. And so many others. How many souls had Buffy sponsored, now? And how many had ended up dead, anyway. How many had she killed? Tried to kill? Had to kill?

Buffy kissed his forehead. "And some change before your eyes and it makes every failure worth it."

[all7seas]

"Would've done it again anyway," he grumbled, nestling as close as he could without jarring the shoulder. "I'd borrow your special vest, though."

[herotypical]

He would've done it again, anyway. And as much as that seized her heart with utter fear and agony for the next time, she had to kiss him again. Worth it.

"Puh-lease," she whispered against an eyebrow. "You'd have to shrink, first. Or it'd have to grow."

Or he'd need one of his own. Christmas was coming and of course she'd had another commission set up with the smithy for that holiday, but perhaps it wasn't too late to switch orders. Get cold feet, so to speak.

"...Still. Good works and heroism aside? I can't believe I gave up my front seat for that...mute harridan."

Even the Chosen One was allowed some vitriol against the individual who'd tried to turn her lover into Swiss Pirate.

[all7seas]

"She.....ended herself. After doing me." The shivering started in his ribcage and seemed to emanate out. Not shaking, exactly -- but it was hard to remain still right now. He couldn't hear her called a harridan. It didn't feel right.

[herotypical]

"You're not to blame for her bad choices or her stupidity."

On a good day, Buffy might have been a mite more sympathetic. But yesterday morning, in an empty Vaskothan house, she had resigned herself to sit and wait for the bomb to drop. Now -- with her Sparrow alive (if ill-used) in her arms -- she felt embarrassed over her own lapse in judgement. Ashamed. And to absolve Jack's shooter of her suicide would have absolved Buffy of her own surrender.

And Buffy couldn't forgive herself, even if Jack could forgive the girl.

[all7seas]

"I don't think it were stupidity, Annie. I think she couldn't. She couldn't anymore, savvy?" It was becoming easier to speak about -- drugs and rum and darkness and being together in this bed loosened Jack's tongue. "Too afraid."


He had absolutely no idea of the parallels Buffy was consciously or not-so-consciously making.

[herotypical]

"I don't care what it sounds like, Jack. I don't have the patience for...for that kind of decision."

An odd thing to say, really, for a woman who'd twice marched to her own death with ultimate willingness in her step. But those two deaths were different from...other moments. A stake at her own throat or talking Jonathan down from the bell-tower. Chloe, given in the First's influence, swinging in Dawn's room. From Dawn's ceiling.

Dawn's blood on the living room floor. A kitchen knife.

"That's not fear, that's..."

Cowardice. But she didn't say the word. Didn't dare invoke it down upon her own head, too.

[all7seas]

"Was fear. That was too much. That draft? Too much."

And she'd blamed him for ensuring her survival. For making promises he couldn't keep. 'S going to be alright, darling. She'd known how very much it wasn't going to be alright.